ART & MUSIC

What are the Purposes of Muzak/Background Music?

Abstract

Muzak is reliant on a low level of concentration that is more of an un-concentrated directness than anything logical. Background music fluctuates in its demands; however, the concentration desired is more often than not indicated by nothing more or less than volume. Furniture music is called by many names including ambient, contemporary instrumental, mood music, spacerock etc. Ambient is considered as one of the slipperiest genre among all music genres. Before that, instrumental music was very common among people in the middle ages in the time of late 60s. One of the basic types of furniture music is classical avant-garde. The two main contributors of Furniture/Ambiant music were Erik Satie and Brian Eno who composed popular Muzak tones and Furniture Music. Erik Satie was the most famous French composer from the generation of Debussy and the second famous composer of Furniture music, Brian Eno, was an intellectual and a music theorist.

What are the Purposes of Muzak/Background Music?

Introduction

The beginning of twentieth century music went through many movements including post-romanticism, neo-classicism and serialism. In all these movements, different Russian and American composers practiced music at one time or another. With the advent of commercial distribution of music through different media, music was practiced as a constant background with bold and new experimental styles. British and Russian composers started using genre and forms with style and modernistic tone of their own composing. This beginning of background music contributed fairly to the success of Muzak and with the increasing requirement of industrial production after World War II, Muzak was used as an entertainment and fun for workers to be happy and more productive (Bruce, 1979, pp.23).

The key to the effectiveness of Muzak is “Stimulus Progression"; a structure which offers public with a psychological boost that is a subliminal sense of forward progress achieved via encoding sound in 15 minute blocks. Inside each of these sections, tunes are well-organized from slightest to most stimulating. The value of the stimulus for each and every segment is confirmed in their nature by factors like rhythm, tempo, orchestra size and instrumentation (Genesis, 1983, pp.77). As a result of such factors, dazzling tune is constantly followed by 15 minutes of silence, in order that, majority of employees for example will only listen to Muzak for half the time while they are at work. Places where Muzak can be heard are elevators, workplace, malls, customer services, restaurants etc. In the Joseph Lanza's book, Elevator Music, the focus of Lanza is on various types of rythoms which the writer acknowedged as 'moodsong', through the purling choruses of Ray Coniff on to '80s “new age'' sounds and Mantovani sugary strings and of the from commercial Muzak. He is blatant and bold in terms of daimiring all the music styles, and affirming that they are aesthetically superior to all other musical forms in various aspects.

Discussion

The perception of concentration in listening is significant in both simple background music and the real ...