Wow, one post a year. What a lousy blog.
I've found some "interesting" "music" on archive.org called noise art. If you take a listen, you'll understand the quotes. It stretches the definition of music, and most people would find it assaulting/insulting to their aural environment. I know for sure many people who would turn to me after listening and say, "Come on Ted, be serious. You can't actually like this stuff."
I will be serious. So I smirked a little when I heard it first. Ha ha, create a sound that is as unappealing as possible and try to pass it off as music. But then I listened to it with an open mind and was amazed. It is trance-like, a real right brain experience. I felt the same euphoria that I've felt in the presence of a precisely manicured symphonic orchestra, or the unity of a well-trained choir. It was beautiful and intoxicating. And it was cleansing. It opened my mind like the Ives' exercise to sing and play a half step apart. Try it, play Yankee Doodle in C while singing it in D-flat.
So how could noise be beautiful? How is it possible that the polar opposite of historical definition of beauty and consonance can be also found beautiful? Consider the hair of a woman. It swings and falls in a united yet unorganized way. There is something noisy about it. Most people would agree that tying up the hair into a tight, controlled bun would be not so attractive as the free, complicated pattern that it would create if it were loose. A computer animation of hair, or water, or even dust would be insipid without randomness or apparent random elements included.
Random can be beautiful. Noise can be art.
