Learning by Listening Vol. 9: Learning to Make Noise: Toward a Process Model of Artistic Practice within Experimental Music Scenes by Dr. Peter J Woods, released 22 August 2025
- Preface with Instructions
- Front Matter, Abstract, and Introduction (featuring Shanna Sordahl)
- Theoretical Context (featuring Matt Taggart)
- Methods (featuring Dr. Christopher Burns)
- Findings, Pt. 1
- Findings, Pt. 2 (featuring Dr. Bryce Beverlin II)
- Discussion and Conclusion (featuring Bucko Crooks)
- Acknowledgements, Disclosure Statement, and Footnotes (featuring Hal Rammel)
- References
Use Instructions
(Please read carefully before playing audio)
In order to fully appreciate the rich epistemological tapestry of this multimedia project, you must listen to the audio on this recording at the same time the article is being read. To accommodate the fact that individuals read at a variety of speeds, the artists and I have timed our compositions to follow the screen reader provided by Mind, Culture, and Activity's website. With this in mind, we recommend that you play this audio recording at the same time as the audio from the screen reader. You can find this reader at the following url: doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2022.2098337
When this page has loaded, you will notice a bar near the top of the screen that has, from left to right, a square with three horizontal line segments, a speaker icon, the word "listen", and an isosceles triangle pointed to the right. This is the screen reader. You can access the audio in two ways. First, if you want to download the audio, please click on the square with the three lines to access a drop down menu. Then, click on the option that says "download mp3." This will begin a download on your computing device that, once completed, you can play on any number of audio apps or programs. Before you begin formally listening to the recording of the text and this audio supplement simultaneously, please check that the full text has been converted into audio. To do so, listen to the audio while reading along. If any words are missing, including citations and descriptions of tables and figures, please download the audio for just that section by highlighting the missing text and clicking download MP3 in the drop down menu. Once completed, you will need to splice the audio together using a digital audio workstation or another program with similar capabilities.
If you do not want to download the audio for digital security purposes, you are more than welcome to stream the audio directly from the journal's website. To do so, find the isosceles triangle facing the right side of the screen on the bar that contains the screen reader. When you are ready, you may click that triangle and the text will be read to you by an automated voice. However, if you do decide to use this approach, you must be careful to account for buffering issues. The screen reader may pause or jump ahead at times. If this occurs and you do not realign this audio recording to align with the screen reader, you may produce serious misconceptions about the act of making noise that can lead to discomfort or worse: psychological and physical harm. Please stay vigilant to these issues as they happen, using the rewind and fast forward features on the screen reader and your preferred digital streaming platform or cassette player.
Finally, if you are listening to this recording via digital streaming, the audio on this recording will play from start to finish without any interruptions, aside from issues with buffering of course. But I have already covered that in this introduction. But if you are listening to this recording via cassette tape, the audio program has been split roughly in half to more efficiently use the physical tape contained within the cassette shell. As you reach the end of side A, you will hear a distinctive tone. When you hear it, you must pause the screen reader (or the downloaded audio from the screen reader) immediately. If you do not, please adjust the audio from this text on whatever device you are using by rewinding to the exact point where you heard the distinctive tone. Then turn the tape over to the other side. When you hear the audio from the tape begin, immediately press play on program and/or device you are using to listen to the screen reader audio. You can then listen uninterrupted until the end of the article.
If you follow these instructions and pay close attention to the sounds and words you here, you to can begin your journey to becoming certified in making noise in public.
Introduction
At first glance, asking how people learn to make noise seems absurd: within most education research, noise exists as an unintentional (and unlearned) byproduct of some other activity that hinders teaching and learning (see Verstraete & Hoegaerts). Yet music traditions such as experimental music, here defined as an amorphous collection of genres (e.g., electro-acoustic, free-jazz, musique concrète) that intentionally break from tenets of the western musical canon (e.g., rhythm, melody, repetitive structure) (see Gilmore,), challenge this generalization. Because experimental music incorporates, redeploys, and purposefully allows space for noise within its musical artifacts (see Gottschalk; Nyman), learning how to intentionally make (or, at least, deploy) noise inherently represents a foundational aspect of becoming an experimental musician.
To further explore the generative role of noise within education, a potential first step involves locating sites of research that embrace this type of sound. Representing something of a truism, I contend that noise music provides one such site. Emerging from underground music scenes located in Japan and England during the late 1970s and early 1980s (see Novak; Taylor), this caustic offshoot of experimental music combines influences from industrial, punk, avant-garde jazz, and modernist electronic music and largely employs dissonant, arrhythmic, and overwhelmingly loud forms of electronic noise as its foundational sonic element (Bailey). Additionally, the anti-authoritarian ethos of punk and other do-it-yourself (DIY) musical genres (see Makagon) runs through noise music, producing a communal musical identity reliant on constantly challenging, resisting, and questioning the cultural and musical codes of more well-known musical forms (Atton). How participants in noise music develop associated musical and sociocultural knowledges, however, remains unexplored.
In response, I use this paper to address the following research question: how do noise musicians develop their artistic practice? Through analyses of interviews with seventeen veteran artists, I construct a process model of artistic practice within noise music. I then use this model to track the development of one novice performer from initially hearing noise music to their first public performance. In doing so, I draw attention to some of the intricacies of noise music as an informal learning space and, more importantly, reveal how the self-directed pedagogies of communal knowledge-building strongly align this context with other informal arts spaces.
About the series
Learning by Listening is an educational, instructive cassette series designed to bring the information of the world into your home, and your brain. Our educator-developed, pedagogically-sound methodology harnesses the power of music to fully open the listening receptors, allowing both facts and abstract concepts smooth, unimpeded entry to the relevant zones of the human mind. Each non-accredited volume of the cassette series will cover a significant and edifying topic, presented verbally and musically by experts (or qualified enthusiasts) in that field. As the series grows, collectors will have the opportunity to build a home audio reference library, providing themselves with a vast ocean of musically-enhanced, easily-attainable knowledge, all conveniently storable on a wall-mounted shelving unit. Illuminate your ears, by learning, by listening.
