Page "Noise music" Paragraph 17

In attempting to define noise music and its value, Paul Hegarty ( 2007 ) cites the work of noted cultural critics Jean Baudrillard, Georges Bataille and Theodor Adorno and through their work traces the history of " noise ".

He defines noise at different times as " intrusive, unwanted ", " lacking skill, not being appropriate " and " a threatening emptiness ".

He traces these trends starting with 18th-century concert hall music.

Hegarty contends that it is John Cage's composition 4 ' 33 ", in which an audience sits through four and a half minutes of " silence " ( Cage 1973 ), that represents the beginning of noise music proper.

For Hegarty, " noise music ", as with 4 ' 33 ", is that music made up of incidental sounds that represent perfectly the tension between " desirable " sound ( properly played musical notes ) and undesirable " noise " that make up all noise music from Erik Satie to NON to Glenn Branca.

Writing about Japanese noise music, Hegarty suggests that " it is not a genre, but it is also a genre that is multiple, and characterized by this very multiplicity.

Japanese noise music can come in all styles, referring to all other genres.

but crucially asks the question of genre — what does it mean to be categorized, categorizable, definable?

" ( Hegarty 2007: 133 ).