Infernal music

 There was a time when no business person in their right mind would put up a store, a shop or a restaurant without investing in “background” music system. In a society where music always sets the mood or influences the ambience, background music has always been a must!

 In the early days, the music was generally light jazz or pop music that was easy on the ears. Eventually people started to scrimp on buying cassette taps and later CDs, so the cost conscious shifted to stereo FM where you always had the latest tunes without having to buy the album.

 Unfortunately as music tends to be always modern and “young,” a generational and technical gap soon developed between modern pop music on FM versus what was market appropriate in terms of background music. Sadly what was originally intended to be soothing mood music that relaxed you to spend enough money at the stores has now turned into nothing short of being infernal noise.

 I have been to quite a number of stores where I planned on buying some items but within a few minutes of exposure to loud inappropriate music, I simply decided to walk out because the music was simply disruptive of the buying or dining experience. Many business owners who tend to leave their stores or businesses in the hands of sales clerks don’t pay much attention to this or have probably become so accustomed to such.

 But being absentee business owners they don’t realize just how much lost sales they incur because no one realized or monitored the loud and disturbing music that is no longer in the background but drills at your ears and thumps at your chest like a Gorilla shooing you out of the stores.  

 This problem is quite common in many fastfood outlets where the service crew are generally young students who will always choose a station “they” like and are totally clueless about what the correct background music is suppose to be. It’s rather unfortunate that even franchise owners miss this crucial factor considering they invest so many millions to buy a successful system but that system does not include a playlist of market appropriate music.

 If you want a clear idea or example of the “worst way” to use music in a place of business just visit the nearest audio/video store. How on earth can buyers appreciate the music you’re selling if the store is playing two different albums on two different sound systems while another two video monitors are playing two different movies all at high volume, while all the employees are shouting in order to communicate with each other.

 As I recall, none of the record stores I visited abroad ever played loud music because they would immediately be reported to the police for disturbing the peace or causing alarm. Those stores had music but only background music and not noisemakers as we have in the Philippines.

 Last Thursday, I was intent on buying a few CDs of new young artists so I went to the Rockwell Power Plant Mall. Being an “off” hour, I figured I would have the luxury of listening to the albums leisurely and make my selections from there. To my utter frustration, the clerk decided to pump the volume on the store system, which forced other clerks to start shouting instead of talking. Even with headphones clamping down on my ears, my listening experience was so disrupted that I simply gave back the CDs to a store clerk, but not before informing them that their oversight cost them several sales that morning.

 This little piece may seem so trivial in relation to politics and other pressing social issue, but it is a serious attempt at reminding “investors” that after all the time and money put in to build up a business, you could lose sales as well as customers simply by not paying attention to little details such as background music or overwhelming noise.

 This is one reason why I never returned to a really nice hotel in Cebu City. This particular place of business was truly nice and the staff and their facilities could spoil you rotten. But on my last stay, when all I wanted to do was get some rest after a grueling week of community work, I found myself stuck in a room with the thumping beat of a Karaoke playing 22 floors below in a nearby barangay.

Can you believe that! Several hundred million pesos were spent building a world-class tourist facility that contributes so much money to the barangay defeated by an idiot with a boom box!