Intonarumori
Luigi Russolo created the intonarumori between 1913 and 1921 amidst the rise of Futurism in Italy (“The Original Noise Artist”). These are a series of “boxes of various colors and sizes, each with an impressive horn protruding from its front” (Brown). While Russolo mostly concealed the specifics of how these instruments were produced, the insides were reported to include a diaphragm stretched upon a drum frame (Brown).
Russolo created these instruments as a musical representation of Marinetti’s emphasis on free words (parole in liberta) in literature (“Words-In-Freedom”). Marinetti broke from conventional grammar and syntax to “liberate words,” part of this being “a manifestation of the dynamism of objects” (Rainey). This literary manifestation of “noise as poetry” Russolo proceeded to musically transcribe in his efforts to replicate the sounds of modern life via instruments (Brown). In his manifesto “The Art of Noises,” Russolo proclaims that “we must break out of this restricted circle of pure sounds and conquer the infinite variety of noise-sounds,” with his instruments resultingly made to mechanically produce sounds from 6 different families of noises, summarized in the following list: rumbles and crashes, whistles and hisses, buzzing and murmuring, screeching and crackling, noises by percussion on various materials, and human and animal voices (Rainey, 137).
Crowds, following Russolo’s 1917 performance with these new instruments, actually turned to violent reaction; however, this sort of response only reassured their efforts in provoking violence among the populous (“The Original Noise Artist”).
Brown, Barclay. “The Noise Instruments of Luigi Russolo.” Perspectives of New Music, vol. 20, no. 1/2, Perspectives of New Music, 1981, pp. 31–48, https://doi.org/10.2307/942398.
Maina, Claudia. “The ‘Scoppiatore’. The Intonarumori by Luigi Russolo.” Digicult, Digicult, 30 May 2011, http://digicult.it/digimag/issue-065/the-scoppiatore-the-intonarumori-by-luigi-russolo/.
Rainey, Lawrence, et al. “Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature.” Futurism: An Anthology, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2009.
“The Original Noise Artist: Hear the Strange Experimental Sounds & Instruments of Italian Futurist, Luigi Russolo (1913).” Open Culture, Open Culture, LLC., 2018, https://www.openculture.com/2018/03/the-original-noise-artist-hear-the-strange-experimental-sounds-instruments-of-italian-futurist-luigi-russolo-1913.html.
“Words-In-Freedom.” Italian Futurism, 1909–1944: Reconstructing the Universe, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, 2014, http://exhibitions.guggenheim.org/futurism/words_in_freedom/.