ABSTRACT
There is an argument that unwanted sound is noise rather than music. We ask the question whether any sounds are inherently music or are merely assigned the term as a kind of shorthand or metaphor. We argue that music in general and jazz in particular has a long history of accommodating new interpretations of what counts as music. Using George Lewis as an example of how the acceptance of noise as a legitimate part of music played a role in its development, we consider how aesthetics change apropos the times. We propose that if taste is acquired deliberately, calculatedly and intentionally then the process of that acquisition is of fundamental importance to how music is understood, regarded and valued. Lewis refers to “symbols of the local soundscapes” to distinguish those “sounds that empower” from those that “hamper and misdirect”, a view that opposes the standard notion that unwanted sound is noise and that music is humanly organised sound which has a recognisable aesthetic entity. We suggest that sound has an array of possibilities, a palette from which anything that is fit for purpose can be drawn into service as a building block of the environment of the music and that both sound and noise provide a fertile ground for exploration and experimentation in music.
