MUZAK

The term “muzak tends to be associated today with passionless background music. The word was invented by general George Squier, who formed the Muzak Company in the USA after developing the idea of creating music for office environments as a means of increasing productivity. He named his business by merging the word music with his other favorite company, Kodak. Squier patented the transmission of background music - records played via phonographs over electrical lines - in the 1920’s, and muzak became increasingly popular through the ‘20s and ‘30s, when the company started piping gentle music into the first elevators in America in order to soothe the fears of the people inside them. Today, the company is still going strong, pumping muzak into boutiques, food chains, and offices all around the world. Approximately 90 million people listen to muzak daily.

QUOTES
Read what famous composers have said about music.

Gustav Mahler
If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.

J.S. Bach
“Its easy to play any musical instrument: All you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument plays itself.”

Aaron Copland
“The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, “Is there a meaning to music?” My answer would be, “yes.” And “Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?”, my answer to that would be, “No.””

Igor Stravinsky
“Music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the co-ordination between man and time.

Oscar Hammerstein II
“All the sounds on the Earth are like music.”

Claude Debussy
“Music is the silence between the notes”

Ludwig van Beethoven
“Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.”

John Lennon
“Music is everybody’s possession. Only publishers think that people own it.”