Don't get me wrong. I like almost every type of music except rap and hip hop. I love composing classical music! Elevator Muzak is at the bottom of my list now, below rap and hip hop.
I have spent way too much time on ignore -- I mean, hold, during the COVID 19 outbreak, waiting for doctors, restaurants, Amazon.... Muzak has become a 5 letter, 4 letter word in my vocabulary.
Today, I was placed on ignore once again, and to my delight, the radio station that suddenly came through my phone speaker was playing Disco music! Joy! Bliss! I love disco music! Maybe I'm just old school, or perhaps growing up in the '70s did it, but I was rather disappointed when the nurse came back on and interrupted the song
Why is it, when I like the song., eg. Last Dance by Donna Summer, it's interrupted. But if it's Lambchop with The Song That Never Ends (forgive me Sheri Lewis, but that song was DUMB) it just goes on and on and on....???
Comments
Music without soul
I share your horror of elevator music. I don't seem able to filter it out
like normal people do and it tears its insipid claws through my brain
until I can physically escape it. And speaking of filters,
the Muzak Corporation has a special filter that sucks
all the soul and humanity out of a song before
it can officially be called Muzak.
Here's some Muzak with the soul-filter switched off,
and David Byrne pushing all the buttons on
a big Wurlitzer electric organ as he plays a
triptych of snazzy lil' original compositions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO_dBqOP3Jo
Mmmmmm, toe-tappin' good!
~hugs, Veronica
Well shit, I guess it really CAN happen here..,
.
It can be even worse
Imagine being woken at 02:45 by a text arriving (my bad for not muting the phone). The text is from your bank saying that someone has tried to setup a direct debit on your account and was this on your authorisation. Bleary eyed, you respond 'No'. A few minutes later another text arrives which says that someone from the fraud dept at the bank will call you during office hours that day.
Later that day, the call comes in and instead of being able to speak to a human, you are put on hold. Doh! They called you and you are put on hold??? WTF.
So you get the Muzak. One tune that never ends apart from every 12 seconds the burble is interrupted by a recorded message saying that they were very busy and perhaps your enquiry could be answered via their website. The message lasts longer than the Muzak.
So you put your phone on speaker and carry on with whatever it was that you were doing. The Muzak drones on and on. A never ending collection of notes interrupted by an equally dull and monotonous voice repeating the same cr*p message over and over again.
Is it any wonder that people are worried about their mental health? That experience alone is almost enough to send you crazy.
After two hours I gave up and hung up the call.
Muzak and this sort of experience is eventually going to be responsible for people ending it all. and they call this progress??
Not in my book it ain't.
Samantha
have you
got the banking issue sorted now though?
I've had similar messages in the past which resulted in them freezing my account, good on one level but darn annoying never the less.
Madeline Anafrid Bell
No sure if it is sorted
but the account isn't frozen.
What puzzled me was that the Direct Debit was supposedly for a regular payment to a charity.
Samantha
Music is fun
I truly enjoy going around work humming some catchy little tune around others just loud enough for them to hear it, usually something really stupid, like the oscar meyer bologna song or something similar.
Then later I smile when someone comes by and tells me, "You #$#F&**!" that tune you were humming has been stuck in my head all day!"
It's those little pleasures in life that make it worth living :)
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
I have a friend who, if you
I have a friend who, if you start singing a song, then stop, has to finish it.
For myself, I believe it's something to do with autism, but if I hear a song, it will be days before I get it out of my mind. I guess I'm going to have to go through I'm Henry the 8th I am, and see how many verses are just like the first. Just to see how many times it will go before I can get it out.
Hugs!
Rosemary
Cadence
The problem with that song is it doesn't end on the tonic. It's a failed cadence, which invites a continuation. It sounds to me like it ends on a diminished seventh, which is like discovering you have a fishhook embedded in your face. You have to do SOMETHING! :)
The cure, believe it or not, is to sing, "It's a Small World." When you sing it, each time you come through the chorus, add another "small". :)
By the time you get up to six or seven "smalls", you will have accidentally hit the tonic on the chorus and provided an ending to the song!
