I agree with Mirko...elevator music, as well as new age, is designed to sooth the nerves. This may be good in some situations, like after a hard day at work or a really temperamental rehearsal.
But when it is combined with an educational system in disarray, serving a population that has a difficult time engaging in any sort of critical thinking process, it becomes offensive, as it can be considered to represent the effort of a power structure to maintain its control of the masses (there, I've related this to singing, ha ha).
There is an amusing scene in the middle of the Super Mario Brothers movie where the 2 heroes escape an elevator full of bad guy guards by getting them to sway back & forth (and waltz) to elevator music. While silly on the surface, it has a deeper significance if you consider that Brave New World uses music, along with Soma, to calm the people....
It is offensive to me when those who control the availability of music assume they know what is good for me, or what I will like, and restrict any recordings (or printed music) that don't meet their ideas of acceptability.
You should see the periodic rants and discussions that crop up on Choralist and ChoralTalk about this subject....
Anyway, the answer to your specific question about subverting deep emotions is yes, at least for me.
This is what happens when I get 600+ messages behind....
Paul Sinasohn Founding Director, BankAmerica Singers Baritone/Manager, Vocal Interchange pauls AT commerceroute DOT com
-----Original Message----- From: Tako Oda [mailto:toda@m...] Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2000 10:02 AM To: vocalist-temporary@egroups.com Subject: [vocalist-temporary] Re: So Inoffensive it's offensive
On Thu, 5 Oct 2000, Mirko Ruckels wrote: > I agree with the idea that 'overly' pleasant music is corny, and kenny G in > particular is very high ranking in this skill. I often see it as being "so > inoffensive that it's offensive"
What is it about inoffensive music that riles you so? Do you feel it subtly subverts people's ability to have deep emotions?
Tako
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