ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on examples from the Rude Mechanical Orchestra in New York City to show the ways brass, woodwind, and percussion music works as a method for building and exercising power in public space, focusing on two techniques: chant support and sonic disobedience. Chant support is a technique for building a powerful unified constituency: in a mass demonstration in a street or public square, the Rude Mechanical Orchestra (RMO) music energizes the crowd and amplifies a clarified chanted message. Sonic disobedience points that power toward a tactical location to confront existing material and intangible constructions. Sonic disobedience takes the unified message of “civil obedience” and points it in a tactical location such as at the entrance to a store, inside a fast food restaurant, outside an unscrupulous boss’ apartment building, or inside a prison cell. The RMO uses sonic disobedience as a method to bear witness to inmates and detainees.
