rumori

Rumori is the Italian plural form of rumore, meaning noises or sounds. In Italian, rumore denotes a perceptible auditory event, whether pleasant or unpleasant, and rumori refers to multiple such events: traffic rumbles, machinery hiss, footsteps, or ambient texture. The term is used broadly in everyday language, acoustics, and the arts to describe non-musical or non-pitched sound phenomena as well as environmental sound.

In music and sound design, rumori often denotes non-pitched, texture-like sounds used as components of a composition or as source material for sampling and layering. In Italian contemporary music and electronic or experimental practice, composers may distinguish rumori from suoni (tones or pitched sounds), focusing on timbre, dynamics, and spatialization rather than melody.

Technical usage includes reference to different noise types by color: rumore bianco (white noise), rumore rosa (pink noise), and rumore bruno or marrone (brown noise). These noise signals serve purposes such as acoustic testing, masking, psychoacoustic research, and audio engineering.

Beyond technical contexts, rumori encompass field recordings and environmental sounds gathered to create atmosphere or realism in media productions and art installations.