Les Paul

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 unique sound.

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Sounding Board

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 reverberation and deconcentrated authority. The sounding board directed and amplified sound, but those of higher rank in the front had best access to the minister's voice. Those in the back, the poor, and slaves, had less access, proving their spiritual needs to be of less importance.

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Stethescope

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 remote diagnoses.

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Industrial Noise

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 reckless capitalism and the precurser to social revolution.

However the fondness for industrial noise was short lived. By the late nineteenth century, city noises became a problem and a major target of progressive reformers.

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Plantation Soundscape

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 establish order and power. The slaves sung in the fields when working, to reflect efficiency and productivity. Slaves at rest were to be silent. Mark M. Smith explains that the slaves in turn used their mastery of silence to escape without being heard.

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