Talking Heads co-founder David Byrne’s new book, “How Music Works,” is a combination personal artistic memoir and cultural/scientific exploration of music — what it is, how it’s made, and what it means. (Cory’s review of the book is here.) Smithsonian has posted a fascinating excerpt from “How Music Works” that includes a riff on the beauty of silence (photo by Bart Nagel):
In 1969, Unesco passed a resolution outlining a human right that doesn’t get talked about much—the right to silence. I think they’re referring to what happens if a noisy factory gets built beside your house, or a shooting range, or if a disco opens downstairs. They don’t mean you can demand that a restaurant turn off the classic rock tunes it’s playing, or that you can muzzle the guy next to you on the train yelling into his cellphone. It’s a nice thought though—despite our innate dread of absolute silence, we should have the right to take an occasional aural break, to experience, however briefly, a moment or two of sonic fresh air. To have a meditative moment, a head-clearing space, is a nice idea for a human right.
via Boing Boing
