Reimagining Sound: A Response to The Art of Noise
Reading Luigi Russolo’s The Art of Noise made me rethink my relationship with sound. He argues that industrial noise: engines, machinery, the hum of the city, should be embraced as part of music. At first, this idea felt strange. I’ve always thought of noise as something to block out, usually with my music of choice, not something to appreciate. But the more I read, the more it made sense. The modern world is loud, unpredictable, and chaotic, why shouldn’t music reflect that?
At the same time, I’m not sure I fully buy into the idea that all noise is music. A sirens outside my window at 5 AM doesn’t feel like art, it just feels annoying. But maybe that’s the point. Russolo challenges us to hear the world differently, to notice rhythm in the random, to find beauty in what we usually ignore.
Also, I explored UbuWeb’s sound archive and landed on Williams Mix by John Cage. This piece is built from spliced-together recordings of various everyday noises—city sounds, static, machinery, human voices—all arranged through chance operations. It’s disorienting, unpredictable, and kind of overwhelming. It felt less like music in the traditional sense and more like a raw, unfiltered sound of modern life.
Before this, I never thought of the noise around us as art. Now, I’m paying more attention. I’m not sure I’ll ever love the screech of brakes or the drone of an air conditioner, but I might listen to them differently. And maybe that’s enough.