Bach at the Burger King

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/bach-at-the-burger-king/#!

by wellokthen • 8 years ago

93 51 8 years ago

creaghpatr• 8 years ago

Today, most young people encounter classical music not as a popular art form but as a class signifier, a set of tropes in a larger system of encoded communication that commercial enterprises have exploited to remap our societal associations with orchestral sound.

Most young people? I'd venture that most children who attend US public school encounter classical music in K-5 at some point.

The average American does not recognize the opening chords of The Four Seasons as the sound of spring but the sound of snobbery.

Rolled my eyes here. We're talking about Burger King, not a country club.

Edit: I disagree with the conclusion but the article is pretty interesting with the history of 'weaponized' classical music.

internetman554• 8 years ago

+1 I heard the whole four seasons in middle school and we analyzed them

jpmoyn• 8 years ago

The point they are making is that most of America is turned off by classical and baroque music. Whether or not most children encountered it in school is less relevant than the fact that most children don't like it. I think the same could be said about the average American. I don't think the people who browse hacker news are the average American.

kpil• 8 years ago

My theory is that classical music is so much complex so you literally have to level up your musical listening skills to make any sense of it.

Also they dynamics is different, typically a piece is building up some sort of context that adds to the experience - even more so than modern music - if you get home and someone blasts the final parts of a symphony on the stereo, it's easily perceived as just a cacophony of irritating tunes. It might have been enjoyable if you had been listening from the beginning.

It seems to me that a lot of recent songs reduce complexity even further - It seems common now with songs that are basically just a repeating theme with minor variations. I'm not saying it's bad, but it doesn't really require much effort to understand the structure, and it probably makes classical music seem even more alien.

megaman22• 8 years ago

The only time I ever had music class in school was K-5. It was a lot of standing in a row singing out of terrible song books and playing Hot Cross Buns on the recorder. That rather understandably soured most of us on music.

Classical music would have been a far more stimulating exposure.

kolpa2• 8 years ago

Playing Beethoven's 5th on a recorder might not have been any better.

electricslpnsld• 8 years ago

Today, most young people encounter classical music not as a popular art form but as a class signifier

I'd wager that most people encounter classical music whenever John Williams lifts Dvorak/Holst/etc.

vixen99• 8 years ago

Reminded of Shaw's Devil in Man and Superman:

"At every one of those concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. Well, there is the same thing in heaven. A number of people sit there in glory, not because they are happy, but because they think they owe it to their position to be in heaven. "

wil4212• 8 years ago

Handel’s Water Music willows over the platforms of Atlanta’s MARTA subway system.

I ride Marta to work 3 days a week and to the airport when I travel. There has never been any classical music playing at the stations I’ve stopped at or passed through.

I was in NYC a couple weeks ago and never heard it either. I went to the Penn Station stop mentioned in the article too.

pitt1980• 8 years ago

Maybe its an off-hours tactic?

wil4212• 8 years ago

I’ll have to ask an employee next time I see one.

exegete• 8 years ago

I don't think they mean the Penn Station subway stop but at Penn Station itself. I can't recall if there was classical music when I was taking the train. Definitely do have classical music at the Port Authority Bus Terminal though. I find it a little bit relaxing while everyone is in a rush to get to work or get home.

cdoxsey• 8 years ago

Penn Station consistently plays music but its not always classical or baroque music.

Contra the article I don't think it discourages anyone from loitering. The station is full of homeless people asking for money and late at night there's a very large number of folks sleeping in the hallways.

Much more its the armed guards stationed everywhere that prevent disturbances and remove people.

FWIW the characterization of the station as a haven for the rich is not particularly apt either. There are tens of thousands of commuters going through this station every day. Rich, poor, black, white, young and old, from all walks of life. Most of them are just hoping their train doesn't get cancelled so they can get home.

Barrin92• 8 years ago

Very interesting article and it really is sad that classical music which has a lot to offer for anybody is being used as a deterrent for 'delinquents' or class signifier.

I have made a similar experience as a semi-competitive chess player. As a child, I never perceived chess as an outlandish hobby. Chess clubs are full of people from all walks of life. But nowadays especially (maybe after enough movies used chess players as a trite metaphor for 'genius mastermind') people seem more often associate chess with that kind of stuff.

It strips something from the activity itself if it becomes associated with certain exclusive groups or classes. It's also happening to healthy nutrition or sports which are increasingly seen simply as signifiers of elite status and optimised lifestyles, rather than communal, shared activities.

Mediterraneo103• 8 years ago

I personally got a vibe that chess is an “upper-class elite thing” just because of the chess books section at my local bookstore. 30-40€ for a book on just one particular aspect of strategy, and there are dozens of books out there to read.

