Making Noise

Listening across millennia, a cultural historian explores the process by which noise today has become as powerfully metaphorical--and intriguing--as the original Babel. When did the "silent deeps" become cacophonous and galaxies begin to swim in a sea of cosmic noise? Why do we think that noises have colors and that colors can be loud? How loud is too loud, and says who? Attending, as ears do, to a surround of sounds at once physical and political, Hillel Schwartz listens across millennia for changes in the Western experience and understanding of noise. From the uproarious junior gods of Babylonian epics to crying infants heard over baby monitors, from doubly mythic Echo to amplifier feedback, from shouts frozen in Rabelaisian air to the squawk of loudspeakers and the static of shortwave radio, Making Noise follows "unwanted sound" on its surprisingly revealing path through terrains domestic and industrial, urban and rural, legal and religious, musical and medical, poetic and scientific. At every stage, readers can hear the cultural reverberations of the historical soundwork of actresses, admen, anthropologists, astronomers, builders, composers, dentists, economists, engineers, filmmakers, firemen, grammar school teachers, jailers, nurses, oceanographers, pastors, philosophers, poets, psychologists, and the writers of children's books. Drawing upon such diverse sources as the archives of antinoise activists and radio advertisers, catalogs of fireworks and dental drills, letters and daybooks of physicists and physicians, military manuals and training films, travel diaries and civil defense pamphlets, as well as museum collections of bells, ear trumpets, megaphones, sirens, stethoscopes, and street organs, Schwartz traces the process by which noise today has become as powerfully metaphorical as the original Babel. Endnotes and bibliography are not included in the physical book but are available online at the MIT Press Web site.

From the Nobel Prize-winning author of Thinking, Fast and Slow and the coauthor of Nudge, a revolutionary exploration of why people make bad judgments and how to make better ones—"a tour de force” (New York Times). Imagine that two doctors in the same city give different diagnoses to identical patients—or that two judges in the same courthouse give markedly different sentences to people who have committed the same crime. Suppose that different interviewers at the same firm make different decisions about indistinguishable job applicants—or that when a company is handling customer complaints, the resolution depends on who happens to answer the phone. Now imagine that the same doctor, the same judge, the same interviewer, or the same customer service agent makes different decisions depending on whether it is morning or afternoon, or Monday rather than Wednesday. These are examples of noise: variability in judgments that should be identical. In Noise, Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass R. Sunstein show the detrimental effects of noise in many fields, including medicine, law, economic forecasting, forensic science, bail, child protection, strategy, performance reviews, and personnel selection. Wherever there is judgment, there is noise. Yet, most of the time, individuals and organizations alike are unaware of it. They neglect noise. With a few simple remedies, people can reduce both noise and bias, and so make far better decisions. Packed with original ideas, and offering the same kinds of research-based insights that made Thinking, Fast and Slow and Nudge groundbreaking New York Times bestsellers, Noise explains how and why humans are so susceptible to noise in judgment—and what we can do about it.

“An interestingly idiosyncratic and personal vision of how to make podcasts.”—Ira Glass Veteran podcast creator and strategist Eric Nuzum distills a career’s worth of wisdom, advice, practical information, and big-picture thinking to help podcasters “make noise”—to stand out in this fastest of fastest-growing media universes. Nuzum identifies core principles, including what he considers the key to successful audio storytelling: learning to think the way your audience listens. He delivers essential how-tos, from conducting an effective interview to marketing your podcast, developing your audience, and managing a creative team. He also taps into his deep network to offer advice from audio stars like Ira Glass, Terry Gross, and Anna Sale. The book’s insights and guidance will help readers successfully express themselves as effective audio storytellers, whether for business or pleasure, or a mixture of both.

How To Make A Noise: a Comprehensive Guide to Synthesizer Programming is perhaps the most widely ready book about synthesizer sound programming. It is a comprehensive, practical guide to sound design and synthesizer programming techniques using: subtractive (analog) synthesis; frequency modulation synthesis (including phase modulation and ring modulation); additive synthesis; wave-sequencing; sample-based synthesis.

