Noise And Beauty

[FreakAnimalFinland]

A mosaic art work can be beautiful, but I'm not sure if it's the same case with noise. I would say that beauty in sound requires notes and chords of some sort and noise does not fill that requirement.

It would lead us to question, what IS beauty?

define: beauty,

-the qualities that give pleasure to the senses
-Beauty is a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure, meaning, or satisfaction. Beauty is studied as part of aesthetics, sociology, social psychology, and .........

I guess anyone would have heard something in lines of "that girl has beautiful voice". And we can't see it. We just hear, tone, pace, articulation, texture, flow, whatever are the characteristics of sound. And some good old pubiruusu might not have the most beautiful female voice out there. But someone else has.
And in noise, there are plenty. The saying,  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, focus is not the eye, but beholder... as you probably well know.
But as they keep studying qualities what makes things beautiful, they often find some general lines what affects certain types of people.

[Antti O.]

But what makes this girls voice so beautiful? It's not dissonance or other characteristics in it that could be understood as noise. But something else, like some kind of "tenderness" or "purity" or other (feminine?) characteristics, maybe? Although, the same girl could be screaming her ass of with that beautiful voice hers and that would probably sound very beautiful and be noise. And yes, I undertand the focus is on beholder.

What is beauty is definetely the key question here, and also what is noise?

[FreakAnimalFinland]

I think in first page there was several descriptions.
I don't think distortion of sound signal is something that's automatically "ugly". Sometimes it might be, but often noise can be.
You can see Great Ecstasy find the beauty from qualities that are nearly... lets say architechtural. Not into flowers and rainbows and random hippies gathering in piece, but monolithic straight lined sonic designs.
Myself reminding of something such as Aube. can re-read from first page.

Why they would NOT be beautiful and why they would not be noise? If we try to check out what is opposite of beauty, would be something what are ugly, fierce, unpleasant, difficult, repulsive,.. one may find he likes that, but I guess there's difference in screeching lo-fi noise rubbish of early SJ  to elegance of Aube... for example.   

[xdementia]

But what makes this girls voice so beautiful? It's not dissonance or other characteristics in it that could be understood as noise. But something else, like some kind of "tenderness" or "purity" or other (feminine?) characteristics, maybe? Although, the same girl could be screaming her ass of with that beautiful voice hers and that would probably sound very beautiful and be noise. And yes, I undertand the focus is on beholder.

What is beauty is definetely the key question here, and also what is noise?

Often time it IS the imperfect harmonics and dissonance that give something like a 300 year-old violin it's "character". Ever listen to a "pure" sine wave tone? It's pretty boring. Goes to what I stated earlier as to imperfection is a big part of beauty. Distortion is perhaps taking it a few levels further, but it's a variation on the same theme.

[GEWALTMONOPOL]

Some thoughts by Charles Baudelaire on the subject:

An artist is an artist only because of his exquisite sense of beauty, a sense which shows him intoxicating pleasures, but which at the same time implies and contains an equally exquisite sense of all deformities and all disproportion.

I can barely conceive of a type of beauty in which there is no Melancholy.

I love Wagner, but the music I prefer is that of a cat hung up by its tail outside a window and trying to stick to the panes of glass with its claws.

And the most relevant IMO:

That which is not slightly distorted lacks sensible appeal: from which it follows that irregularity - that is to say, the unexpected, surprise and astonishment, are an essential part and characteristic of beauty.

[Antti O.]

I can barely conceive of a type of beauty in which there is no Melancholy.

This was what I was partly thinking about, or something. And I have no problem with imperfect harmonies of 300 year old harp being big part of beauty.


I haven't really listened to Aube before, but I found this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCbeZjucwIg&feature=related

I can see beauty (and melancholy) in this piece, but I don't perceive it to be noise. It may go under noise file in music categorization though. Sorry if this song is a bad example btw. Any better suggestions? I was listening to Mikawa's cd mentioned in the first post trying to find beauty in it. I did't. maybe I should listen to it through and look the bigger picture aka architectural structures.

[tisbor]

like somebody else said : noise = the true sound of love

everything about noise is beautiful , as to me it's just pure audio pleasure

[Strömkarlen]

I find it amusing that noise as beautiful stirs a discussion but noise as blood dripping, depressing or any other pet obsession doesn't. I have much easier time seeing the beauty in noise than I can see the blood dripping.

[heretogo]

I find it amusing that noise as beautiful stirs a discussion but noise as blood dripping, depressing or any other pet obsession doesn't. I have much easier time seeing the beauty in noise than I can see the blood dripping.