Yes, I know that players are not advised to read such books until they are relatively high in the rankings, but the prices of those books do tell you that even if a local chess club is open to everyone regardless of class, if you want to continue to progress in the game you’ll have to shell out money.

(Of course, things are easier these days because virtually every chess book every published has now been scanned and uploaded to filesharing communities. I get the impression that the Russian chess community, most of whom either cannot obtain or cannot afford the books, have come together in a joint effort to get this done.)

internetman554• 8 years ago

I'm pretty bad at chess but I think you could probably spend less than $100 and have all the technical materials you need to get quite good at chess (one book on middle games, tactic puzzles collection (software or book), endgame book, maybe opening book) and probably only really need to study the tactical one for quite a while. My friend went to paid chess tutoring programs as a kid and said they just solved tactics puzzles and then played each other

kolpa2• 8 years ago

Why do you need to progress in the game? Most people play games they enjoy and don't feel a need to progress to elite levels. It's fine if you want to become elite, but not at all necessary.

darepublic• 8 years ago

In my city at least chess is not an upper-class thing. Most of the dedicated chess players (I'm talking international masters) make a modest living teaching the game. Very easy to be a grandmasters in chess and be relatively low income, if you don't publish books or find some other source of revenue.

mertd• 8 years ago

It isn't the classical music at that particular BK. The speakers are very loud. Any sound would do. The homeless just camp across the street in front of the library. So it solves nothing. BK probably gets more business at the expense of library.

Wistar• 8 years ago

Not only are the speakers loud, they are those PA-type speakers with a limited frequency-response and a piercing, gritty sound — fatiguing to listen to.

brightsize• 8 years ago

A counter-example from fiction comes to mind: Alex, the protagonist and uber-hoodlum in A Clockwork Orange, can't get enough of classical music, especially old "Ludwig Van".

https://youtu.be/cQCQRLA05AA

If your business has a Droog problem this is probably the wrong approach.

kbar13• 8 years ago

right but a clockwork orange is a work of fiction whereas these are real-world examples.

frabbit• 8 years ago

Agreed. That was immediately the example of which I thought. The article makes no effort to distinguish whether it is the genre of music or simply its insistent and pervasive high volume that is unpleasant. I do hope it that it all backfires and a wave of revolutions are inspired by this aural vandalism.

djhworld• 8 years ago

A similar tactic has been deployed here in the UK in branches of McDonalds, with classical music played to discourage groups of youths from causing trouble

tlholaday• 8 years ago

Theodore Gioia's alliteration in the sixth paragraph delights me.

SOLAR_FIELDS• 8 years ago

I would be interested to see the differences for different genres of music. How much crime/loitering would happen blasting house music vs classical vs classic rock, for instance

_red• 8 years ago

Why didn’t you include rap?

facetube2• 8 years ago

Why didn't he include gothic-industrial post-punk jam bands?

fenwick67• 8 years ago

Well I can tell you what they played to torture prisoners in Guantanamo included a lot of heavy metal and the Barney "I love you" song supposedly

trav42252• 8 years ago

When I visited Seattle a few times back in the '90s, there was a McDonald's, I believe somewhere vaguely near near Lenora and 4th, that used to blast country music outside overnight, ostensibly to repel drug activity from their storefront area.

bendbro• 8 years ago

It still exists, and it's referred to as McStabby's. A Singaporean friend of mine didn't believe the name until he encountered a traveller in the restroom showing off his rainbow colored switchblade.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SeattleWA/comments/73wlqo/mcstabbys...

trav42252• 8 years ago

Yikes!

kccqzy• 8 years ago

If we continue to weaponize classical music in this way, making it ubiquitous, will it ever be the case that people simply become conditioned and subconciously tune it out? Then it wouldn't have the effect of repelling undesirable behavior any more.

convolvatron• 8 years ago

I have a massive problem with drunken 'laborers' hanging out outside my window from 6:30am (corner store opening) until noon. shouting, dancing, singing, fighting, laughing. as loud as you can imagine, shouts echoing back and forth between the buildings. nothing is really that amusing, I think the act of shouting itself is whats so damn funny. if you talk to them, or berate them, they will avoid your gaze, stop for 15 seconds, and then start up again as though nothing had happened.

after years of struggling with this, enter the classical music. apparently pure poison. they proudly try to stand their ground, but you can see the suffering in their eyes. some of them used to last a couple hours, but when they leave its always at a run.

anyways, to address your point, over time sensitivity seems to increase rather than decrease. as exposure increases, lower volumes and shorter durations are required to elicit the flight response.

you would think that the more aggressive, modern composers would be more stressful. apparently, just basic baroque chamber is the least palatable. after that romantic symphonies.

there are a thousand sad things about this situation, one being that I'm losing my appreciation for the music itself.

mcguire• 8 years ago

Wouldn't think Burger Kings and subway stations would be considered the property of the rich and powerful.