For most people, the U.S. suffrage campaign is encapsulated by images of iconic nineteenth-century orators like the tightly coifed Susan B. Anthony or the wimpled Elizabeth Cady Stanton. However, as Mary Chapman shows, the campaign to secure the vote for U.S. women was also a modern and print-cultural phenomenon, waged with humor, creativity, and style. Making Noise, Making News also understands modern suffragist print culture as a demonstrable link between the Progressive Era's political campaign for a voice in the public sphere and Modernism's aesthetic efforts to re-imagine literary voice. Chapman charts a relationship between modern suffragist print cultural "noise" and what literary modernists understood by "making it new," asserting that the experimental tactics of U.S. suffrage print culture contributed to, and even anticipated, the formal innovations of U.S. literary modernism. Drawing on little-known archives and featuring over twenty illustrations, Making Noise, Making News provides startling documentation of Marianne Moore's closeted career as a suffrage propagandist, the persuasive effects of Alice Duer Miller's popular poetry column, Asian-American author Sui Sin Far's challenge to the racism and classism of modern suffragism, and Gertrude Stein's midcentury acknowledgement of intersections between suffrage discourse and literary modernism.

This diverse collection of articles by group work professionals who work in the classroom and in the field captures not only the art and science of social work with groups but also its soul, highlighting practice, teaching, and writing ideas that promote the power of group work - and the people who do it. Making Joyful Noise reinforces the value and uniqueness of group work as a positive, optimistic, empowering, and affirming way of working with people. The articles presented here cover a wide range of age groups, populations, and settings and include examples on the use of activity and discussion in groups: a poetry club for children, the meaning of camp for preadolescents, a boxing group for adolescents who live in the inner city, self-defense classes for adults, and caregiver support for the elderly. The book also steps into the classroom to promote the teaching of social group work and the education of advanced group work practitioners and to encourage practitioners to write about their group work practice. Finally, the book presents and illustrates a number of concepts that are unique to group work and that encourage front-line practitioners to “be bold” and to “stay in the mess.” While organized as a tribute to the late Dr. Roselle Kurland, Making Joyful Noise is in and of itself an important collection of articles and essays on social group work and one that is certain to provide all practitioners who are interested in group work with a spark, a smile, and some needed inspiration for their important work. Making Joyful Noise includes: essentials for preserving, promoting, and portraying group work practice the critical relationship between human and professional ethics in group work six common mistakes that practitioners make in regard to group purpose using organizational analysis to improve group work practice creatively blending activity and discussion in diverse settings cultivating collegiality to reduce isolation and enhance practice developing a capacity to “stay in the mess” in group work with people of all ages skills for effectively working with transitions, separation, and loss in group guidelines for practitioners wishing to write for publication and much more! This book is a rich and diverse collection that is required reading for anyone working to promote social work with groups.

Transform your school and your classroom with these best practices in equity That the typical modern classroom lacks equity will come as no surprise to many educators. But few resources explain how to remedy that situation in the here and now. Leading Equity delivers an eye-opening and actionable discussion of how to transform a classroom or school into a more equitable place. Through explorations of ten concrete steps that you can take right now, Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins offers you the skills, resources, and concepts you'll need to address common equity deficiencies in education. You'll learn about: Things you can do today to advance the cause of equity in your classroom, from reconsidering your language choices to getting to know yourself and your students Using social justice as the basis for your advocacy for equity How to promote a decolonial atmosphere and model vulnerability and humility for your students and colleagues Ideal for educators and educational leaders at all stages of their careers, Leading Equity will help you improve your ability to offer an equitable environment to all of your students.

'This book teaches, provides painful insight, and creates awareness and empathy for the patients, families, and caregivers who are living and working every day within a framework of tragedy. This book is also great entertainment. You will laugh and cry, sometimes simultaneously, throughout your reading.' - From the Foreword by Kay Roskam, Board Certified Music Therapist Filling a Need While Making Some Noise is an inspiring and engaging nuts-and-bolts guide for music therapists who are interested in working in pediatrics. Kathy Lorenzato paints a vivid picture of what it's like to work, as a member of support staff in a teaching hospital, with children and families who are facing tremendous health challenges, and for whom music therapy is part of their treatment or recovery plan. She explains the beneficial effects of music therapy on children with physical or mental illness and offers many helpful suggestions and background information on practicing music therapy in a hospital environment, the kinds of instruments to use and how to work successfully with medical staff and how music therapists can help their patients' families to cope with the hospital experience. Lorenzato also describes the therapy programs she designed to complement the treatment of and recovery from specific medical conditions she has encountered, from cancer to trauma caused by child abuse. This book will be an invaluable resource for music therapists, both newly qualified and experienced, members of the medical and childcare professions and students in these fields.