Beyond Unwanted Sound

Noise, Affect and Aesthetic Moralism

Marie Thompson

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781501313325
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music History & Criticism

Noise is so often a 'stench in the ear' – an unpleasant disturbance or an unwelcome distraction. But there is much more to noise than what greets the ear as unwanted sound.
Beyond Unwanted Sound is about noise and how we talk about it. Weaving together affect theory with cybernetics, media histories, acoustic ecology, geo-politics, sonic art practices and a range of noises, Marie Thompson critiques both the conservative politics of silence and transgressive poetics of noise music, each of which position noise as a negative phenomenon. Beyond Unwanted Sound instead aims to account for a broader spectrum of noise, ranging from the exceptional to the banal; the overwhelming to the inaudible; and the destructive to the generative. What connects these various and variable manifestations of noise is not negativity but affectivity. Building on the Spinozist assertion that to exist is to be affected, Beyond Unwanted Sound asserts that to exist is to be affected by noise.

Part one

What noise has been

NOISE, n. A stench in the ear. Undomesticated music. The chief product and authenticating sign of civilization.

AMBROSE BIERCE, The Devil’s Dictionary, 85.

Noise is obvious. It can be easily found and easily recognized. Many encounter it on a daily basis – be it in the home, the workplace or during leisure time. Despite all this, a troublesome question remains: what is it, exactly, that makes noise ‘noise’? After all, noise refers to different things in different contexts. It means different things to different people. An absolute definition would thus seem impossible. Noise can be a judgement of sound or a type of sound. It might be empirical or abstract. Or it might be ‘the constant grating sound generated by the movement between the abstract and the empirical’.¹ Noise frequently attracts grandiose rhetoric, particularly when it names the clamour of the new. And yet, just as frequently, noise is utterly banal – so familiar that it is unworthy of comment. Noise is often attached to ideas of loudness, nature, industry, technology, pollution and militarism. It can belie racist, classist and sexist sentiments; or serve as a metaphor for revolutionary action.

In this section, I critically consider what noise has been, outlining four common definitional approaches. First, I describe what I call a ‘subject-oriented’ definition. As unwanted, unpleasant or ‘bad’ sound, noise pertains to a value judgement that is made during perception. Second, I describe an ‘object-oriented’ definition, which defines noise in relation to particular acoustic qualities and attributes. I then discuss two definitions that overlap with both subject-oriented and object-oriented definitions: noise’s definition in relation to particular sound sources, and noise’s definition in terms of loudness. With regard to the former, it is shown how noise has been associated with particular ‘unnatural’ sources, as well as certain bodies deemed ‘other’. However, I also show how noise may come from an unknown source, as exemplified by an unexplained sonic phenomenon called ‘the hum’. With regard to the latter, I discuss (loud) noise’s capacity to cause physical damage, and its problematic equivocation with technology, modernity and capitalism.

Subject-oriented noise

Noise is most commonly understood to be an audible problem, referring to sound that is in some way negative: it is that which is deemed to be unwanted, unpleasant, undesirable or just ‘bad’. Noise is something that we do not want to be around: we try to avoid and abate it as much as possible. It is associated with pollution, disorder and destruction. The British physicist G. W. C. Kaye, adapting the description of dirt as ‘matter out of place’, defines noise as ‘sound out of place’ – in space and/or time.² In being out of place, noise may inhibit communication, or mask ‘meaningful’ sound. Alternatively, noise can be sound that is considered meaningless, or whose meaning is disliked. Noise may be unwanted in the sense that it distorts and degrades an intended message; in the sense that it is judged to be excessive or degenerate; or in the sense that it may cause physiological and psychological harm. Or noise may be unwanted because it is sound that simply annoys us.

To describe noise as unwanted sound requires a listener to hear it as such. Sounds become noise when they are heard in a particular way – it is a value ascribed in relation to perception. The task of constituting noise thus lies with the listener. As Paul Hegarty states:

Noise is not the same as noises. Noises are sounds until further qualified (e.g. as unpleasant noises, loud noises, and so on) but noise is already that qualification; it is already a judgement that noise is occurring. Although noise can occur outside of cognition (i.e. without us understanding its purpose, form, source), a judgement is made in reaction to it.³

For Hegarty, noise is sound that is judged to be negative, and so the presence of someone – or something – to hear noise is essential: noise needs a listener.⁴ But hearing on its own is not enough: noise requires critical listening. According to Hegarty, there are two stages in the constitution of noise. First, there is the perception of sound by a listener; and second, there is the judgement of the perceived sound as unwanted and, by extension, ‘bad’ – it is received by the listener as irritating, frightening, potentially damaging, inhibitive and so on. Hegarty argues that without these two stages – of perception and valuation – there might be sound but there cannot be noise. From this perspective, noise is a status that is added onto sound in perception, rather than an inherent property of the sound itself.

Which sounds are judged to be wanted or unwanted, permitted or unpermitted, acceptable or unacceptable can vary radically between individuals: hence the well-worn axiom ‘one person’s noise is another person’s music’. While some encounter the heaviness and sonic aggression of certain styles of music as unbearable and intolerable noise, there are others for whom this makes for a highly pleasurable musical experience. As a result, noise is often considered as an issue of personal taste. Yet, judgements of noise are often Kantian, in that they can often feel more important than a ‘merely’ personal matter. Judgements of noise seem more than subjective, and yet are not objective. Indeed, the listener often expects others to share his or her judgements, making appeals to a ‘common sense’ of what is reasonable, permissible and pleasurable, and what is not.

