Noise

Mark Krueger

“Where ever we are, what ever we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating” – (Composer, John Cage)

Recently, when I read this quote in an article, 'Sound and the everyday in qualitative research', Qualitative Inquiry, (Hall, Lashua and Coffey, 2008), I was reminded of the time I met contemporary composer John Cage several years ago in Milwaukee. Suzanne had invited me along to a lecture he gave to her art class at the university. Afterwards, he took us on a walking tour around the campus. Every few steps he would stop and encourage us to listen to something: jackhammers, birds, motors, human calls, and sirens. You could tell by the look on his face that he was truly inspired by what he heard. His mannerisms, enthusiasm and humor were contagious. If we listened, he said, we would hear a concert.

I tried to immerse myself the way he did in these sounds. Later, in reflection, I saw many connections with my work with youth at a residential treatment center. Noise, along with more pleasant sounds, was part of the concert of every day life we experienced together. Shouts, screams, clanging pots and pans, loud radios, and slamming doors were mixed more pleasant sounds: cries of happiness and discovery, quiet conversations, and the gentle breaths of boys finally falling asleep at night.

Today, contemporary musicians like David Byrne, former lead singer for the Talking Heads, show us how to hear and appreciate these everyday sounds. Reading the article in QI, however, took me back to what I had learned from Cage and some of my previous reflections in this column on space, place, waiting, motion, and the rhizomatic, poetic thinking I talked about last month. Noise was/is part of the reflexive, relational experience we have with youth, a phenomenon or theme in the nexus of our daily practice that twists and turns through what we do together.

You could say noise is part of the existential hum: the rumble/jumble of daily living, boredom, and waiting we try to escape. As Cage said, if we ignore noise, it often “disturbs” and unsettles us. Even if not consciously heard, it is there shaping and influencing us and the way we move, act, and live. We try to get rid of noise because it interferes and/or stirs something in us we don’t want to deal with. When it gets out of hand, it drives us nuts. It’s so loud we can’t hear ourselves think. So we try to quiet things down. And this often needs to be done, so we can create an environment for relating, interacting, and developing. “Quiet down!” we shout, perhaps not recognizing the noise we are creating.

But maybe we go too far sometimes in trying to get rid of noise. Maybe we should follow the advice of Cage and the researchers in QI, and acknowledge and develop a fascination for noise as a central part of the lived experience of youth work? Maybe we should get to know noise a little better by asking what does it tell us, and how does it influence our interactions? What is this thing that subtly and not so subtly is helping move us forward or back in our interactions? How does noise contribute to the mix of sounds in our work, and what are its benefits and deterrents? Then, as the QI authors, suggest, integrate noise into our planning, descriptions, activity, interpretations, and communications with youth so we can learn more from practice.

In my youth work class we are moving into a section on activities. The students are reading one of Karen VanderVen's (1999) classic articles, 'You are what you do and become what you've done'” I’m going to tell them noise is part of what we do and who we are, and see what they say. I'll suggest that a good activity is to go with youth on a walking tour and create a concert by stopping to hear the sounds around them, and discuss together how these sounds influence the way they live, learn, play and work together. Perhaps, they can also use it as an opportunity to introduce the youth to composers like Cage and Byrne, two “rappers” of a different sort and time.

As I’m finishing writing this in a coffee shop, which is connected to the local owners” supply house, I hear music, coffee roasters, and people coming in and out on their way to work. There is something about being surrounded by this noise that makes me feel alive in the world, and inspired to write about it. Teenagers come in for a little meeting before they go off to the School for the Arts. Community members get their morning fix, and say hello. As I write, I am in the traffic of human life, noise a conscious and unconscious part of what I am trying to say. The coffee bean roaster and BB King, “who’d a thunk” this would be a good combination?

References

Hall, T., Lashua, B. and Coffey, A. (2008). Sound and the everyday in qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 14, 6. pp. 1019-1039.

Vander Ven, K. (1999). You are what you do and become what you've done: The role of activity in the development of self. Journal of Child and Youth Care, 13. pp. 133-147.