Dripping between rains
If you can hear dripping after the rain has stopped, water is sitting somewhere it should have drained from. That is either a pitch problem (the run is level or falling the wrong way, leaving standing water) or a joint that is releasing slowly. Standing water is the one to act on — it accelerates corrosion, adds weight, and freezes in winter.
Loud dripping onto the downspout
Water falling from the outlet onto an elbow inside the downspout amplifies through the metal like a drum. Common on two-storey runs and directly outside bedrooms. Genuinely a nuisance rather than a fault, and usually solved by adjusting the elbow arrangement so water runs down the wall of the pipe rather than free-falling onto it.
Banging or popping
Aluminum expands and contracts with temperature, and a Kansas City day can swing forty degrees. If a run is fastened so it cannot move, that expansion releases suddenly as a bang — most often at dawn and dusk. It points at fastening or spacing, and over time the stress works joints open.
Rattling or clattering in wind
Something is loose. Usually a downspout that has pulled away from its strap, occasionally a section of guard that has lifted, sometimes a hanger that has released. This one is worth looking at promptly — loose components fail progressively, and a downspout that detaches in a storm takes its discharge point with it.
Scratching or scurrying
Not the gutter. That is an animal in the soffit or the eave, and it means there is an opening. Worth investigating, because whatever got in came through a gap that is also letting water in.