This is one of Luigi Russolo's noise compositions. Some people may like this, most just find it to be noise.
This video is of music being played on a gramophone. The noise fills the entire acoustic space. For the people who like it, this is music. For the people who don't, this is noise. The introduction of the stereo headphones for personal music listening eliminated this problem of "is it public noise or music". [Music begins at 0:55.]
When music had to be listened to on a phonograph or a gramophone, it was played in a public space so everyone around could hear it. What counted as noise and what counted as sound blended together. If one person liked what was being played, they were listening to music. On the other hand, if someone didn’t like what was being played, then it was noise.
While the distinction between music and noise can be as simple as listening to Beethoven is music and listening to a jackhammer doing construction outside the window is noise, there were instances where it wasn’t so black and white. The person who enjoys pop music will hear sound, the person who hates pop music will hear noise.
The introduction of stereo headphones for personal listening help to create the barrier of distinction between sound and noise. Personalized listening meant that everyone didn’t have to ‘put up’ with what was being played. Instead, you could listen to whatever you wanted without bothering anyone else. Thompson talks about court cases whose "cumulative coverage in the newspapers suggests that these conflcicts exemplified frustrations common to many city dwellers" (Thompson130). The nature of the sounds being made were "at the heart of the matter" (Thompson 129). Noise didn't just bother the people in your home, but in close spaces it bothered those around you, too. The use of stereo headphones eliminates this problem.
One of the things we listened to in class were the noise compositions during the time between the 1900s and the 1920s. Luigi Russolo, Edgard Varèse and George Antheil wanted to "redefine the very meaning of music and to transform the ways that people listened to both music and noise" (Thompson 133). They created noise instruments, used things you wouldn’t normally think of as instruments (like airplane propellers and sirens), and didn’t keep normal time in their music (like a 4 count beat), to name a few things. Some people thought this was music, others thought it was noise. The introduction of stereo headphones meant the people who liked these compositions could listen to them without others being upset at the ‘noise’.