The Tyranny of Pop Music

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A great deal, in my opinion. I think GSCE music is largely a waste of time, the aim being to get bums on seats.

Perhaps you chose the "wrong" syllabus, Alpie? Edexcel requires its GCSE candidates to have studied the scores (which they provide) of the Handel chorus (full score, not VS, as I had to "study" The Creation chorus at "O"-Level), the First Movement of K550, and the Fourth Movement of Schönberg's Op16 - after which DCSH#5 is a doddle!

So if "even understanding (?seeing?) an orchestral score comes as a surprise at 'A'-Level", then it may be more a reflection on the quality - or, to be less judgemental, "of the prorities) of the teaching (including that done before GCSE level) than of the Exam. syllabus.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I note that one of the First Minister of Scotland's contributions today on the increasingly awful Desert Island Discs was some wretched pop-song entitled "Sisters are Doin' it for Themselves"
One would certainly suppose the FM might have the perfect opportunity to fully utilise her sisterly self-reliance if she ever found herself stranded alone on a desert island?

Isn't that an aria from Les Dialogues des Carmelites?

[Bryn]

Isn't that an aria from Les Dialogues des Carmelites?

No, I think you will find it's Hindemith, not Poulenc.

[P. G. Tipps]

Isn't that an aria from Les Dialogues des Carmelites?

[french frank]

Do you prefer "dead" music?

No, it's not the mere fact of it being 'live' but of the predictability that it will be 'contemporary popular music' which I haven't really appreciated since I was about 18.

Of course going out to hear "someone else's choice of music" can be one of the most enjoyable and wonderful experiences (or one of the worst).

Again, it's the probability factor. I don't think it's either surprising or in some sense 'wrong'/distressing that a public event should have music calculated to satisfy the largest number of the public. But as experience suggests that only a tiny proportion of that public shares my musical tastes, they can keep their music. Not a complaint: just a comment I'd rather read a book. In silence

[Lat-Literal]

Some of the discussion is based on a misinterpretation of "a public place". Most of the general public believe - or would like to believe - that they have an automatic entitlement to be where others gather unless they do something wrong. That is not the case. For example, landlords of public houses are legally entitled to evict anyone and provide no reason.

It is the moment when they do give some sort of reason that they can get into legal difficulties themselves. The sheer power that such people have in the law has been blurred to some extent by diversity. They know that if they evict a black person from an establishment without giving a reason, courts might see a racial implication and similar points are applicable to others protected by anti-discrimination law. The fact remains that if he or she doesn't like a middle class accent or a working class accent or certain attire or just feels like being especially awkward, they are omnipotent. It isn't our house. It's their house. They can do whatever they like. In the main, streets are different. If there was music via loud speaker to the residents of Acacia Avenue, there would be a rational case for disgruntlement given taxpayers' investment and implied issues about constraints on movement.

As for shopping centres, many are privately owned and have all sorts of issues - the most notable one concerned the wearing of hooded garments - so, again, if music seems to be an imposition as people saunter from Boots to Marks and Spencer, it is a case of so be it unless it were ever proven to them that it was detrimental to them commercially. Bear in mind that those people are so involved in monitoring the impacts of layout and the wider "shopping environment" that they consider electronic charts showing every single footstep.

There are also a few mixed arguments taking place here. It is pop music. It is musak. It is all music. It is about "imposition". It is not so much about having pop music or musak or music that is imposed but rather the entire process is not in line with a belief that music is something that must be listened to properly. It is about ordinarily mild citizens being treated as if they are in a scene from A Clockwork Orange. It is terribly Orwellian because it is so heavily imposed it insists on merely being background. So 50% of LBC listeners oppose it. How very convenient for LBC who might prefer the piping of LBC with its obsessions about immigrants and people on benefits. That would turn every "public place" into an extension of the Daily Mail. Terrorists in Mali want music banned. The Nazis only wanted one sort of music. Extremists do not impose music. They erase the bits they don't like.

[Serial_Apologist]

TIf that kind of thing were indeed representative of an "economically liberal society", as you suggest, one might question its purposes and aims and, once understood, it might well be argued that forcing people to hear this material in certain public places is something rather different to what some might regard as "liberal"!

[...]

[w]hat about the purveyors of this stuff?! The question keeps arising; what is the intended purpose of it? How does it affect - and how is it supposed to affect - people in hotel lobbies, shopping malls, elevators and the rest when they encounter it?

