The Tyranny of Pop Music

[MrGongGong]

I think I'll listen to some music instead.

What scale would you like?
D minor or "00"

And do you find Bachmann superior to Hornby?

[Nick Armstrong]

What scale would you like?
D minor or "00"

And do you find Bachmann superior to Hornby?

[DublinJimbo]

My goodness but this thread has drifted a long way from its starting position!

I came back to it because of an experience I had a couple of days ago in a coffee shop in Dublin. It's a tiny place which accommodates maybe twenty people at most, some at tables, others perched on high stools at shelves fixed to the wall.

I was struck by the music playing in the background, which I can only describe as "French chanson". For some reason, it seemed absolutely right for the situation, and I took no offence to its being there. I was aware of my reaction and was reminded of this thread, wondering if it was the fact that the music wasn't the usual "pop" that made it unobjectionable. My response may have been tinged with comparison relief, because earlier that morning I'd been accosted (and offended) by an over-loud radio station blaring out vapid dreadfulness in my local convenience store.

Was it the rightness of the coffee-shop music which made it welcome rather than annoying, or was it my innate anti-pop mentality which had come into play and flipped my blissful-relief switch? Whatever the reason, I clearly remember pondering my reaction at the time and, as I said, remembering this thread — a thread, by the way, which made a very strong impression on me when it appeared and which I've mentioned to several friends since.

[jean]

It was all discussed much more cogently here (but I'm biased because that was my thread).

I think the problem with Scruton's talk is that it was hopelessly confused., as many people here noted (see Lat's quote from his own earlier post, above). 'Piped' music isn't necessarily pop music. The title (which is Scruton's own, not the OP's) is not only polarising, it's stupid.

[jean]

Best sounding word means just that; the word that is/sounds most effective in making potential customers feel good for wanting to buy the product etc. Copywriters earn good money for thinking up how to use words to sell.

They rarely decide on the basis of sound alone though.

In this case they would have done well to have thought a bit more about the meaning they were trying to convey. They should have known that natural is a word fraught with problems - look at the scorn poured by Mr GG on Nat's use of it, which doesn't seem so very different that in Bryn's quote.

.

[MrGongGong]

So can we talk about acoustic ecology then?

(not that Mr Scrote would even know that it exists)

http://wfae.proscenia.net

[doversoul1]

jean
Marketing is a world of its own. Linguists’ ideas about language have little use there. That article works well for the purpose. Nature and Natural are popular buzzword. You are not meant to ponder about their ‘real’ meaning. And when you say ‘that sounds good’ you don’t mean it has good sound (sonically pleasant ), do you? Anyway, I’ve said all I can think about this matter now.

DublinJimbo
Sounds like a modern (and somewhat modified) Zimmermann Coffee House. I think we can safely differentiate between background music and piped music. The former is often carefully selected (a tradition from Baroque era?) but the latter completely indiscriminate.

[Lat-Literal]

Isn't some of it worthy of being targeted?

I'd say in the specifics and maybe eras more than genres but not everyone would agree. I quite like the idea of offering things that might persuade or convert people as I do enjoy that sort of opportunity being offered to me by others. It's different from the commercial "if you like that, you might like this" because it is more "you think you wouldn't like this but maybe you could do" as long as it isn't a million miles away from someone's known interests. Thought is given to it and there's some sense of adaptation not that it generally works. Mostly you get those who like something agreeing with each other that it is good. I do sort of understand the likelihood of broad resistance because I am only like this with music. Not in other things. However, I have that impulse musically for which I guess blame the radio presenters and friends over several decades whose outlooks informed me.

There certainly must have been some sights and sounds there only a few hundred or so million years ago ...

Obviously Clan Macleod proved more than a match for them.

http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology...kye-03480.html

[P. G. Tipps]

Er, I think you'll find it was the Macdonalds who sorted them out, in fact.
No offence.

You won't find many Papist Jacobite clansmen on Skye these days, believe me ...

[P. G. Tipps]

It was all discussed much more cogently here (but I'm biased because that was my thread).

I think the problem with Scruton's talk is that it was hopelessly confused., as many people here noted (see Lat's quote from his own earlier post, above). 'Piped' music isn't necessarily pop music. The title (which is Scruton's own, not the OP's) is not only polarising, it's stupid.

Professor Scruton's talk may well have appeared 'stupid' and 'hopelessly confused'to you and 'many people', madam, but, mercifully, there will always be the relative few who will have had little trouble in grasping what the right-thinking gentleman said so lucidly.

The good professor, I'm sure, does not object to consenting 'adults' listening to any sort of noise and raucous rubbish in the privacy of their own homes as long, of course, the abominable sounds don't terrify one's horses and neighbours.

