Upon reading Pauline Oliveros Sonic Meditations, catching up on some of the materials that slipped through the cracks in the early stages of my first year, whilst I was still sorting out my move to london. Pauline references Muzak in ‘Introduction ii’,
“All societies admit the power of music or sound. Attempts to control what is heard in the community are universal. For instance, music in the
church has always been limited to particular forms and styles in accordance with the decrees of the Church Fathers. Music in the courts has been
controlled through the tastes of patrons. Today Muzak is used to increase or stimulate consumption in merchandising establishments.
Sonic Meditations are an attempt to return the control of sound to the individual alone, and within groups especially for humanitarian purposes;
specifically healing.”
An indicator for me that Oliveros too, alongisde Cage and Eno, was drawing from this change in the society’s ‘attempts to control what is heard in the community’. I find Cage’s writings playfully cold, scientific and measured but in childlike awe of the subjects he homed in on. In my essay I talk about how it’s possible to trace his creation of 4,33 to an article a few years prior where he talks of submitting a silent recording to the Muzak company as a joke and was fearful of what Muzak meant for social spaces. His critique and subsequent fascination of Sound seemed to be linked to societal fears and a rejection of a increasingly commercialised world. I am interested in his politics, and what his thoughts were on sort of capitalist influenced art like Warhol that seemed to embrace these types of changes. Eno seems to be equal parts Warhol/Cage – whose Ambient music in my eyes seemed to be solely a sort of attempt to turn his music into some sort of commodity or feeling. Muzak 2.0, he was not opposed to Muzak, he just thought it could be better. Cage thought it could be better by not existing – or being more like Satie’s Furniture Music of which he was known for performing.
I have found Oliveros’ Deep Listening excercises as somewhat new age-y in tone drifting on an axis between Sound Theory and Wellness, sounding as a meditative practice and in these introductory texts even claiming that prolonged engagement with deep listening could have physical healing effects for it’s listeners. I find this very interesting as I am a massive fan of New Age music, something that if I could’ve expanded on Muzak in a longer essay would have definitely liked to touch on. New Age’s agenda when it became popular in the 70s seemed to be a sort of rejection of western thought, sometimes successfully and maybe other times more voyeuristic. In terms of a global sonic cultures topic – New Age is one that could firmly be related back to any culture using music as healing. Chanting comes to mind. There is a sort of dichotomy where healing music sort of became a product within capitalism which I find very interesting. Commodification of sound and atmospheres is Muzak’s bread and butter and New Age as a recorded format doesn’t seem too far off whilst the intentions are maybe vastly different.