The Thesis

At some point in my musical development I realized that I didn't need to spend 4hrs a day with my classical instrument (viola) to make meaningful sonic art. At some point all the PAT kids realized this, though maybe not so explicitly. This thesis examines notions about music education through a discussion of noise. The final product will be an HD documentary of as yet undetermined length.

Noise, depending on who you talk to, means a number of different things:
irrelevant data
pixelation
interference
irritation

among others. Through interviews of friends and colleagues Ronen and I will be examining the nature of noise with a concentration on noise's relationship with music. These interviews will often be accompanied by demonstrations of a particular brand of noise (tapes, harsh, mystic, academic, acoustic, pollution, data, etc). These will be set to a combination of on-site images and b-roll created because 1. they look cool and 2. because they have an inherent noisy aspect (machines, leaves, etc.)

I am also examining the usefulness of noise in the teaching of music. That is to say, what can be gained through the use of noise in music education? What if, at the same time we introduced kids to Brahms and Beethoven, we introduced them to Merzbow and Fennesz? There are a number of aspects of noise music that make a compelling case for such an idea:
1. accessibility. In music ed they call "barrier to entry." Simply put, a radio and a guitar pedal costs way less than a cello.
2. improvisation. Improvising is one of the most challenging aspects of music performance. The major barrier is skill at the instrument. Often players, especially young players, have an idea of what to do but lack the technical ability to do it. With noise, using things like pedals, play-dough + keyboards, and pencils that squeek, the physical conditioning and muscle memory necessary to improvise is much easier to obtain. The consequence of this is that much less time is spent learning how to play an instrument and more time spent learning how the instrument fits in an ensemble. Because the techniques are easily obtained, the focus shifts to listening instead of playing, a much more useful skill in daily life.
3. experimentation. So much of contemporary musical education squashes the natural tendency to experiment. This is tied into confidence issues, you know how good a violin can sound and as a student you know how far away from that sound you are. With noise, if it sounds shitty you're doing it correctly. If it sounds good you're also doing it correctly.
4. form. John Cage said that electronics would eventually allow for the inclusion of all audible sounds into the realm of compositional elements. He went on to say that our only connection to past musics would be in form. From the short distance of 50 years from that statement, I'd say he was basically correct. Because you're not worried about things like intonation or timing in the same, externally defined, way as with classical music it allows you to more fully experiment and understand the organization of your ideas.

sub themes:
1. pollution. When environmental sound becomes a detriment to existence. The effects of human development on natural environments.
2. engagement. When does noise become music? When does light become visual art? When does your engagement with various phenomena become active as an artistic process? What is the opposite of music? How do inhabit
3. minorities. Noise musicians as a minority in the social sense. Noise as minority genre, on the periphery. Minorities within noise: persons of color, women.
4. effects. What does noise do? Trance states, hearing loss, the use of ipods.
5. new media. How can we use new media to enhance the student experience? What if classes had blogs and activities could be published? Can we instill a sense of responsibility/ completion/ legitimacy through the use of new media. The blog as the new refrigerator. So much of school happens at a pace that prohibits reflection, can we use the accessibility of new media (in addition to the community involvement inherent to this medium) to help students reflect on their work? Digital archives.

Through this I hope to develop a more balanced and thorough idea of the nature and practice of noise in all of its forms, as well as techniques relevant to making noise, if not exactly accessible, at least more relevant to a larger audience.