It all depends, I would say, on what function it is being used to promote, or in other words what it is being used for. I well remember, in the 1990s, retail company spokespersons openly admitting the detailing of different kinds of music played at low volumes for given areas within their shops in order to make customers linger or, if necessary, get a move on in choosing their product and vacating the premises as quickly as profits demanded! Indeed I wouldn't wonder if this still goes on.

During the Vietnam War, US air forces blasted The Ride of the Valkyries at the Viet Cong in order to instil fear by a demonstration of cultural superiority. That's another use of pop music to get one's way, different only in degree.

[Lat-Literal]

It all depends, I would say, on what function it is being used to promote, or in other words what it is being used for. I well remember, in the 1990s, retail company spokespersons openly admitting the detailing of different kinds of music played at low volumes for given areas within their shops in order to make customers linger or, if necessary, get a move on in choosing their product and vacating the premises as quickly as profits demanded! Indeed I wouldn't wonder if this still goes on.

During the Vietnam War, US air forces blasted The Ride of the Valkyries at the Viet Cong in order to instil fear by a demonstration of cultural superiority. That's another use of pop music to get one's way, different only in degree.

Yes.

It isn't so evident at the start of "a supermarket experience" as the vegetables are there, all the emphasis is on colour and what is being encouraged is "hands on involvement"!

Re FoR3 - it would vis a vis classical music like more pieces than on commercial radio style playlists - not less!

[jean]

...I well remember, in the 1990s, retail company spokespersons openly admitting the detailing of different kinds of music played at low volumes for given areas within their shops in order to make customers linger or, if necessary, get a move on in choosing their product and vacating the premises as quickly as profits demanded! Indeed I wouldn't wonder if this still goes on...

In my complaint to the British Museum about the music accompanying the Celts, I did speculate about whether it was a device to get the punters through the exhibition faster. It certainly had that effect on me.

I asked for a reply, but they haven't sent me one yet.

[ahinton]

It all depends, I would say, on what function it is being used to promote, or in other words what it is being used for. I well remember, in the 1990s, retail company spokespersons openly admitting the detailing of different kinds of music played at low volumes for given areas within their shops in order to make customers linger or, if necessary, get a move on in choosing their product and vacating the premises as quickly as profits demanded! Indeed I wouldn't wonder if this still goes on.

During the Vietnam War, US air forces blasted The Ride of the Valkyries at the Viet Cong in order to instil fear by a demonstration of cultural superiority. That's another use of pop music to get one's way, different only in degree.

I have little doubt that you are right about these, but even those who might harbour doubt should still ask themselves why whoever decides to relay this stuff makes those decisions; what are they aiming to achieve thereby? People don't stick it on for no reason at all.

Anyway, as a compatriot of mine (who happens not to be the guest on this morning's Desert Island Discs) once said to me, "I loathe piped music - it might not do quite the same kind of damage as other kinds of drone, but it's bad enough"...

[Serial_Apologist]

In my complaint to the British Museum about the music accompanying the Celts, I did speculate about whether it was a device to get the punters through the exhibition faster. It certainly had that effect on me.

I asked for a reply, but they haven't sent me one yet.

They probably think we're too clever by halves, the likes of thee and me, jean!

[Serial_Apologist]

I have little doubt that you are right about these, but even those who might harbour doubt should still ask themselves why whoever decides to relay this stuff makes those decisions; what are they aiming to achieve thereby? People don't stick it on for no reason at all.

Anyway, as a compatriot of mine (who happens not to be the guest on this morning's Desert Island Discs) once said to me, "I loathe piped music - it might not do quite the same kind of damage as other kinds of drone, but it's bad enough"...

They doubtless should. We don't need to because we know!

[ahinton]

They doubtless should. We don't need to because we know!

Sadly, we do - and we are far from alone in this. The next question to ask - just to point up the sheer cynicism behind much of this kind of thing - is "what disadvantages might be meted out to people in public places that relay such sounds where such sonic bombardment to be withdrawn?" - in other words, who'd be any worse off for its absence?

Although Roger Scruton, despite referring to the vital need for young people to be given opportunities to take up musical intruments, made no mention of this, the fact that so many young people who have never seen or heard such an instrument being played and therefore assume that musical sounds are produced only electronically in rather the same way as some people who've never encountered fresh fruit, meat and vegetables in the round assume that food is somehow produced in plastic bags or cartons (not so many such people, admittedly, but...), illustrates the disadvantage at which they are placed.

