Music in our lives

[Cheez]

This is sort of a fun thread.

Today, I was calling the Immigration Authority. After selecting ths optoins I wanted through the phone, I was put on hold for about 15 minutes. Throughout the 15 minutes, of course, the background music was playing repeatedly with an occasional female voice saying, "All our customer officers are busy. Your call is important to us. Please hold the line...".

Then I realise that the background music was not too bad, actually. It has a nice beat, and keeps me from blowing my top with impatience. Technically, it has to be looped at the right place so as to keep it repetative without the music breaking (except when the voice comes in).

Then I realised that music is really integrated into every aspect of our lives and many times taken for granted. I just got back to Singapore and realised how much music is everywhere! Some random thoughts about where music is part of our lives which we may not have noticed:

1. Public places: restaurants, toilets, elevators, shopping centers, banks (OCBC has a nice grand piano on their mezzanine level which plays by itself - nice ambience!), hotels etc

2. Phone ringtones and waiting tones. Interesting I realised that more people are now using the standard ringtone of a normal phone rather than the polyphonic tones. I know because my phone is set at the normal "boring" ring tone and I hear it eveywhere!

3. Call waiting - like my 15 minutes waiting to talk to the customer officer.

4. Computer. The windows or Mac startup music etc. Software etc. I saw an ad on a software yesterday- when their logo appears, there was 4-5 seconds of music when the logo fades in. Excellent effect! Not easy to write a music for a few seconds! Also all those background music with the flash animations on websites etc. Games is another area.

5. TV and movies. Soundtracks. But most importantly - the ads!

6. Other places. Eg: Operating room. When I used to operate in the operating theater in the hospital, we usually have background music. Different doctors and surgeons have different preferences. I realised then I would prefer certain type of music on different parts of the day, whether it was early in the morning, or a long case which may last 6-8 hours etc. I even thought of writing my own music just for operating rooms!

Any others?

 

[faizal_rocks]

Believe it or not, music is everywhere..even the sounds of me typing this out on my keyboard is music..wind blowing is music...the sounds of cars driving by is music..

 

[DoubleBlade]

Try asking George Gershwin where he derived his interesting musical influences from.

Oh wait...................He's dead.

 

[thailoverboy]

listen and not hear.
look but not see.

 

[layla]

feel the rhythm
sense the heartbeat

 

[mingguan]

Ha... Ha...
Some MNC have some short music (<10 sec) to be played on different time to alert employee the time to prepare start work (5 mins prior to start work), time to start work, time for morning tea break, time when morning tea break finish & get back to work, time for lunch, time for lunch finish, ... time to prepare go home(5 mins prior to go home), time for go home.

 

[piano_ex]

my favourite quote

"without music, Life would be a mistake"

by hu .. i forgot .. =P

 

[yellowStrat]

woot...

even when u relieve urself.. also got music... sound of running water.... :lol:

ok... not funny at all

 

[darf]

whenever you watch tv or some random ad, pay attention to how the use of music changes the atmosphere
its a good learning experience!

 

[sleepykitty]

"without music, Life would be a mistake"

i think this is by Gramaphone rite?

 

[Anirudh]

now, this is what i call cheap thrill

 

[marcdadrummer]

what thrill do u get from listening to random music????

music is a really powerful entity.

 

[RecruitingMusicians]

who invented music? hmm...

 

[PatheinRaindropMoe]

sound between 20hz and 20khz can be all music, some with form, some without, some with structure, some dont. When the frequency in our mind at time of listening matches the frequency of the sound plus the enviroment where we are, perhaps thats music, even if theres no sequence or order.

while of course most wud be more familiar with sequenced pitch and sound, but that doesnt mean theres no music other than those. The sound of this city we live in, everyday has its own music too. Its everywhere.

If music is of pleasant sound, then perhaps each and everyone will have their own definition of music, their pleasant sound. Regardless of pitches and notes, form and structure, full of something or nothing at all

ohmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmho

 

[Cheez]

Aiyah! I think it's better to stick with tonal music rather than atonal. Otherwise, we'll not get anywhere. My fan blowing in my face is music; my kids screaming is music, the car engine is music...never end!

Let's just stick to conventional music by what it means.

I actually thought of putting up a challenge/competition. Get people to compose the best Windows startup sound scheme. Not more than 4 seconds in duration. Getting sick of the Windows startup sound.

Or what about this - compose a ringtone. Then all softies use the same rintone - we'll use it to identify one another in public!!! :lol:

 

[letterhead]

wow.. if u consider my mother scolding me music. i rather be deaf

 

[ys]

Wa. You're so positive.... coming up with this observation on life while you waited 15 minutes for your call to be answered...
If it were me, I'd be mumbling swears to myself.

 

[soft]

yes, music is indeed powerful in our everyday life.

i hear that some bookstore plays classical/jazz music so that younger crowd would not spend long hours browsing.

some fashion/clothing store really got their music selection wrong. they are so loud that it diminish shoppers' mood of shopping.

havent heard any nice ringtone coz most people just use the built-in or real tone. but heard some japanese/korean phone during the communiasia show, from cute to lush, monophonic to super surround. very impressive.

 

[Cheez]

Maybe I can coin the term "Functional Music". Rather than just "background music", this kind of music serves a function - be it telling us somebody is calling us, to making us feel less stressed when waiting on the phone etc. If chosen carefully, I'm pretty sure they will serve their function well. If not, like what soft says music blasting from fashion shops, it may have the opposite effect.

But come to think of it, many shops blast their music through loud-speakers. I wonder why. Perhaps it attracts a certain kind of crowd? Or perhaps a different generation of shoppers? I guess maybe the type of music depends on the target of the demographic the shop is trying to attract. But then again, maybe not..

 

[lexxmexx]

i hear that some bookstore plays classical/jazz music so that younger crowd would not spend long hours browsing.

Haha...that has an opposite effect on me, I tend to stay longer at such bookstores :smt003