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Astethics of sound vary between different parts of the world. Some traditions such as those in Japan (Shakuhachi flute) or Zimbabwe (Mbira) have that "dirty - gritty" sound westerners think of as unnessecary noise where in fact that's a main part of the instrument.

Harsh noise rarely incorporates any vocals. I think you've got the genre confused with a different genre.

Psytrance is the worst music (sub)genre ever.

Re: harsh noise, Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music was very simple to make, and is brilliant, daring, soothing, and unique. The results and experience are what matter most, since all we really have is our perception of the work, and I find constant gratification from it, easily made or not.

Found this in Notepad this morning, captcha BS strikes again...

Isn't mindlessly insisting others are pretentious a good indicator that one is pretentious? I suppose I should be careful saying that or we'll get a pretentious post trying to fluff a weak, uninformed opinion into something more than a weak, uninformed opinion.



While I can say from experience you're correct about harsh vocals, harsh vocals aren't common in noise. Vocals in general aren't too common in noise.




You just bend your fingers funny to play a power chord, then another, then another. See, writing rock songs is easy too. Why aren't you cranking out hits yet?

Making the noises isn't nearly as important as how you arrange them. That's the hard part.

Ah, I thought it was just harsness in music in general being discussed like harsh vocals in metal or harsh sounding music. Wasn't aware of 'harsh noise' as a music genre, so can't say I really know anything about that.

I'm going to take a sample of me farting for 30 seconds into this cheap usb guitar hero mic then distort the hell out of it and automate some filters for 12:00 mins and post it onto youtube as a new merzbow song. And for arranging well I believe you can apply structure and music theory to making harsh noise but it is not necessary. Rock is much harder to compose than harsh noise imo. Merzbow's dharma album actually has good composing but i cant say the same for his other stuff that ive heard. also isn't 'bending your fingers funny' harder than using a laptop and twiddling knobs. I was also under the impression that most people listen to harsh noise for the, you know, noise. I would say it's more about sound design, the 'textures' and how it feels on your ears than it is the arrangement.

Arrangement is part of how textures are formed. The way different samples interact with each other is relevant to composing electronic music and noise.

Speaking from experience, guitar isn't a more difficult instrument than softsynths are. Both can be used to make simple melodies and arrangements with little knowledge of the instrument (a guitar example; Nervous Breakdown or We Are 138 can be learned in only a minute or two, and songs with a similar level of technicality can be composed before the hour is out).

Both softsynths and guitar can take an entire lifetime to master, and even someone who has mastered that instrument can throw themselves into another field within the instrument and repeat the process all over again.

Composing standard rock songs is pretty straightforward. Composing movement based music from typical rock instruments is more difficult. Composing movement based music in general can be more challenging, but even that can be simplified greatly (hardcore punk for example, mosh parts and thrash parts can be arranged as movements, but a Minor Threat or Gorilla Biscuits song isn't more complex than a Sex Pistols or Ramones song, even if it doesn't use the pop song structure).

Out of curiosity, do you play any instruments? Have you ever composed music? I don't ask in an attempt to invalidate your opinion, but if you're not familiar with making music it does reduce the amount of insight you'll have regarding what goes into making a piece of music. I play(ed) guitar, bass, performed vocals, programmed softsynths and drum machines, composed, arranged and recorded (produced and engineered) music for several years. This experience formed my opinions on this matter.

Best of luck with your album. Please post it when complete.

Please listen to "Merzbeat" some time then. Tell me it isn't well composed.

Saying all harsh noise artists are pretentious is flat wrong and disturbing. In every music style there are pretentious artists. You need to stop bashing my second favorite sub genre which is noise.

There may be a difference of understanding of 'texture' and 'arrangement' then. When you say "the way samples interact with each other" are you talking about how one sounds on top or beneath the other? Or an additive method where the waveforms are combined. That would come under mixing and synthesis for me, which is what I believe texture is achieved. Unless you mean something else entirely. When i say arrangement i mean simply just putting a song together and how you use keys, structure, scales etc. all that 'music theory' stuff which to be honest I have a lot to learn about myself as I am self teaching it using resources on the web and i haven't gone into it for a while, so as far as my opinion goes on that I won't comment on it. I play drums, self-taught, only have an electronic drum kit available though. I do produce music, for a few years but taken it more seriously the past year. I hope to go to university to do sound engineering. Would a 'visual programming language' count as programming as I use the program Pure Data a bit to make my own drum sequencers, bassline sequencers and fm synthesisers. FL Studio has been my main DAW though and from past & current experience, messing around with a lot of the FL plugins and came to the basic conclusion that distortion + controlled filters = harsh noise. My opinions are always subject to change though as I learn more, and as I learn more from the more experienced, which you seem to be

As for the album, well sadly it will just be the one song! It will start off with the farting noises and then evolve into harsh noise as I apply my methods

It isn't well composed.

Jokes. I haven't heard this one. I'll listen to it when I get the time.

Didn't say the artists were pretentious. Said the music itself was. I like merzbow, he clearly enjoys what he's doing and I very much admire his ability to produce album after album.

That also makes no sense. It is incredible music that is layered and has melody and everything that other music has. If Harsh noise is pretentious then every single other type of music is pretentious.

That's possible, when I say arrangement I mean the way the song is laid out, as well as the way different parts are combined. If the left guitar track is playing a lead and the right one is playing a lead that harmonizes that part - coming up with that is an arrangement. The same notion applies when the riffs aren't harmonizing each other and are just counterpoints to each other. The same notion applies with non-musical noises when they're played simultaneously and interact with each other.

Usually by composition I mean 'constructing the individual components/riffs'; arrangement means the way they're assembled to produce the final piece of music. An awareness of keys is relevant for both composing and arranging (oh, my awesome riff sounds out of place, but adapted to this key it works!), but isn't required. One can compose and arrange music that's entirely atonal and isn't in any key whatsoever.




I used to use Fruity Loops a lot, it's the name for the first few versions of FL Studio. I'd call what you describe as programming, but more in the 'computer programming' sense than the 'programming a synth' sense. If you use FL Studio you almost certainly program softsynths though.

Guitar is easy because it's intuitive, but also complicated because your hands have to be able to do what your mind envisions. Synths are easy because you don't need to play, but you need to clearly know what you want to achieve.

Making noise is easy, making noise that is judged as having artistic merit is much harder. Making 'art' music is a challenge, making 'pop/folk/entertainment' music is a challenge, making 'extreme' or 'transgressive' music is a challenge, making 'noise' is a challenge. They all have elements that can be difficult to achieve, or difficult to execute effectively - even if what's hard about one form is different from what's hard about another. Specifically with noise, you can churn out hundreds of 'noise tracks', but if none of them are interesting to listen to you haven't really succeeded at being a noise artist.

To be fair, when music isn't pretentious it ends up like Lil Wayne or prefab pop BS. Maybe 'being pretentious' isn't as bad of thing as we're all implying.