cacophonous sounds

[alpacinou]

Hello.

Can I use "cacophonous" to talk about the sounds produced from "one" musical instrument? Is the sentence I have written correct and natural?

When I started playing the trumpet, I could only produce cacophonous sounds from it which really annoyed my siblings.

If this doesn't work, what can I say?

 

[emsr2d2]

No. A cacophony is a mixture of sounds.

 

[jutfrank]

cacophonous sounds doesn't work well there.

I think you should stick to practising a cacophony of for now. Don't worry about cacophonous—it's much more rarely used.

 

[jutfrank]

No. A cacophony is a mixture of sounds.

Yes, I was thinking that. I agree that it usually is, but I think it's okay to describe lots of car horns as a cacophony. Do you not?

 

[SoothingDave]

More than one car horn? Yes. Just one? No.

 

[alpacinou]

Generally you can, but cacophonous sounds doesn't work well there.

I think you should stick to practising a cacophony of for now. Don't worry about cacophonous—it's much more rarely used.

Is this okay? And natural?

When I started playing the trumpet, I could only produce a cacophony of harsh sounds from it which really annoyed my siblings.

 

[jutfrank]

It's much better, at least, but I don't think cacophony works properly when describing someone playing a trumpet. I think it works best when the idea is that there is a disorienting array of sounds coming from different places. If there were a whole orchestra of very bad trumpet players, I think it would work. It works for me in your car horn example, too, for the same reason.

Put a comma after it.



(In post #3, I said it's generally okay to use cacophonous in this context. I've since changed my mind, so I've edited my post accordingly.)

 

[emsr2d2]

No, lots of people playing the trumpet at the same time (and not all playing the same tune/same rhythm etc) would be a cacophony but not one person playing one trumpet.

 

[GoesStation]

A few instruments could be described as producing a cacophony: the bagpipes, for example. A single set of pipes can make extremely discordant sounds as several pipes sound at once. Pipe organs can do that, too.

Many people would find cacophony appropriate for bagpipes played by any level of player.

 

[tedmc]

Sounds emitted by insects at night are often described as a cacophony. It is a persistent, consistent, jumbled-up sound.