Noisy Thoughts
May 18th, 2007 | by Ben Hoare |When Ramesh gave up recorded music for Lent, I started to think a little bit about how we interact with sound. Then, this week, two chance conversations sparked further thoughts. The first conversation was about MP3 players. Somebody was saying that he could not relate to the urge to listen to music when out and about. The second was a conversation about John Cage’s famous piece of “silent” music, 4?33?. When the subject came up, I remembered that I had performed this piece once, as part of a small ensemble.
Playing a piece of silent music draws attention to the key quality of any performance: it is unique, unrepeatable. Nobody knew what would happen during the performance: we might hear creaking doors, the weather outside, traffic, or some other interruption. Alternatively, like John Cage in the antechoic chamber, we might hear only the sounds of our own bodies. What was heard and felt during that performance was determined by the unique combination of audience, ensemble and location. The piece seemed like a gimmick on paper, but in practice it was a fascinating experience.
Like many others, I am guilty of using an MP3 player to drown my experience in a fabricated soundtrack, which sometimes leads me to feel like a character in a film, and at other times makes me feel swamped, my experience of the world numbed by the artificial sound.
My noise preferences depend on my mood. On occasions, the loud conversations of fellow passengers on the Croydon Tramlink irritate me, interrupting my thoughts or my reading. On others, I am eager to hear what is being said, happily eavesdropping on other people’s lives. (And it really is amazing how easy this is to do; the kinds of things people are willing to bellow into a mobile phone on a packed tram on a Friday morning).
Sometimes, though, I am influenced by another noise. I take my seat and try to read, but am distracted almost instantly by the interruptions of my own mind. Whenever I read I want to write, but everything might be a waste. The difficulty in these situations is knowing what voices to listen to - what will be the most valuable use of my time. Today my gaze landed on a woman engrossed in her Sudoku. What is the difference between reading Midnight’s Children and completing a puzzle? Both activities exercise the brain, both provide distraction, and both compete, with varying success, with the noisy voices of commuters.
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