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In Instruments of Desire, of Steve Wacksman's overriding juxtapositions is the association of the white musician with tone and control and the black blues man with distortion and noise. Les Paul’s search for pure tone defined his…

Sounding boards were used to concentrate and amplify the ministers voice in Anglican chapels of early America. Rath contrasts the architectural acoustics of the then new meeting houses with the medieval church, in which sound was characterized by…

The stethescope allowed doctors to read patients more objectively. The symptoms explained by the patients were no longer the only aural source for understanding the human body. The need for touch was also decreased by this device and allowed more…

Northerners were fond of the 'hum' of industrialism and applauded the sounds of mechanization. The chatter in the streets was also associated with a democratic society. Southerners, on the other hand, felt that the noise of industry as a sign of…

Northerners believed that the silence of the south was an indicator of backwardness and claimed that only the cries of beaten slaves broke the sound barrier. Nineteenth century slaveholders carefully designed the soundscape of their plantations to…