“This evolution toward noise-sound is only possible today. The ear of an eighteenth century man never could have withstood the discordant intensity of some of the chords produced by our orchestras (whose performers are three times as numerous); on the other hand our ears rejoice in it, for they are attuned to modern life, rich in all sorts of noises. But our ears far from being satisfied, keep asking for bigger acoustic sensations. However, musical sound is too restricted in the variety and the quality of its tones. Music marks time in this small circle and vainly tries to create a new variety of tones... We must break at all cost from this restrictive circle of pure sounds and conquer the infinite variety of noise-sounds.”

— Luigi Russolo

Source: 1910's, The Art of Noise', 1913, p. 6

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Luigi Russolo 11

Electronic music pioneer and Futurist painter 1885–1947

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Luigi Russolo (1885–1947) Electronic music pioneer and Futurist painter

But the quality of continuity that sound has with respect to noise, which seems instead fragmentary and irregular, is not an element sufficient to make a sharp distinction between sound and noise. We know that the production of sound requires not only that a body vibrate regularly but also that these vibrations persist in the auditory nerve until the following vibration has arrived, so that the periodic vibrations blend to form a continuous musical sound. At least sixteen vibrations per second are needed for this. Now, if I succeed in producing a noise with this speed. I will get a sound made up of the totality of so many noises--or better, noise whose successive repetitions will be sufficiently rapid to give a sensation of continuity like that of sound.
Source: Russolo. English trans. Barclay Brown (1986: 37).

“Noise accompanies every manifestation of our life. Noise is familiar to us. Noise has the power to bring us back to life. On the other hand, sound, foreign to life, always a musical, outside thing, an occasional element, has come to strike our ears no more than an overly familiar face does our eye. Noise, gushing confusely and irregularly out of life, is never totally revealed to us and it keeps in store innumerable surprises for our benefit. We feel certain that in selecting and coordinating all noises we will enrich men with a voluptuousness they did not suspect.”

Luigi Russolo (1885–1947) Electronic music pioneer and Futurist painter

Source: 1910's, The Art of Noise', 1913, p. 9

“Now, as discord is allowable, and even necessarily opposed to concord, why may not noise, or a seeming jargon, be opposed to fixed sounds and harmonical proportion? Some of the discords in modern music, unknown till this century, are what the ear can but just bear, but have a very good effect as to contrast. The severe laws of preparing and resolving discord, may be too much adhered to for great effect; I am convinced that provided the ear be at length made amends, there are few dissonances too strong for it.”

Charles Burney (1726–1814) English music historian

The Present State of Music in France and Italy (1771) pp. 152-3

“Sound is defined as the result of a succession of regular and periodic vibrations. Noise is instead caused by motions that are irregular, as much in time as in intensity. 'A musical sensation,' says Helmholtz 'appears to the ear as a perfectly stable, uniform, and invariable sound.' But the quality of continuity that sound has with respect to noise, which seems instead fragmentary and irregular, is not an element sufficient to make a sharp distinction between sound and noise. We know that the production of sound requires not only that a body vibrate regularly but also that these vibrations persist in the auditory nerve until the following vibration has arrived, so that the periodic vibrations blend to form a continuous musical sound. At least sixteen vibrations per second are needed for this. Now, if I succeed in producing a noise with this speed. I will get a sound made up of the totality of so many noises--or better, noise whose successive repetitions will be sufficiently rapid to give a sensation of continuity like that of sound.”

Luigi Russolo (1885–1947) Electronic music pioneer and Futurist painter

Russolo. English trans. Barclay Brown (1986: 37).
undated quotes

“Sound is all our dreams of music. Noise is music's dreams of us.”

Morton Feldman (1926–1987) American avant-garde composer

Sound Noise Varese Boulez, in Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music http://books.google.pl/books?id=FgDgCOSHPysC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA15&focus=viewport, edited by Christoph Cox, Daniel Warner. A&C Black, 2004. p. 16 http://books.google.pl/books?id=FgDgCOSHPysC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA15&focus=viewport.

“We must break at all cost from this restrictive circle of pure sounds and conquer the infinite variety of noise-sounds.”

Luigi Russolo (1885–1947) Electronic music pioneer and Futurist painter

Source: 1910's, The Art of Noise', 1913, p. 6
Context: This evolution toward noise-sound is only possible today. The ear of an eighteenth century man never could have withstood the discordant intensity of some of the chords produced by our orchestras (whose performers are three times as numerous); on the other hand our ears rejoice in it, for they are attuned to modern life, rich in all sorts of noises. But our ears far from being satisfied, keep asking for bigger acoustic sensations. However, musical sound is too restricted in the variety and the quality of its tones. Music marks time in this small circle and vainly tries to create a new variety of tones... We must break at all cost from this restrictive circle of pure sounds and conquer the infinite variety of noise-sounds.

“There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;
And as the mind is pitched the ear is pleased
With melting airs or martial, brisk, or grave:
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touched within us, and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet!”

William Cowper The Task

Source: The Task (1785), Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon, Line 1.

“For the old great, mighty Germany, which was the epitome of the yearning of our ancestors and our pride when one could still hold one's head high at being a German, is going under. One cannot say: it is long gone because it is not long at all but already it sounds to our ears like a fairy tale from a distant time.”

Gustav Stresemann (1878–1929) German politician, statesman, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Letter to his sons (21 June 1919), quoted in Jonathan Wright, Gustav Stresemann: Weimar's Greatest Statesman (Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 135-136
1910s

“If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

“How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank
Here we will sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

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Luigi Russolo 11

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