Social music

Noise among the Pop and Popular

Kevin Driscoll
COMM620
3 December 2009

"Roars, thunderings, explosions, hissing roars, bangs, booms, whistling, hissing, puffing, whispers, murmurs, mumbling, muttering, gurgling, screeching, creaking, rustling, humming, crackling, rubbing, shouts, screams, shrieks, wails, hoots, howls, death rattles, sobs"-- Luigi Russolo

"I don't like that word, jazz. [...] It's social music. All the social melodies out in the air. There's no jazz anymore." -- Miles Davis, Today Show interview (1:40), 1981.

Open questions

How to resolve incompatible definitions of noise/signal?
Effects of industrial process on Fiskean popular relevance?
Do Auto-Tune and ProTools yield to recordings that more explicitly and aesthetically reflect the circumstances of their production?

These slides available on the web: http://kevindriscoll.info/docs/presentations/social_music