Posted on 02/04/2021 8:45:41 PM PST by nickcarraway
Play Nickelback on Amazon Music Unlimited (ad) What’s the most annoying sound in the world? Some might reply it’s fingernails on a chalkboard, someone vomiting, their ex’s snoring or Nickelback.
In a recent Gizmodo article exploring the question, a professor of audio arts suggested that a far more important question was why we find certain sounds annoying, and offered an interesting argument about a connection between noises we don’t like and an “underlying natural beauty” of the universe.
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The resulting suggestion was that perhaps we should make a point of listening to music we don’t like if we want to understand life better.
“The ‘most annoying sound for a human’ is a surprisingly evasive concept that depends not only on who the human in question is, but also on that person’s circumstances and emotional state,” said Florian Hollerweger of Columbia College Chicago. “I think of it as a beautiful testimony to the raw emotional power that sound commands over us – not only on the negative end of the spectrum, but also with regards to that most beautiful of sounds: music.”
He noted that changing circumstances and emotions applied to music as much as natural sounds - “the same strong reliance on context explains both the ‘ugliest’ as well as the ‘prettiest’ sounds.” To Hollerweger, that was evidence that both good and bad sounds are “really just two manifestations of a larger underlying natural beauty, which we humans can become a part of and nurture (through music, for example), but which ultimately exceeds the value judgements that we can’t quite seem to be able to do without.”
The experience of his research, Hollerweger said, was that “one human’s ‘most annoying sound’ may well form the basis of another’s most precious music,” echoing the timeless principal that one person’s food is another person’s poison. He suggested that we could learn more about ourselves and others by trying to work out more about our own tastes.
“Perhaps once a COVID-19 vaccine is widely available, you might want to attend an experimental music concert near you, to see which of these two groups you belong to ... or whether there is room in between," he said. "British composer Trevor Wishart, for example, created a stunningly complex and highly recommended piece of music entitled ‘Imago’ from a single clink of two glasses.”
You can try Wishart’s ear test below. Meanwhile, Nickelback’s back catalog is also on sale.
More attempts to defend a degenerate, collapsing culture.
“What’s the most annoying sound in the world?”
Classic rock and pop country. Easy listening variants are much healthier.
Can I have the word salad to go with dressing on the side?
(Yes, that was a value judgment. Learn to live with it.)
Folks, calm yourselves!
I don't think that this article is advocating that one try to appreciate music containing, e.g., violence-glorifying, anticapitalistic, misogynistic, or racist lyrics.
It's about sounds which might reveal certain fundamental properties of the Universe and/or the human mind - not "rap music."
Regards,
Folks, calm yourselves!
I don't think that this article is advocating that one try to appreciate music containing, e.g., violence-glorifying, anticapitalistic, misogynistic, or racist lyrics.
It's about sounds which might reveal certain fundamental properties of the Universe and/or the human mind - not "rap music."
Regards,
I nominate Mel Torme.
Is he willing to listen to Christian worship music?
That said, I see no reason to inflict on myself something I don’t like and do not see ho, in the least, it would help me to *understand life better*.
He can take his opinion and stuff it.
Josh Groban.
Yeah, well, you know that's just like, uh... your opinion, man.
Agree....though I have an appreciation of all musicians who have mastered their art there is a difference in those who have a true passion about their music and those who don’t regardless how well they’ve trained.
Loose Bedspring versus Grateful Dead?! Take your pick...Ice pick through the eardrum or sledgehammer to the teeth!
Life is too short to listen to music you don’t like.
Very succinct.
What’s with dumping on Nickelback all the time. Nickelback is OK.
To me it’s like peer pressure to dislike Nickelback; you know, the cool opinion that cool people have, the in-group, and if you don’ have it you’re a mouth breathing dumb caveman.
Kind of what liberals do to everyone they don’t like.
He could turn ‘Cherokee’ into a ballad. Just can’t stand his voice. The ‘Velvet Fog’.
The tagline is from ‘The Big Lebowski’, if you didn’t know. 8~)
I would say it's the Beatles.
Most annoying band evah! Worse than the Eagles.
I agree with you on that. I play for my church on Wednesdays and it just seems to me that they make it complex (unnecessary half stops etc.) just because they can.
Give me an old timey hymn anyday. Especially some Isaac Watts or Charles Wesley.
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