Blasting Mozart to drive criminals away

There’s a kernel of truth to all of these suppositions, but some have been taken far out of context (the Mozart effect is a perfect example). And all of them go back to a fundamental idea about music that dates back to antiquity: the idea that this non­verbal art form has subliminal powers that can influence us in ways we aren’t quite aware of or can’t quite control.

Yet, using classical music to fight crime is not tapping into classical music’s inherent powers as much as its social attributes. Playing music in any space redefines that space, much as painting a mural on the side of a building affects the space around it: It is transformed from a no-man’s-land to a place with an identity, a kind of self-awareness. And music, perhaps more than any other art form today, is a tool of self-identification. For many people, especially young people, the kind of music you like is intimately related to how you dress, whom you hang out with, who you are. If the music that’s playing in a given space is not your music, then the space is not yours either. This is one reason that certain populations tend to avoid the concert hall, the same populations that 7-Eleven is trying to drive away.

(Ted Crow/For The Washington Post)

Indeed, playing classical music to clear out public spaces is an act of supreme elitism: an attempt to “civilize” a space by making it unpleasant to people whose tastes differ from your own.

There’s nothing new about this use of music, neither is it limited to classical music. What we’re actually talking about is Muzak. Muzak sets out to improve the image of public spaces and, even more to the point, tap into music’s subliminal powers by inducing specific moods in its listeners, moods that will supposedly put them in the properly receptive frame of mind to consume whatever it is the space in question is selling.

“Founders of piped music and the science of how music affects the behavior of customers,” runs the tag line on the Muzak Web site. And its various playlists — “Uptown,” “Moodscape,” “Intermezzo” (guess which one is the classical one) — come with descriptions of the moods evoked (“simultaneously casual and elegant”) and suggestions as to which space might be appropriate for each list. (“Intermezzo,” the classical list, is recommended for banks, fine-dining establishments, museums, medical facilities and grocery stores, among others.)

By putting classical music in public spaces, stores and local authorities are effectively marketing those spaces and trying to induce people to behave more like model citizens. But in this context, the line between “classical music” and “Muzak” often becomes sketchy. If one thinks that Muzak is the default source for many of the places using classical music in this way, people’s aversion to it can be seen in a different light. Indeed, some sources report that Barry Manilow is as effective as Mozart in driving away unwanted groups of teens.

Recorded music in a public space has become a commodity, not an art. That people experience it as repellent may say little about their actual interaction with the music. When you’re passing through a space such as a bus terminal, music, however pleasing or noxious, tends to blend into the background. When you’re sitting still in the same space, the sound demands your attention — particularly when it’s a sound as dramatic as the Schubert trio. (Baroque music evidently has the best calming effect.)

The Schubert trio I was hearing was indeed part of a Muzak playlist, and it was, evidently, an undoctored recording. According to a Port Authority spokesman, Steve Coleman, the station plays classical music to please travelers, not to control vagrancy. But in that windowless, ugly space, with pigeons strutting across the grimy floor, announcements blaring unintelligibly over the loudspeaker and the sound system giving the music a harsh edge, as if impaling it on a jagged chunk of metal, my sympathies were all with the homeless people that such music is widely thought of as attempting to repel. If I’d had a choice, it would have driven me away, too.