In fact, this is the most snobbish and pretentious article decrying snobbery and pretense I've seen.

pstuart2• 8 years ago

Indeed. Is it really Orwellian to not want a homeless encampment in front of your business?

The author should stick to reviewing music itself, and stop whining about the "abuse" of same.

dbasedweeb• 8 years ago

There’s a weird phenomenon in life, and especially the arts, that people with a certain level of real or perceived expertise/accomplishment sometimes feel a sense of ownership over a medium. Their aesthetics start to seem a bit less like something personal, and more like what they’d enforce during a period of martial law. In the U.K. there’s a group that’s fanatically against elevator music. Oh, fair enough, but one of their leaders is against music not being performed live. He’s taken his love and appreciation of something and turned it into a burden.

My personal guess is that in some fields expertise is ultimately self-justifying. What is art after all? Whatever notable artists and critics and dealers say it is. Try that same shit in software, and you’ll lose your job. At some point the artistic type can be so thoroughly cut off from challenge to their beliefs that they feel free to impose them on society without much reflection.

PhasmaFelis• 8 years ago

It's the mission statement, not the intention, that's described as Orwellian. "Delivering services beyond those the City of San Francisco can provide" is a really weird way to say "chasing off homeless people and delinquents."

facetube2• 8 years ago

That's not what the article said.

JansjoFromIkea• 8 years ago

I saw this first at that exact burger king and honestly doesn't notice it have much of an impact on the area (there were never huge numbers of homeless directly outside it asides from around 9 waiting for the library to open) but I've seen it in a lot of places since. Wasn't even remotely close to the grossest BK in SF (the one at mission and 16th is so shabby that I'm almost in awe).

Most recently in the old shopping centre in Stratford; a place where, due to some weird zoning laws, isn't allowed to kick out homeless people. The focus is always on moving homeless.

Oddly it seems like the natural endpoint for where classical music has been positioned in society. A kind easy listening that is treated so formally it now carries a strong stuffy and oppressive aura.

internetman554• 8 years ago

I'm not really sure about the rest of the article but I would be more likely to hang out places with classical music cause I like it. So maybe even I would like Burger King more

Apocryphon• 8 years ago

So that explains the classical music played at the T-Mobile by 12 St. Station in Oakland after hours. It's across the street from a Burger King.

pietroglyph• 8 years ago

It would be interesting to see more research into weaponized music. This article offers law-enforcement anecdotes that baroque period music is "the best", but there's a lot of other variables (like speaker quality and volume) that affect how grating music (of any kind) is.

rdiddly• 8 years ago

This can't happen quite as easily with music that's still under copyright. Interestingly I find myself wondering whether stronger copyright protection -- something for which I usually don't have a whole lot of sympathy -- would at least introduce a little friction into the music appropriation machine.

Also I'm wondering what cultural associations today's music will have, far in the future after its copyrights have expired.

dEnigma• 8 years ago

I've noticed they played Vivaldi at the office of the local government in Linz, Upper Austria outside of office hours. To be precise they only play "Spring" from the "Four Seasons". I actually find it quite pleasant when just walking by, but I guess the repetition alone can be an effective deterrent to loiterers.

CryptoPunk• 8 years ago

This kind of ideologically framed over-simplification is really corrosive to culture:

>Take your delinquency elsewhere could be the subtext under every tune in the classical crime-fighting movement. It is crucial to remember that the tactic does not aim to stop or even necessarily reduce crime — but to relocate it. Moreover, such mercenary measures most often target minor infractions like vandalism and loitering — crimes that damage property, not people, and usually the property of the powerful. “[B]usiness and government leaders,” Lily Hirsch observes in Music in American Crime Prevention and Punishment, “are seizing on classical music not as a positive moralizing force, but as a marker of space.” In a strange mutation, classical music devolves from a “universal language of mankind” reminding all people of their common humanity into a sonic border fence protecting privileged areas from common crowds, telling the plebes in auditory code that “you’re not welcome here.”

It conflates deliquency with being a commoner, and implies that those who succeed in improving their station in life are somehow deserving of being predated on, at least in terms of their property, by the deliquent.

Essentially this romanticizes and rationalizes deliquency, and discourages any measure to punish it.

In truth, deliquency harms, first and foremost, the common people, whose common spaces are degraded by it. It is perpetrated by a tiny proportion of the poor. It is by no means a common characteristic of the poor.

Making the deliquent out to be victims, and synomous with common crowds, and their behaviour out to be a socially just act of balancing the class scales, is factually wrong, and has an absolutely toxic effect on society.

wink• 8 years ago

I can totally relate. I am listening to classical music at home, not too often, but maybe more than average? and I still hate it when they play it in one or two of Munich's subway stations.

Bach at the Burger King

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