PERCUSSION AND NOISE. The role of percussion and noise in the evolution of the human species remains the subject of ongoing debate and speculation. That manufactured sound commands inexhaustible fascination and enjoins relentless exploration seems patent from the historical record. Homo sapiens is also homo "per-soni-fication"—a creature summoned by and summoning "what sounds through." There is a dense intersection between percussion and ritual repetition that goes by the name of religion in the ceaseless quest of humanity to express, comprehend, control, free, fecundate, and otherwise elaborate its experience of meaning by way of rhythm. Examples of various uses of noise and sound ground speculative musing on the ritual fusing of myth, music, and dance—the body in contemplation and in motion—and the ascribed effects such sonic textures arouse in consciousness and community alike.

Percussive sound is here understood as a rhythmic patterning...