'Classic FM-ification'

[Serial_Apologist]

Non-viewers of R3 Facebook page will be delighted to know that new pictures have just been uploaded for everyone to see of Andre Previn and Sean Rafferty in a studio love-in before their talk the other day .

Unfortunately Andre has been yclept "Andrew" in the tag. I suppose its one better than being titled "Preview".

Or "Prevert"!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Or no music at all!

I had a polite and controlled blazing row with Scarborough Hospital reception about the incredibly annoying and crass Yorkshire Coast Radio being forced upon innocent civilians in the waiting areas - the catalyst for my enforced politeness being the usual "Oh well, most people like it."

[MrGongGong]

I had a polite and controlled blazing row with Scarborough Hospital reception about the incredibly annoying and crass Yorkshire Coast Radio being forced upon innocent civilians in the waiting areas - the catalyst for my enforced politeness being the usual "Oh well, most people like it."

For my recent stay in hospital I made sure I had a supply of earplugs
surprisingly several members of staff commented on this saying "O that's a good idea , lots of people ask if we have any " but no one seems to have the gumption to actually GET some

[old khayyam]

0ff-topic deviation1: The Age Of Elegance

I have frequented many cafes and restaurants with tasteful decor, first-class food, and 5-star service who, in my opinion, have tragically failed to optimise their full potential because they insist on playing some kind of pop mix CD in the background. As we are probably aware, even discreet background music makes a huge psychological difference to the diner's experience.

I've been in some that are decorated like a palace - chandeliers, cut-glass and formal dress - where the perfect compliment to such elegant surroundings would have been a chamber quartet chirruping away in the corner, but they insist on playing light 'unobtrusive' beat music. I've tried informing some of them that if they played the appropriate music, their atmosphere would be enhanced by 50%, and so could probably justify a 20% price increase, but the proprietors seem to have a different agenda.

I know what the agenda basically is. Its 'fast tables'. They dont want you to be too comfortable for too long. From Bethnal Green to Knightsbridge, it seems the concept of sumptuous surroundings for an elegant dining experience is over, and no matter how far they are up the food chain (npi), they seem to be suffering from either desperation or greed. I still dont fully understand.

[Roehre]

Not only very tasteful etc. cafes and restaurants suffer from this: how many of really to the tiniest detail correct costume dramas are marred by music which is totally (no pun intended) "out-of-tune" with the age which is portrayed?

Full symphony orchestra sound with many horns and trumpets for a medieval drama, or Mahler like music for the 16th or 17th century? And why -if existing music is used- so many times use non-British music in British themed documentaries?

[Serial_Apologist]

I can remember it being reported that Supermarkets played fast music to get customers purchasing more goods more rapidly. In the 1970s Erik Satie's "Gymnopedies" were favoured background music in many posher establishments - at least providing a relatively neutral backdrop, (though not ES's "musique d'ameublement", for which he stands accused), and acquainting people soothed into listening in long awkward conversational gaps to his music.

The best demolition job on piped music was Spike Milligan's, on Room 101.

[Serial_Apologist]

Not only very tasteful etc. cafes and restaurants suffer from this: how many of really to the tiniest detail correct costume dramas are marred by music which is totally (no pun intended) "out-of-tune" with the age which is portrayed?

Full symphony orchestra sound with many horns and trumpets for a medieval drama, or Mahler like music for the 16th or 17th century? And why -if existing music is used- so many times use non-British music in British themed documentaries?

E.g the slow movement of Dvorak's New World for that Hovis ad.

[Serial_Apologist]

It strikes me that people are terrified of "silence" - almost as if, were they to stop thinking, or jabbering away at nothing worth saying, they might go mad, or be thought to. Piped music provides an aural comfort zone.

[Anna]

It strikes me that people are terrified of "silence" - almost as if, were they to stop thinking, or jabbering away at nothing worth saying, they might go mad, or be thought to. Piped music provides an aural comfort zone.

I have always held that theory. People insist on ipods, etc., because, if they listened to their thoughts, it would scare them senseless if they realised what they were thinking. Or, maybe, they would feel disconnected with the world and totally alone and adrift?

