Intonarumori - 1913 (The beauty of noise)

There is no beauty in noise. And so what's the point of make it. Noise is, by vocabulary definition, the auditory experience of sound that lacks musical quality. I have got another one which is more practical: an electric disturbance in a communications system that interferes with or prevents reception of a signal or of information, as the buzz on a telephone or snow on a television screen.
And so noise is somehow the end of the communication, the end of the words and the beginning of a different sort of “communication”. In the image above, Luigi Russolo is playing his noisy machine called "intona rumori" literally noise intoners. Luigi Russolo can be defined as a precursor of the electronic music.

Max Neuhaus, John Cage, Edgar Varese

Our perception of space depends as much on what we hear as on what we see. (Max Neuhaus)

I have nothing to say And I am saying it And that is poetry.” (John Cage)

I was not influenced by composers as much as by natural objects and physical phenomena.
(Edgard Varese)

Infiltration-homogen for Grand Piano by Joseph Beuys

Joseph Beuys as other members of the fluxus movement often uses pianos for his works.
But, unlike John Cage who uses the piano has a sound source, Beuys transform the piano in a silent sculpture covering it with felts, protecting the piano against the outside world influence.

T.V. Cello with Charlotte Moorman

Circuit Bending Performance

What is circuit bending?
Definition from wikipedia:
"Circuit bending is the creative short-circuiting of devices such as low voltage, battery-powered guitar effects, children's toys and small synthesizers to create new musical instruments and sound generators. Emphasizing spontaneity and randomness, the techniques of circuit bending have been commonly associated with noise music, though many more conventional contemporary musicians and musical groups have been known to experiment with "bent" instruments".

In this circuit bending performance the performers are randomly welding components in order to generate unexpected noises, becoming also a visual experience.

John Cage

Prepared Piano by John Cage

Prepared piano is a special piano that John Cage modified in order to produce a different piano sound. The idea was to interfere with the normal vibration of the strings of the piano putting screws and object on the strings.

4' 33' by john Cage

What is silence?
After few years of music composition and noise experiments John Cage made the piece 4'33'.
The piece is 4 minutes and 33 second of silence.
John Cage arrive to the conclusion that is more important what happen around the performance - with all the non intentional sounds - than the composition itself. In this case john Cage defines the silence as the absence of composition, shifting the production of music from the physical expression to that of the natural sound produced by the surrounding.

The perfect noisy silence

This is the physical experiment which proofs that
in absence of air there is no sound.

But, the complete silence is almost impossible to experience. As John Cage said, there is always something to see and to hear. He also said that even in one of this special anechoic chambers - a room designed in order to avoid any sort of echoes - he was able to hear two sound: his nervous system in action and his blood in circulation. So, only when we die we will experience the real silence.