The difference – and tension – between individual judgements of what counts as unreasonable noise often becomes apparent in disputes over ‘noisy neighbours’: those who, through their use of sound, traverse the boundaries of what is perceived to be ‘our’ domestic space – disrupting or disturbing our homely activities in the process. Domestic spaces are particularly sensitive to noise given their cultural associations with peace, privacy and intimacy. A 2002 report for the UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) found that the number of domestic noise complaints reported to the local authorities in England and Wales is equivalent to one in every five hundred people complaining once a year and that the most common cause of complaint is neighbour noise. The report adds that neighbour noise ‘is an almost inevitable consequence of urban living and is highly dependent on standards of behaviour and personal consideration. Consequently it is found to cause problems everywhere.’⁵ Similarly, a 2003 MORI report for DEFRA asserted that neighbour noise ‘is one of the most annoying noises when it is heard’.⁶ The report suggests that this is due to two key reasons concerning neighbour noise’s connotations. First, while inhabitants seem able to develop a certain degree of ‘immunity’ to noises from traffic and trains, the irregularity and lack of utility from neighbour noise suggest that this does not apply. In other words, while transport noise may be heard as a ‘necessary evil’ – an unfortunate side effect of an ultimately useful, regular and thus predictable activity – noise from neighbours is heard to be useless and unexpected: there is no good reason for it. Second, neighbour noise is thought to be synonymous with a lack of consideration. According to the report, ‘This “consideration” factor is critical in understanding the dynamics of disputes and demonstrates the importance of the social context of noise as opposed to its purely physical attributes.’⁷ Neighbour noise is often infuriating because it is felt to communicate a lack of consideration, care or respect for others.

To return to the axiom of ‘one person’s noise is another person’s music’, loud music (along with shouting and banging) is listed in the MORI report as the most frequent cause of annoyance and disturbance. However, the report also found that ‘[neighbour] noise need not be “stereotypical” nuisance noise to cause a dispute … fairly routine noises (such as vacuuming, washing or closing doors) can be considered inconsiderate if they go on for too long or occur late at night’.⁸ These examples resonate with G. W. C. Kaye’s description of noise as sound out of place. Neighbour noise can be ‘out of place’ spatially, in that it invades ‘my’ home; and temporally, in that it occurs for too much time or at the wrong time. Responses to these quotidian sounds, moreover, show that noise need not be particularly loud in order to cause irritation. Rather, sounds may become noise as a result of their persistence, invasiveness or their (perceived) inescapability.

While there are some common themes concerning what noises are considered irritating or disturbing, there are some neighbourly noises that individual listeners are more willing to endure than others. DEFRA’s report identifies numerous factors that influence ‘thresholds of tolerance’, such as the time of day and regularity of the noise. However, it also finds that factors relating to lifestyles or ‘life stages’ are particularly important in people’s judgements of noise. The report states:

The ability to empathise with a neighbour, most likely through a similar personal experience, increases tolerance to certain types of noise. For example, noise from a baby crying at night is less of an issue for someone who has children but a source of annoyance for those who do not.⁹

Whether sonic intrusions from neighbours are endurable or intolerable is partly dependent on the listener’s capacity to relate to the sounds in question. A neighbour may still experience the sounds of a relentlessly crying baby as unwanted and irritating. However, being able to empathize with the situation means that this unwanted noise is more likely to be accepted as understandable and endured without complaint. Likewise, whether music is judged to be a tolerable nuisance or an intolerable invasion can be influenced by a listener’s familiarity with the type of music being played. The report also asserts that the music tastes and lifestyles of young people are

clearly different from that of older generations. This is one reason why parties are not as annoying for young people as other noises, since the music style is considered a ‘normal’ social activity. In contrast, modern music among younger ages – particularly the greater emphasis on base [sic] – is unfamiliar to older generations.¹⁰

What this suggests (and sweeping generalizations regarding musical tastes notwithstanding) is that the issue of neighbour noise, as well as which noises are tolerated and which are endured, is significantly informed by a listener’s own lifestyle, and its perceived similarity to the lifestyles of their neighbour’s – whether they are capable of empathizing with a noisy situation due to their own personal experiences and tastes. Some noises, then, are considered more unwanted than others.

The judgement of particular sounds as negative – as bad, unwanted, unpleasant, intolerable and unnecessary – is also shaped by sociocultural norms. The dividing line that separates the tolerated from the taboo and the permissible from the unacceptable varies between as well as across cultures. Likewise, cultural changes can bring about changes in what sounds are accepted and what sounds are categorized as noise. The contemporaneous problem of neighbour noise, for example, relates to wider socio-economic shifts that have occurred over the past two hundred years in Eurocentric culture. When viewed historically, there is a correlation between a growing (vocalized) sensitivity to the noise of others and a growing desire for individual freedom. This is apparent in Alain Corbin’s analysis of the role of bells in the auditory landscape of nineteenth-century France. In this, Corbin discusses the rising intolerance of church bells among urban communities, identifying the 1860s as a ‘turning point’, with which the sound of the bells were no longer tolerated: ‘From this date on there was a greater determination to lay claim to one’s morning sleep.’¹¹ Corbin argues that an ‘enhanced desire for individual liberty’ challenged the ‘standardized rhythms’ of everyday life, which were demarcated and regulated by bell-ringing. ¹² Consequently, the bells – a signifier of an older way of life – came to clash with modern lifestyle patterns. A number of developments, including advancements in street lighting, the growing publi...