Much music

 First published in Column 8 on the 22^nd May, 1991

 I was informed after my column on cycling that I couldn’t be old enough to remember when motorcycle helmets were first proposed: it was pre-war, seemingly. That proves I wasn’t born in the total dark ages.

However, is anyone else old enough to remember a time when, unlike the lady who had rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, you didn’t have music wherever you goes?

I’m not just referring to ghetto blasters and their like. They’re usually like ships that pass in the night, and a quickstep away from them is all that’s needed.

I’m more concerned about the tendency to debase music by shoving it in where it isn’t wanted, such as on the telephone, when it’s supposed to keep you cool while you wait for someone to come.

I used to enjoy listening to office noises, off, and trying to figure out what was happening. Even more I enjoyed the times when someone had their hand over the receiver, but not properly, and you got an earful of what you weren’t supposed to hear.

Now we have the mind-disorientating experience of a Strauss waltz in one ear, and your own shop muzak in the other. I know that sort of thing is considered very modern in the serious music scene, but when you’re not already trying to keep track of who you’re ringing and why you’re doing so in the first place, it’s discombobulating. (By the way, ever seen someone who’s combobulated?)

These days there’s music everywhere: trains and planes and buses, the dentist’s and the doctor’s, supermarkets and government offices. (Now there’s an area where Ruth Richardson could save some money.)

What’s the problem with having music everywhere you go, you might ask? Isn’t it supposed to soothe the becalmed spirit? Isn’t that a good thing in these days of super stress? Doesn’t it take our minds off our problems?

Exactly. It distracts constantly. Just like television, when it’s in a permanent state of ON.

The human mind needs space. It needs times of quiet, not being filled up every moment of the day with someone else’s noise. We never have a chance to think because the thinking part of our brain competes constantly with noise. And where does it dump all this aural rubbish?

If it was true that things go in one ear and out the other – and it isn’t, because I’ve tested my kids and there’s a definite blockage between one side of their heads and the other – we could let sounds musical waft through without a murmur of complaint.

But as it is, the sound gets stuck in there somewhere, as in that old song: ‘The music goes round and round, whoa-oh-oh-oh’ (Danny Kaye and several Pennies.)

Eventually, like a computer with all its bytes taken up, we’re going to find the drains of our brains are clogged beyond further action.

All right, all right, I know most of us are supposed to use only 10% of our brains anyway, but just think what it’ll be like if we ever make it into the other 90. We’ll find endless screeds of leftover muzak have soaked up all the cells, with songs we’d thought we’d forgotten and songs we wish we had. (And who’d want to recycle that?)

Meanwhile, out in space all these aliens listening in will find their airwaves becoming increasingly jammed. At least we’ll have no fear of any invasion with all that noise going on – who’d want to invade a planet that’s never quiet?

Unless they want to put us out of our misery.

So who’s going to help me found a Society for the Prevention of Extraneous Music?

 

The German melodic death metal band Dawn of Disease 
at Rock unter den Eichen 2018 in Bertingen, Germany 
courtesy: S. Bollmann

Things have got worse, of course, since this was written. Telephone muzak is anything but calming these days: it usually consists of something exceptionally repetitive, or some unknown ‘artist’ wailing his/her heart out in a fashion that’s anything but musical.

Of course, we now know that it’s virtually impossible to use up all the bytes in a computer…and the idea that we only use 10% of our brains has long been shown to be a myth.