Discord: The Story of Noise

" Discord" is a learned and enjoyable story of noise and a treasure trove of curious facts and anecdotes. It contains a long history of uses and annoyances from the big bang to battles to traffic noise. You will find the remarkable ways in which some animals, such as shrimps, use noise as a weapon or to catch prey; how medicine uses noise to shatter kidney stones or how it was employed positively in some aspects of music. One misses perhaps a stronger contrast to music as the great antagonist to noise and chaos? What is the nature of this difference?Noise appears to be a timely subject as a new tome  Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening promises to deal with similar material. If this is too academic for you there is also  Tassilo's Vienna Violin/ Fresh Classical Music Guide/ Times/ Places  which deals with the subject of a history of harmonious and noisy sound from the Big Bang to classical music in the format of a narrative.

This book did a beautiful job describing noise thru the centuries. It was often quite lengthy in all its descriptions, but fascinating if you were interested in following the topic.I learned many things while reading!Amazing how we have continually made more noise as we have progressed. Technology might move us towards a more peaceful and quiet life in the future if we are willing to finance it.