Has anyone heard the classical music they are piping into ticket halls on the London Underground? Apparently it is to pacify or discourage loitering youths. But I can’t help feeling it does both the music and the youths a disservice.

Passing through Euston Square tube last week, I heard the scherzo of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, and it struck me that Mahler was singularly failing to get his message across if this, of all works, was being used to pacify. Scenes from A Clockwork Orange crossed my mind, but the authorities are presumably unconcerned about unleashing a wave of ultraviolence through their musical choices. In fact, it must have the desired effect, otherwise they would stop doing it, but at what cost?

Are the classical music audiences of tomorrow being turned away from the start by the assumption (among transport executives at least) that they are de facto classical music haters? Or can we rely on good old teenage rebellion to ensure that younger audiences seek out the music they are expected to dislike, whether they then start smashing up tube stations or not?

Yes, I keep hearing music at Vauxhall and Brixton tubes. But I've never had a problem with a lot of 'musak' - i maintain there are simply two modes of listening, active and passive. Tube stations = passive. Does that degrade active listening? I don't think it does.

Christine makes a very interesting point that group playing is 'cool' whereas group listening is sometimes not. But one feeds the other if in the right context. From outreach concerts and my own Music and the City event (http://www.musicandthecity.org.uk/) I've seen how naturally engaging participation is.

So I don't think the problem is with 'listening' as opposed to 'playing'. I think it's more of a question of engagement. Playing more naturally leads to participation, which is inherently more engaging than passive listening.

Solution? Find better ways of engaging people who are just listening.

I see your point Simon, but I wonder what John Cage would have made of the distinction between active and passive listening. My feeling is that all listening is somewhere in between, or constantly veers between the two. Perhaps I need to work on my concentration span.
Just thinking back, my first engagement with classical music was through adverts on TV. That doesn't say much for my attention span either, but it is interesting how little significance the commercial context had on my appreciation of the music. And to the best of my knowledge, I'm not afflicted with a Pavlovian response to go out and buy a pair of shoes or whatever every time I hear the New World Symphony.

Point taken - as with anything, there are so many different levels of listening...
Advert - that's a positive example then. Perhaps some exposure is better than none in terms of building awareness.
New World...?? don't you mean the Hovis Symphony? I think you do :)

While waiting for a friend at Vauxhall tube station the other day, I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy Mendelssohn's 'Hear my Prayer', sung by the Westminster Abbey choir no less - and I certainly received funny looks from busy commuters standing in the middle of the ticket hall, as the commuter rush seemed to disappear for a moment as I drifted away to the luscious dulcet tones of the top G of the treble solo, and enjoyed listening to how the stereo recording, recorded in the abbey's 6 or so second acoustic, was reacting to being piped round the station through the mono P.A. system [optimised for speech reproduction], then creating a multidimensional decay by the strange shape of the room (this sounds like a joke but it's not)...and I wonder how many of the tube stations have PRS licenses now - quite a lot of them, you'd think, because of Carling live...?
Also, being piped through an audio system like that in the tube station [with no bass and very little top end] almost no other genre/type/style of music other than a classical orchestra or a choir (without needing to hear the words) would be audible really. So perhaps that influences their music choice, as well as the mood? Choosing music by 'mood choice' irrespective of style or genre is classic fm territory here...
Re the visual stimulus, Cinema and Musicals are surely the richest mediums in terms of multi-dimensional experience - especially cinema with a multi-layered manipulated of senses - particularly in terms of the many layers of sound design, in tandem with the emotional manipulation of the score itself (many soundtracks of which are based on the harmonic twists and turns of the 19th century symphonic idiom of course, albeit often with a rhythmic 'loop-based' feel) creating this hypnotic fantasy world that can harness the viewer's imagination and emotion like no other medium, and be so simulating to so many senses in so many ways. I would love to see a real-time MRI scan of someone watching Avatar [especially in 3D] - and see exactly which neurons are firing! And a deadly powerful tool in the wrong hands - e.g. Triumph of the Will
Sorry - late night rant over !

PS re Christine's post:
>With classical music, group listening is not cool; group playing is
perhaps TFL should subsidise free piano duet sessions at tube stations?!
[ on keyboards, of course, with noise reduction headphones :D ]

:) - that might work really well - after all, something like it happened at Liverpool Street Station last year in the 'Play me, I'm Yours' art installation, where pianos were parked at various venues in cities for anyone to use.
Apparently it's happening again this summer  :)

 

you mean like this :D http://dl.dropbox.com/u/265464/playme.jpg