Evening star., 1960-08-07
NEWS OF MUSIC
BY IRVING LOWENS
Contributing Writer

By IRVING LOWENS
Contributing Writer
Music is a wonderful thing
especially the kind you are
not supposed to listen to.
Arguments about the power
music has to move people
have been going on among
connoisseurs and just plain
people from at least the time
of the ancient Greeks. But
so far as the mood engineers
are concerned. there isn't any
argument. Music can do vir-
tually anything. they claim.
and they have powerful
arguments to back up their
statements.
Not, however, what they
call foreground music" This
is the stuff we go to concerts
to hear-it requires active
listening. The really potent
music is the sort of invisible
emanation that is in the
background Of the lives Of
some 54 million Americans
every working day of the
year.
Background Music'S Aim
This background music"
is designed to reduce worker
tension, to foster on-the-jo
concentration, to stimulate
production, to cut down idle
talk, to increase accuracy, to
lessen absenteeism. to pro-
mote impulse buying, and to
do dozens Of other things.
And the Muzak Corp, Oldest
and largest of the music-as-
combination pep pill tran
quilizer anesthetic suppliers,
fatty states that the effects
of its wares on the listener
can be predicted with proven
certainty.
Music by Muzak-as we'll
as that by its rivals, includ-
ing Seeburg, National Musi-
Time, Magnecord, and
Magne-Tronics - is calcu-
lated to be virtually invisible
to the ear. 1t is hi-fi but low
volume. 1t is carefully ra-
toned, too. The Muzak peo-
pie say that alternate Is
minute periods Of silence and
unobtrusive stuff played in
custom arrangements ito
avoid peaks and valleys Of
loudness and softness as we'll
as attention-gettin musical
devices" are the optimum ar
rangement. You can get too
much of a good thing, appar-
emily.
Muzak has been in this
business since 1896, and it
knows whereof it speaks.
Take the case of typing
errors, for example. Accord
ing to a study made at Lever
Brothers Co.. errors in the
typing Of checks decreased
1876 per cent after back
ground music was introduced.
Take turnover rate. Turn
over among Eastern Airlines
clerical personnel in the
firms New York reservations
office decreased 54.3 per cent
with background music.
How about productivity?
At Mississippi Power g.
Light Co.. an increase of
1876 per cent was recorded
in the average number of
cards key punched per hour
with background music.
The medicine is tasty. too.
At Prentice Hall. 98.1 per
cent of the workers asked
said that they like music
while they work, 1913 per
cent felt that music helped
them in their work, 81 per
cent said that music made
the time go faster. and 9l.3
per cent said that music
makes their work more en-
joyable.
The results, as charted in
page after page Of trium-
phant statistics are positively
aWe-lnSplrlng.
The system whereby Muzak
produces the soft-sell sound
which oozes from the walls
of thousands Of factories and
Offices daily is extremely in
genious and efficient.
Does Own Arrangement
The firm does its own ar
ranging, with each Of its Sc
lections rated for emotional
impact, and its own record
ing. 1t claims to record more
new music on a regular
monthly basis than most rec
ord companies, and boasts
that it has deleted more mu-
sic from its active library
since 1886 than all except the
largest record companies
have ever recorded.
These are kept in disc form
in the New York Office, and
serve as the basic pool from
which programs for offices,
factories and public areas are
constructed. Each of the pro-
grams is carefully designed to
do a job in a particular
situation, and the proof of
the pudding is in the eating
you find it just about every
where.
From the New York center,
tapes are sent out to various
cities. These are automati-
cally broadcast from central
studios over leased telephone
lines to subscribers. Some
other systems use sub-car-
riers in FM radio frequency
bands to carry the sound to
the subscriber.
Big business is sold on it.
For example, 33 of the As
billion dollar United States
sales corporations buy it; 10