Agreed. The beauty of a full-on noise onslaught seems kinda obvious to me but the connection to giallos, nazis and nekkid ladies is sometimes lost on me. Nothing wrong with those, either, it's just that sometimes I feel that people are stretching it a bit...

[Antti O.]

When thinking about this beauty thing, I have to agree that of course there is beauty in noise. Like there is beauty in every other music style or any other thing that the beholder finds beautiful. It's a matter of fucking taste! Maybe I was trying to find some golden rule or definition of beauty for some kind. don't know and don't care anymore.
But still there is no beauty in sine wave and other crap noise.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

naked ladies not beautiful?

I would say the concept of beauty has been target of study so long, that it's unlikely SI board would be the one put the final end to this. In my latest works, I have even titled recording "Beauty Of Aesthetic Imperfection". One could find links of the sonic approach to "Waba-sabi", yet it was much more accidental than planned reference.

I find it amusing that noise as beautiful stirs a discussion but noise as blood dripping, depressing or any other pet obsession doesn't. I have much easier time seeing the beauty in noise than I can see the blood dripping.

I think it's almost opposite? You throw some topics with politics and sexual extremes, and we see topics about that constantly in noise boards. If we'd open topic "noise and nazism", I don't even want to know what would happen! HAH! "noise and molesting people"? I guess one can find topic of various shades of stupidity all over the place.  About noise and beauty, 2 pages not enough to compete yet.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

When thinking about this beauty thing, I have to agree that of course there is beauty in noise. Like there is beauty in every other music style or any other thing that the beholder finds beautiful. It's a matter of fucking taste! Maybe I was trying to find some golden rule or definition of beauty for some kind. don't know and don't care anymore.
But still there is no beauty in sine wave and other crap noise.

Like in anything, beauty is matter of subjective tastes, BUT, there are still some general lines. You can see certain western beauty standards, what operate on rules of geometry for example. Symmetric forms and accurate proportions. Even grain textures of cement, plaster or such in structures. Hairs and whatever.. they may appeal rough & cheap or filthy or ugly, yet in their correct place, they attribute beauty or elegance of some sort of bigger concept.  
In noise, you may consider few moments of random noise patterns as noisy, chaotic, disorganized, but in bigger image it may finds it place in logical sound sculpture with perfect proportions and forms.  Accidentally, or planned.
Those who find the beauty in imperfection and who want to address the beauty in single moment that quickly passes by, it gets probably harder to "others" to experience the same.

I think even something as simple as usage of delay effect, could be subject to study it's beauty. Imperfection of actual tape-loop delay compared to digital delay with follows exact rotation. How speed of delay is vital. When you hear, as listener, that this is fucked up. It's either too loud, wrong length compared to other sounds. Or when it is perfect, just beautifully blends in, and seems like golden spiral! If someone doesn't know what is the golden spiral, maybe one known golden ration in general? If our perception on this matter is coded deep into human DNA, I would call it good enough "universal" beauty, heh...  Even if noise of course appears often without form and without structure, it wouldn't change possibility to see that some noise is bigger than the random grainy moment you hear.

[xdementia]

I find it amusing that noise as beautiful stirs a discussion but noise as blood dripping, depressing or any other pet obsession doesn't. I have much easier time seeing the beauty in noise than I can see the blood dripping.

Agreed. The beauty of a full-on noise onslaught seems kinda obvious to me but the connection to giallos, nazis and nekkid ladies is sometimes lost on me. Nothing wrong with those, either, it's just that sometimes I feel that people are stretching it a bit...

"nekkid ladies" also falls under the beautiful flag as far as I'm concerned, so I do tend to see a connection.

But I do also see a connection to violence, atrocity, and instinct because it is some of those instances where the true beauty and ugliness of the human condition is at it's pinnacle.

[heretogo]

naked ladies not beautiful?

Hah! Yes they are. But in noise album covers they are often subjected to fist-fucking and whatnot which is not my idea of beautiful... heh.

Anyway, the point was that noise in itself has inherent beauty to me and all these superfluous connections to violence and depravity seem sort of unnecessary most of the time. Violence and aggression can be delivered via the sound if needed, I don't really need the extra explicit imagery & connotations. But that's just me & my taste. On the other hand, they rarely (it can happen...) distract me enough to put me off the sounds themselves either.

[tisbor]

But in noise album covers they are often subjected to fist-fucking

personally , i'd like to see more fist fucking on noise records covers .
thanks !