[Serial_Apologist]

I have always held that theory. People insist on ipods, etc., because, if they listened to their thoughts, it would scare them senseless if they realised what they were thinking. Or, maybe, they would feel disconnected with the world and totally alone and adrift?

Have to admit there, Anna, to having TTN permanently on low volume at night to help rid me of depressing thoughts.

[old khayyam]

Piped music provides an aural comfort zone.

I've no problem with an aural comfort zone. The problem is the definition of comfort. I've made quite a study of this.

At the beginning of an evening's dining, the music is relatively slow and/or quiet. This makes people feel a little bit bored and they buy more drink to try and liven things up.

Walk into a restaurant for a late sitting and it sounds like a discoteque, yet none of the patrons are aware, they have been duped by the mood as it was when they arrived.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Looking at yesterday's playlists we seem to have the Ball from the Symphonie Fantastique on 3Beebies and the Afternoon of a Faun on Inessential Witterings followed by both pieces being repeated on the Rafferty show a few hours later. More lazy programming.

[John Wright]

All this discussion about classes of listeners, and classicfm-ication, I was thinking today that there is now a 'class of listener' that didn't really exist back in 1946.

This new class of listener, is probably the most abundant today. And his/her existence spawned the creation of Classic FM.

And I am one of this new class of listener.

I'm self-employed, work I suppose part-time. I'm out attending to customer 3 or 4 days a week, and in the daytime my listening habits (Radio 3 or ClassicFM) are restricted to 'in car' and often are as follows:

8.30-9.00am maybe catch 20 minutes of radio play

12noon - 1.00pm maybe catch 20 minutes

2.00pm - 2.45pm maybe catch half an hour of radio as I drive from Coventry to Stratford-upon-Avon, or to Leicester, or to Birmingham.

Now, you see, that limited amount of listening is hardly of great value really, it's never going to be 'quality' time, snatches of symphonies and quartets, maybe a whole concerto, and I might not find out who the performers were, indeed might not find out who the composer was.....

Does it matter if I listen to Radio 3 or Classic FM? I don't think so. But it is a pity that those stations are becoming indistinguishable, in style and content, even on those days when I'm sitting at home!

(I've also posted this on the other thread)

[hmvman]

I was thinking today that there is now a 'class of listener' that didn't really exist back in 1946.

This new class of listener, is probably the most abundant today. And his/her existence spawned the creation of Classic FM.[/I]

I was just recently listening to a 'Music Matters' from January and an interview with Alexander Goehr. He was saying that the repertoire of performed works is much narrower today than it was in the 1950s/60s and that the audiences today are less open to new music. I wonder, in the light of John's comment, whether this new class of listener spawned Classic FM/the 'new-style' R3 or whether it was Classic FM, with its narrow range of repertoire, that contributed to some extent to the creation of this new class of listener.

I take your point, John, about the ability to listen during the day. I'm self-employed too and share your frustration at often having to switch-off a broadcast performance mid-way as I arrive at a business appointment.

[Norfolk Born]

I inadvertently found myself listening to part of this morning's 'Breakfast Show'. I was struck by the following:
(1) There were lots of short pieces, mostly excised from longer works;
(2) The standard of presentation was really pretty poor, with a number of fluffs and the occasional burst of gabbling;
(3) There was a telephone conversation which seemed determined to conflate a listener's medical condition early in September 2011 (regrettable as that undoubtedly was for the person concerned) with the wider, continuing ramifications of the World Trade Centre atrocity; and
(4) Just to make sure that we realized that what we had been listening to was sad, this was followed by a (to me) intolerably dreary, seemingly interminable rendition of Barber's 'Adagio for Strings' by Leonard Slatkin and the New York Philharmonic.
I freely admit to being moved to tears by particular pieces of music, for musical and/or extra-musical reasons, but I have no desire to inflict the details on others (who, I'm equally sure, have no desire to have them inflicted on them).
What differences, if any, are there between the above and the 'Our Tune' feature that Simon Bates used to host on Classic FM?