We’ve all heard the one about the judge who forced a rap fan to listen to hours of classical music as penance for crimes committed, and if you’ve waited out a delayed train in NYC’s Penn Station, you’ve absorbed the Handel that’s supposed to bring down your blood pressure while keeping the homeless population at bay. (I have no idea how that last part is supposed to work–poverty breeds intolerance for chamber music? Someone missed The Soloist?) If you want teens out of your food court, however, Barry Manilow works best.
I was thinking about this over coffee this morning after a press release came through for Drive Time RX with Subliminal Affirmations by Steve Halpern. The purported purposed of the CD is to keep you destressed and alert in traffic and “transmute any feeling of road rage into feelings of calm and centeredness.” You can sample the music here. Now, how are you feeling?
Music may be a universal language in Disneyland, but it seems to me its vocabulary words are actually all homonyms–depending on myriad factors, my chill out music may motivate you to put your fist through the stereo–so using it to make certain statements with the goal of emotional manipulation is a pretty dangerous game. In most cases, it seems to me that what you’re really playing with is a whole bag of cultural stereotypes of what sounds will trigger what response. Whether the listener will play along is up for grabs, and in some cases, it may only be an act. What 14-year old with pink mohawk could cop to a love for Manilow, even if she wanted to? Alone in my car, will the sounds of yoga zen really keep me from rear-ending that Hummer? How powerful is music, anyway, and how well do we understand that power?
Any art that exists to provide answers and not questions is a problem for me. This idea that one can create music that’ll make you vacuum more efficiently and with less stress seems transparently cynical. Why not tap into the potential “synergies†that inherently exist
with the makers of xanax and offer a free pill with each CD?
“From my point of view a person needs, with maturity, certain relaxation that is colored by magic and perspective about life. My own perspective, physically as well as intellectually, is sensorial more than analytic, despite the fact that I’m a teacher and an analyst of semantics.” – Leo Brouwer (composer)
Leo was answering a question regarding his move towards minimalist techniques in some of his later output (his Cuban Landscape With Rain is a good example).
I’m reading Elevator Music which is a history of muzak along with so-called “mood music” and its composers. It’s very enlightening in part because the writer (and the composers quoted) do a really good job of countering the prejudices many of us have towards anyone making music designed to alter or compliment one’s mood (background music, underscores for film and TV, ambient music, Ray Coniff, Lawrence Welk, George Winston, etc).
And “mood music” goes way back. Satie’s “furniture music” for instance was designed it sit in the background of perception. He apparently would get upset at programs where audiences would try to “listen” to this music he’d composed.
Now all of that said, I can’t go into any busy restaurant with my wife (singer with incredible ears) and not have her say “Do you know that song?” whereas I myself can rarely discern the tune for the noise 🙁
I don’t take issue with elevator music, or film music and certainly not Satie! I suppose my problem lies with the claims this product makes. I agree with Ms. Sheridan in that I believe the composer is playing with stereotypes and it feels plainly manipulative. It’s like walking into a mall and hearing that oh so hip music that’s supposed to make you feel like buying clothes you’re too old for.
The subliminal claims bother me as well. The admittedly small amount of reading that I’ve done on the subject suggests that there have been tests that plainly refute the effectiveness of such techniques and that there isn’t satisfactory data to back up claims that it does work.
Thanks for the heads up re: “Elevator Music‖sounds like an interesting read!