The Futurist art movement (with most notably Luigi Russolo) was important for the development of the noise aesthetic, as was the Dada art movement (a prime example being the Antisymphony concert performed on Apin Berlin), and later the Surrealist and Fluxus art movements, specifically the Fluxus artists Joe Jones, Yasunao Tone, George Brecht, Robert Watts, Wolf Vostell, Dieter Roth, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Walter De Maria's Ocean Music, Milan Knížák's Broken Music Composition, early La Monte Young and Takehisa Kosugi. In many instances, conventional use of melody, harmony, rhythm or pulse is dispensed with. More generally noise music may contain aspects such as improvisation, extended technique, cacophony and indeterminacy. There may also be emphasis on high volume levels and lengthy, continuous pieces. It may incorporate live machine sounds, non-musical vocal techniques, physically manipulated audio media, processed sound recordings, field recording, computer-generated noise, stochastic process, and other randomly produced electronic signals such as distortion, feedback, static, hiss and hum. Noise music can feature acoustically or electronically generated noise, and both traditional and unconventional musical instruments.

Noise music includes a wide range of musical styles and sound-based creative practices that feature noise as a primary aspect. This type of music tends to challenge the distinction that is made in conventional musical practices between musical and non-musical sound.

Noise music is a genre of music that is characterised by the expressive use of noise within a musical context.

Skull music art notes