What genres of recorded music are played in downtown Ann Arbor restaurants and stores, and how is a particular genre related to the type of person working or shopping there? I have heard mostly reggae in the food coop, classical at Fireside, and I think no music at Big Market -- is this simply the preference of workers/owners? Dinersty has silence, any other silent restaurants? Does the music affect how long people stay and eat, or what they buy? DOes it make customers feel they are part of some group?24 responses total.
You may also wish to discuss the musical genres played in the places of employment. For instance, when I started working at the _Ann Arbor News_ in 1995, the speaker system was playing Lite FM 93.1. When the station changed its call letters back to WDRQ, and changed to a dance music format, they switched the station to WNIC (100.3 FM--Detroit's Nicest Rock).
Good idea, I don't have a real job so had not realized workplaces played music. Do the employees get any say in what is played, or who decides? What did Lite FM 93.1 play before changing? Is there any way to turn off the speakers in your work area? I objected to a steady diet of jazz at the dentist (I was in there for two hours with my mouth open) and she said I could bring my own CD, which I happened to have with me. Do all doctors' and dentists' offices play jazz now? Who plays radio and who plays CD or tape?
The former Lite FM 93.1 was playing soft rock music (and I _do_ mean "soft")
before it changed to a higher tempo of music. The first time I thought
something was not right was when I heard "Love Shack" by the B-52's ("I got
me a Chrysler./It seats about 20,/So hurry up and bring your/Jukebox money.").
Nothing like that was ever played before the switch in call letters.
Mejers serves up a steady stream of 'Muzak' drival. I can't stand to be their longer than about 1/2 hour before I go insane.
I was in Frank's Nursery the other day, and the Micheal Bolton on the musak system almost drove me out of the place. I *hate* canned music in workplaces.
Does anyone like the canned Muzak? Why do they play it? I also object to being put on hold and having to listen to the same stuff that the dentist seems to have decided most people don't mind. Are there any stores or restaurants that actually play music people like? My long-distance carrier plays classical music, Ameritech 'drivel'. Cricket, I read that stores play Muzak precisely because it drives teenagers crazy, are you a teenager?
I always ask whoever I get connected to after listening to hold music to please pass on my request to remove the music and just provide silence. I also connect my phone to an amplifier so I don't have to hold the phone and the music is just a distant noise. The funny thing then is, when they do answer, they are *impatient* for me to get back to the phone! Really hypocritical.
I have been complaining about hold music for years, they ignore it or claimthere is no way to turn it off. If I take it off my ear to continue listening to my own music, then I don't hear when someone starts talking. I will often just hang up and call back again to avoid the music. Often I get stuck listening to radio commercials for Houston or the like. Whirlpool used to give you a recording of interesting facts to listen to, but it tended to go around at least three times and got pretty uninteresting.
Turn off the Lite and turn on the DaRQ!
When I vistited the Borders Distribution center in
Nashvilee, they had a chart of what station to tune in on each
day. that way it appears that on most any day, the majority would
hate what is being played.
I think the idea behind muzak is not that anyone will like it, but that nobody will be offended by it. If they play classical, so the thinking goes, they annoy teens, and if they play rock, they offend older generations. <silly marketers...>
Would anybody be annoyed by birdsong, or ocean waves? Or silence? (What is a gratuitous saxon violin?) I love silence.
re #10: Why play music whose highest aspiration is that nobody dislikes it strongly enough to change their shopping habits (especially when even that is debatable..) If nobody's supposed to enjoy it then why play it at all? re #11: If I were working someplace that piped in recordings of bird songs or ocean waves I'd commit some sort of gruesome stapler massacre within the first few hours.
Music (or messages) on hald does have an important function: people might otherwise assume they had been cut off after too much silence.
And I do remember being on hold for several minutes, then having to go pee, and coming back to the phone and finding out they hung up. Long live the cordless phone!
(It's a pun on 'Gratuitous Sex and Violence')
Re #15, please explain the phrase which it is a pun on, is that some rock
group? Re #11, what do you have against birds?
A couple of weeks ago, I left a suggestion in the food coop suggestion
box that they play an hour of silence at least once a week, the beat on their
reggae music was driving me crazy and I could not stand shopping there.
Today I dashed in and discovered Vivaldi's Four Seasons. I left them a
thank-you and a promise to tell all my friends to shop there. So it really
is possible to have some say in the music selected. (And it was soft, too).
The post office does not play music, or the library. Are there any
stores or restaurants besides Dinersty which do not? The U of M gym used to
play music, does it still? I once had a roommate who could not stand quiet
and always left the radio on, and got upset at me if I turned it off when she
left the room. Someone working at Kiwanis says she has Attention Deficit
Disorder and needs noise to focus, and I am told people with schizophrenia
cannot stand silence.
Great Lakes seems to have stopped playing music. I put in lots of
suggestions to that effect. (Or maybe it is softer, I did not pay attention).
A year or so ago I *suddenly* lost my tolerance for background radio/music. My ADD must have gone into remission. Thank you for your efforts on the behalf of silence for all public or forced venues.
Well, a common complaint about rock music, movies, TV, etc., is that there's too much 'gratuitous sex and violence', that is, sex and violence that do not advance the plot, but are there solely for shock value.
re #16: Apart from some atrocities they've committed against my car
I don't have anything against birds -- in fact I quite enjoy
hearing them out of doors in an appropriate setting. Listening
to recorded bird songs in an office, however, would be incredibly
jarring to my sensibilities, I don't think I'd react well to the
phoniness involved.
My book of odd facts (soon due) says stores play slow background music to encourage shoppers to linger. Seventy beats per minute, normal pulse rate, works best. People like major chords, but buy more when you play minor chords, so they play a mix. The result is a sort of trance. The stuff that the coop used to play certainly did notke me want to linger. Do fast-food joints play ffaster music than restaurants with waiters? What do you know, page 164 of the same book says 'families regularly went through their meals eleven minutes quicker when there was fast music on than/' when the music was slow. Listening to slow pieces of Brahms or Mozart does the reverse, which is why few excpet the most outrageously priced restaurants can afford it. with teh more common fast musci, the number of bites per minute goes up almost automatically. But past 100 beats/minute people will not stay to eat at all. Are there any restaurants in Ann Arbor whose music you like?
I don't eat at resaurants with music, if I can help it. :-) As to soundtracks in the store, today we went to CostPlus, and they had an Irish CD-thing going on, apparently they get a new soundtrack every month. I REALLY liked it. Of course, anything with Gaelic lyrics and a reel will make me happy, so we'll have to see how Ireact next time.
Besides Dinersty, which stores and restaurants don't play music? Has anyone besides me ever left suggestions or comments on the music?
Are there any restaurants in Ann Arbor that play classical music? Robby's at the Icehouse and the place downstairs used to (both gone).
responding to a long past question back at item #6: Yes, I am indeed a teenagr. As for the rest, yeah, I'd heard that the music that they play was suposed to make you want to shop more. Also, you're supposed to be more likely to buy things located at eye level. Marketers are a bunch of crazy folks, surely...
You have several choices: