British composer creates music out of car sounds

A British composer has composed a unique track by sampling everyday car sounds, including the blast of a horn.

Leeds-based Mark Marrington has collected hundreds of samples of daily car noises—from squeaking brakes to car alarms; doors thudding shut to seatbelts unwinding—and created the single ‘Cars’, which he describes as “dance music with a vehicular twist.”

Marrington says he knows the everyday driving sounds such as car horns and warning beeps could be construed as aggravating to some listeners, but he claims that we fail to see the musicality of our daily lives.

“The idea of arranging a collection of car noises into a concentrated listening experience might at first come across as a joke, given that these are potentially among the most intrusive and irritating sounds in our environment,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted him as saying.

“Viewed another way however, it could be claimed that the track serves to remind us that even now we exclude a considerable amount of sonic information from our definition of music and in doing so we may be missing something interesting,” he added.