Then you can stop. :) Science is wonderful, ain't it?
I wrote an earworm once. It was called, "Ice Cream Has No Bones" and I will NOT sing it for you. Go listen to Worm Quartet's song of the same name if you're feeling jeapardous. My ICHNB was written on thirds instead of fifths, so it has no cadence at all. Not even a fake one. :)
Think of video game music with lyrics. Every line that should have ended V/I ended iii/vi°, like a Jormungandr Serpent.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
I'm not sure what you mean.
I'm not sure what you mean. I just played Henry the 8th on piano, and the last "am" is on the tonic, or C with a C chord. From there, it goes to a G minor 7th, then back to C. (I transposed it to C when I was trying it. I'd have to listen to it to see what it's actually in. LOL)
Those, of course, are simplified chords, but still, that's the idea. I haven't messed with cadences by name for a long time. LOL. I was looking up a N6 (Neopolitan 6th) chord the other day because I missed my theory class on it, and I've never really spent much time trying to figure it out. I read the chapter in my theory book, and suddenly, realized. "Oh! That's when I do this." Apparently, I've been using N6 chords for years, without realizing it. :-D
Anyway, I suppose, If I wanted to do something different at the end of Henry the 8th, I'd decend by 3rds every two beats. On "Henry" start with a 1 chord for 2 beats. Then a 6, then a 4, then a 2. Then on the next Henry, 1, then a V7, then back to 1. If I remember the definition of a cadence, however, V7 to 1 Is quite common.
Hugs!
Rosemary
Well...
It doesn't FEEL like it ends on the tonic. And I can't hear it in the recordings I have access to. Then again, I'm not great at hearing chords unless I'm actually sitting at a keyboard and trying to play what I hear.
But V (or V7) to I is classic authentic cadence and should feel like a definite ending.
Neapolitan chords can add dynamism to a composition and are actually fairly common in popular music transitions. In a major scale, they make a chromatic major triad which is itself not dissonant but has a dissonant relationship with the major key. They sound swet but surprising. Neat stuff. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
I hear chords very well. I
I hear chords very well. I can usually play a song the 2nd or 3rd time running through when I'm learning it. I can usually predict what it's going to do the first time through, simply through leading chords. That's always helped me immeasurably when I've acted as a church pianist, or even a choir leader, or conductor.
You said it sounded like a flat 7th to you. a minor 7th or a 6th? I knew someone in college who insisted that each time she played a 1 Chord, she played it as a 6th. Bugged the living daylights out of me, but she loved the sound. But, then a gain, I like the sound of a major 7th, so who am I to judge? LOL
Hugs!
Rosemary
Dim7
The sixth button row on an accordion. :) In semi-tones, 0,3,6,9. Root, minor 3rd, tritone, major sixth (=dim7). It's a jarring sound when you expect something else but it makes a great transitional chord.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
when
I'm out riding I have my own version of muzak in my head - which is fine all the time it keeps running through different tracks but if it gets stuck - I tell ya, 4 hours of Britney Spears One More Time can send you over the top! And its quite random, it'll be tunes I actually dislike that it gets stuck on and then i'll randomly screech out a line or two to all and sundry. When I start bellowing out 'The Hills Are Alive' riding across the Cotswolds you know I've got it bad! And as for 'The Chain', well that goes on and on and on..........
Madeline Anafrid Bell
When you start singing The
When you start singing The Hills are Alive, are you singing about the sound of music, or the sound of Griswolds? ;-)
Hugs!
Rosemary
Machines can be earworms too
Years ago I spent ten hours working across the aisle from a programable turret punch that I swear was playing yellow rose of texas over and over as the rhythm was definitely there and the pattern of different punches hitting and cutting the steel carried the tune. I was ready to sabotage that damn 400,000 dollar machine by lunchtime. Thank goodness the order was run out before my next shift.