(Restaurant Music Division)
I was reading a restaurant reviewer recently and came upon this sentence in his review: “…rock music that blasts you out of your seat doesn’t enhance an otherwise pleasant ambience”
Right on, brother.
A few weeks ago we literally fled – I believe that’s the right word, fled – from a similar restaurant when the loud heavy-metal music drove us to the door. We weren’t able to finish the meal; I just paid the bill and we left.
The word “tintinnabulation” originally meant the loud clanging of bells, but it has come to be a general term for excessive, ear-splitting noise.
I got to thinking later, if I ran a good restaurant and I wanted to provide the right kind of background music for my clients, what type of music could I use that would please everybody? Or at least, not irritate a large percentage of them?
An older couple might like the soft strains of a Mozart string quartet in the background; some might prefer for their meal the familiar melodies of Celine Dion or some similar artist; and there are those who would like what we know as “elevator music”: soothing and basically dull. But in addition, as I learned a few weeks ago, for many the music has got to be loud and clanging or it isn’t really “music.”
So, as to the question, what type of music could I as a restaurant-owner use to please everybody, the answer is simple.
There is no such thing.
I vote for trying silence. It might catch on.
What’s your opinion?
