Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts.(Review)

Publication: Computer Music Journal

Publication Date: 22-MAR-01

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COPYRIGHT 2001 MIT Press Journals

Douglas Kahn: Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts

Hardcover, 1999, ISBN 0-262-11243-4, 455 pages, illustrated, notes, index; The MIT Press, 5 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142-1493, USA; telephone (800) 356-0343; electronic mail mitpressorders@mit.edu; World Wide Web mitpress.mit.edu

This book strives to provoke. Its arresting dust jacket, rendered in jangling green and blue, bears the nightmarishly distorted image of a human scream. Should contemporary musicians, particularly those involved with computer technology, expect to find anything inside relevant to their own activities?

The title presents a paradox. How could such disparate notions as "noise," "water," and "meat" have much of anything to do with sophisticated artistic concerns? And the subtitle--A History of Sound in the Arts--seems to presume and promise so much. Is it really possible for a single volume to adequately address such vast implications?

Anyone curious enough to crack the cover of Noise, Water, Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts certainly will find an intriguing premise stated at the outset: "Sound saturates the arts of this century ... None of the arts is entirely mute, many are unusually soundful despite their apparent silence, and the traditionally auditive arts grow to sound quite different when included in an array of auditive practices" (p. 2). Surely this seems reasonable--it actually is quite easy to imagine how...

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