Noise Author(s): Siegmund Levarie Reviewed work(s): Source: Critical Inquiry, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Autumn, 1977), pp. 21-31 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343040 . Accessed: 03/04/2012 10:35 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Critical Inquiry. http://www.jstor.org Noise SiegmundLevarie Noise has become an increasingly noticeable and significant symptom of our civilization. Fundamentally an acoustical phenomenon, noise has wider implications.It is the legitimateobject of scientificinvestigations in the fields of psychology and physiology. It can be properly evaluated by its role in music and in general aesthetics. It leads to basic questions of sociology. We shall pursue the implications in these various fields one by one. In this process, as elsewhere, music provides the bridge from facts (acoustics, psychology, physiology) to commitments (aesthetics, sociol- ogy). Acoustics.-If we define sound as anything we can hear, then noise is the kind of sound that is disorderly. The orderly kind of sound is called tone. All sound is either the one or the other or a mixture of the two.