Noise music deliberately uses unwanted or non-musical sound as its primary material

Noise music is a subgenre of experimental music defined by its use of unwanted sound as a primary musical element. It rejects conventional music theory and traditional song structure, often featuring little or no melody, rhythm, or harmony. This deliberate rejection challenges the conventional distinction between musical and non-musical sound. The genre has roots in early 20th-century avant-garde (Italian Futurism, Dada, musique concrète) and later drew from industrial and electronic music. A common misconception is that noise music is simply bad or accidental music — it is instead a principled aesthetic that treats abrasion, distortion, and non-pitch sound as the compositional material itself.

Examples

Luigi Russolo’s intonarumori concerts (1914); John Cage’s 4’33” (1952); Merzbow’s wall-of-noise releases. The material palette includes feedback, distortion, static, field recordings, stochastic processes, and found sound, all treated as primary rather than incidental.

Assessment

Given a piece with sustained feedback and no melody or rhythm, explain why it qualifies as noise music rather than a malfunction, and name two historical precedents that established this practice.