A friend once took his six year old son to his first concert - a Boston Symphony Orchestra performance comprising a Mozart symphony to open, another to close, Prokofiev's second violin concerto to complete the first half and Carter's Variations for Orchestra to open the second half. He was thrilled by everything that he saw and heard, most especially the Carter - and even more so when Carter, aided by a walking stick (he'd have been around 94 at the time), got on the stage to acknowledge the audience applause. The young lad had not played a musical instrument at that point, but he soon wanted to try one afterwards. The sheer absurdity of this much-vaunted charge of "élitism" is revealed by this and many other like examples; the music tells you that you want it (when it does), whatever your past listening experience might or might not have been, although the earlier you're exposed to it in live circumstances like this one the better and easier it's likely to be.

[Lat-Literal]

Sadly, we do - and we are far from alone in this. The next question to ask - just to point up the sheer cynicism behind much of this kind of thing - is "what disadvantages might be meted out to people in public places that relay such sounds where such sonic bombardment to be withdrawn?" - in other words, who'd be any worse off for its absence?

Although Roger Scruton, despite referring to the vital need for young people to be given opportunities to take up musical intruments, made no mention of this, the fact that so many young people who have never seen or heard such an instrument being played and therefore assume that musical sounds are produced only electronically in rather the same way as some people who've never encountered fresh fruit, meat and vegetables in the round assume that food is somehow produced in plastic bags or cartons (not so many such people, admittedly, but...), illustrates the disadvantage at which they are placed.

A friend once took his six year old son to his first concert - a Boston Symphony Orchestra performance comprising a Mozart symphony to open, another to close, Prokofiev's second violin concerto to complete the first half and Carter's Variations for Orchestra to open the second half. He was thrilled by everything that he saw and heard, most especially the Carter - and even more so when Carter, aided by a walking stick (he'd have been around 94 at the time), got on the stage to acknowledge the audience applause. The young lad had not played a musical instrument at that point, but he soon wanted to try one afterwards. The sheer absurdity of this much-vaunted charge of "élitism" is revealed by this and many other like examples; the music tells you that you want it (when it does), whatever your past listening experience might or might not have been, although the earlier you're exposed to it in live circumstances like this one the better and easier it's likely to be.

In the main, I would be worse off without it but I accept that a lot depends on what it is exactly and indeed where. The professional world of work was never really for me although I managed it for 27 years and the work itself was no problem. There was not a time when I didn't find professional meetings or the prospect of them daunting. To walk into the reception area of some anodyne corporate building with apprehension was always awful. It was eased by the sight of a few plants and a bit of music being piped through to the foyer. To go to Geneva was generally a struggle at the outset, albeit fine when I was there. To get into a taxi post-flight on a late Sunday afternoon - a time of the week which itself has a strange atmosphere anywhere - and hear something on its radio. The latest bit of European pop, unknown to me. It helped to settle me and told me I had arrived. In my days of going to football, we would always meet in pubs beforehand and afterwards where the atmosphere was never less than robust. I veered towards Irish pubs with Irish music on the jukebox. It made all the difference between what would initially have been a feeling of unease and what became a permanent feeling of such places being home from home.

In recent times, there have been periods when it has been virtually impossible for me to walk to and into a supermarket. I can't stand the sight and sound of vehicles thundering by at ludicrous speed, nor the sight of all the haphazard push and shove of the unthinking with trolleys. Such things can overwhelm me. If there is some calm music in the background, I co-ordinate better physically and can concentrate on what I am doing with less attention being given to them. Clothes shops generally inform just by what is in their window that they are aimed at people of a different age from me but crashing bass from their doorways is the best indication of all. When I drove a car, I focussed better when the radio was on irrespective of content. I did all homework/course work leading to qualifications to the sound of whatever in the background. It alleviated intensity which impacts on functioning.

I could provide many more examples of how it has helped and helps me.

[Serial_Apologist]

I carry around a lot of earworms for most of the time in my head, and so musak in supermarkets tends to pass me by for the most part. Aside from actual music listening, I normally need to "tune out" this inner musical narrative in order to let sounds from the environment "intervene" upon my waking consciousness. In consequence the idea of needing musak as some sort of aural blotter is rather a shame.