This is a nice and arty short video about R. Murray Schafer and his views on the soundscape. At the end, there is a very nice touch when Schafer holds up a sign that says “Listen.” and the audio fades out so you can listen to your own environmental sounds. (The effect is changed a bit if you’re wearing noise-canceling headphones like I was.)

I (obviously?) disagree with his contention in the video that recorded sounds are not “real,” although I think I understand the sentiment behind it. Sounds played back from a speaker are certainly different from those sounds as captured by a microphone, but imagining the recording device as some kind of sonic hatchet, chopping wild sounds from their sources and letting them loose, seems an oversimplification.

(via Anti-Gravity Bunny)

“

Heavy decibels are playing on my guitar
We got vibrations coming up from the floor
We’re just listening to the rock that’s giving too much noise
Are you deaf, you wanna hear some more?

Rock and roll ain’t noise pollution
Rock and roll ain’t gonna die
Rock and roll ain’t no pollution
Rock and roll is just rock ‘n’ roll.

”

—

AC/DC’s “Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution,” in observance of World Listening Day. I very much enjoy how the song seems to be a direct rebuttal of R. Murray Schafer’s list of noise types in his Book of Noise:

Noise has a variety of meanings and shadings of meaning, the most important of which are the following:

1. Unwanted sound
2. Unmusical sound
3. Any loud sound
4. Disturbance in any signaling system

I make this point at the beginning of my undergraduate senior essay “The Tubular Groaning of Galactic Refrigerators: Noise in the Age of its Mechanical Reproducibility” [PDF], which is about as coherent as it sounds.