The celebrated philosopher was heard rightly bewailing the cruel infliction of such abominable sounds on a helpless public via 'piped' transmission. The only place I have ever encountered sounds of a somewhat more benign nature is at my excellent local doctoress's surgery, though she does seem to be inordinately attracted to one particular piano concerto by Rachmaninov. Bruckner's Ninth never seems to be on her 'soothing classics' menu. However credit where credit is due, one must not be too churlish when faced with the likely and more widespread piped-noise alternative. A very golden and natural silence is rarely encountered these days.

Professor Scruton bravely speaks out against the enforced Tyranny of Pop Music in public places, and thereby champions the shockingly discriminated-against, intelligent minority of the populace.

His voice, however lonely, must be heard crying loud and clear in this tragic wilderness of the figuratively "deaf and dumb" ...

[NatBalance]

This is a good scientific explanation (if you understand maths)

http://www.acoustics.salford.ac.uk/acoustics_info/decibels/

Well, I will do more reading on the subject. I have some books aswell, but are you saying that after I've read more about such things I will then not hear the Frank Martin choir as 20 yards further away than the presenter, in other words hear it like piped music, I won't here the presenter at a live concert (like last Thursday's) as too loud, or I will still hear it like that but it won't bother me?

[MrGongGong]

Well, I will do more reading on the subject. I have some books aswell, but are you saying that after I've read more about such things I will then not hear the Frank Martin choir as 20 yards further away than the presenter, in other words hear it like piped music, I won't here the presenter at a live concert (like last Thursday's) as too loud, or I will still hear it like that but it won't bother me?

You might gain a little understanding of these things which (in my experience) can change the way you perceive them.
And you will hopefully be less ignorant about volume.

[doversoul1]

Professor Scruton's talk may well have appeared 'stupid' and 'hopelessly confused'to you and 'many people', madam, but, mercifully, there will always be the relative few who will have had little trouble in grasping what the right-thinking gentleman said so lucidly.

The good professor, I'm sure, does not object to consenting 'adults' listening to any sort of noise and raucous rubbish in the privacy of their own homes as long, of course, the abominable sounds don't terrify one's horses and neighbours.

The celebrated philosopher was heard rightly bewailing the cruel infliction of such abominable sounds on a helpless public via 'piped' transmission. The only place I have ever encountered sounds of a somewhat more benign nature is at my excellent local doctoress's surgery, though she does seem to be inordinately attracted to one particular piano concerto by Rachmaninov. Bruckner's Ninth never seems to be on her 'soothing classics' menu. However credit where credit is due, one must not be too churlish when faced with the likely and more widespread piped-noise alternative. A very golden and natural silence is rarely encountered these days.

Professor Scruton bravely speaks out against the enforced Tyranny of Pop Music in public places, and thereby champions the shockingly discriminated-against, intelligent minority of the populace.

His voice, however lonely, must be heard crying loud and clear in this tragic wilderness of the figuratively "deaf and dumb" ...

Would your Good Professor had no objections if the great works of classical music were played to a helpless public via 'piped' transmission?

[MrGongGong]

Professor Scruton's talk may well have appeared 'stupid' and 'hopelessly confused'to you and 'many people', madam, but, mercifully, there will always be the relative few who will have had little trouble in grasping what the right-thinking gentleman said so lucidly.

The good professor, I'm sure, does not object to consenting 'adults' listening to any sort of noise and raucous rubbish in the privacy of their own homes as long, of course, the abominable sounds don't terrify one's horses and neighbours.

The celebrated philosopher was heard rightly bewailing the cruel infliction of such abominable sounds on a helpless public via 'piped' transmission. The only place I have ever encountered sounds of a somewhat more benign nature is at my excellent local doctoress's surgery, though she does seem to be inordinately attracted to one particular piano concerto by Rachmaninov. Bruckner's Ninth never seems to be on her 'soothing classics' menu. However credit where credit is due, one must not be too churlish when faced with the likely and more widespread piped-noise alternative. A very golden and natural silence is rarely encountered these days.

Professor Scruton bravely speaks out against the enforced Tyranny of Pop Music in public places, and thereby champions the shockingly discriminated-against, intelligent minority of the populace.

His voice, however lonely, must be heard crying loud and clear in this tragic wilderness of the figuratively "deaf and dumb" ...

I'm assuming this is a work of satire?
The good folks at http://www.submediant.com might be interesting in it's publication (you might need a bit of editorial tidying up)

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm assuming this is a work of satire?
The good folks at http://www.submediant.com might be interesting in it's publication (you might need a bit of editorial tidying up)

I used to know a German jazz bass player who used a vibrator... on his instrument. He told audiences it was a battery-operated cocktail mixer, but the fact that it wasn't was made clear by its absence of any "fan" at the application end. It definitely affected its acoustic characteristics, sounding positively intimate through speakers when applied.