Piped music at stations

[Esker-pades]

this is what happens when i try to be user friendly! I was looking for a non offensive term to describe how that would be one small part of a bigger thing.

I understood it. It was quite a funny management-esque phrase though!

 

[Dr_Paul]

Why not bagpipes?

Do you want to drive every passenger off the railway?

 

[Dr_Paul]

Years back one evening at Clapham Junction a lengthy freight train of long-wheelbase four-wheelers went through on platform 16, and gave a wonderful performance of musique concrète as it squealed slowly on the reverse curves: a deafening barrage of vaguely rhythmic howling and screeching. Platforms 16 and 17 were unlit in those days, and people on other platforms were covering their ears, wondering what this astonishing racket was and where it was coming from. I think that this might well have put a stop to any anti-social behaviour had there been any.

 

[Domeyhead]

As someone who listens to classical music by choice I found ths light music once played on the Waterloo concourse as pleasant and de-stressing. I suspect that even amongst autistic and aspergic people opinion would be divided so when someone says "As an autistic person I ...." suggesting that they are speaking for an entire group I would suggest that they are not and would do well to remember that.

 

[Tio Terry]

Back in BR days, Stations like Waterloo and Liverpool Street played marching music in the morning to encourage people to move briskly out of the station and soothing classical music in the evenings in the hope that this would calm those affected by cancellations and late running!

 

[61653 HTAFC]

As someone who listens to classical music by choice I found ths light music once played on the Waterloo concourse as pleasant and de-stressing. I suspect that even amongst autistic and aspergic people opinion would be divided so when someone says "As an autistic person I ...." suggesting that they are speaking for an entire group I would suggest that they are not and would do well to remember that.

Well said. I've commented on this thread about Huddersfield bus station's use of piped music to deter anti-social behaviour and how I find the volume of both that and the announcements to be so high that it discourages me from using the facility if I can avoid it. I didn't cite my ASD diagnosis because it isn't relevant. I don't find it too loud because I'm on the spectrum, I find it too loud because it's too damn loud!

The type of music isn't relevant either: at Hudds bus station they presumably use a particularly cheap recording of generic classical music, but even if they were playing my own mixtape I wouldn't want anyone else subjected to it, as my tastes can be a bit leftfield at times. That's what headphones are for!

In terms of coping with the "quirks" of ASD, I may fare better than many because of a late diagnosis which meant I had to develop my own "toolkit" to deal with those things. I certainly don't want every business I visit to feel as if they have to bend over backwards to cater to the specifics of my condition. If find myself being overwhelmed by excessive background noise or whatever, it's up to me to remove myself from that situation so that I can compose myself. The rest of society has no obligation to accommodate me beyond the same allowances they give everyone else.

 

[Esker-pades]

I suspect that even amongst autistic and aspergic people opinion would be divided so when someone says "As an autistic person I ...." suggesting that they are speaking for an entire group I would suggest that they are not and would do well to remember that.

It is. There is no universal opinion on anything.
I haven't seen such posts on this thread, but it does happen.

 

[Ian Hardy]

I know this is a railway forum, but in the gents loos of most Transport for London Bus Stations they play classical music, when I asked a friend of mine who was a London Buses area manager, he said that research had been undertaken which discovered that the type of people who are likely to cause mischief leave because they cannot stand that type of music, so the toilets do not get vandalised and have to be closed therefore inconveniencing me, I do however find it quite amusing peeing with Handel's Water Music playing in the background.

TfL have also put blue filters on lights so that drug addicts cannot inject themselves as they cannot find their veins with blue lighting.

On the Tyne & Wear Metro they play classical music at all the stations for the same reasons (or they did when I was last up there).

I support this sort of thing if it means that the undesirable types go elsewhere to make their mischief, rather than vandalising public transport facilities, or making users feel unsafe by hanging around there.

However I do wish the recordings were of a better quality as some of them sound awful.

 

[Terry Tait]

Edmonton Green bus station used have classical music a few years ago and it really made the place feel much more pleasant, I really don't understand why it was stopped.

 

[AlbertBeale]

Edmonton Green bus station used have classical music a few years ago and it really made the place feel much more pleasant, I really don't understand why it was stopped.

Maybe because it was recognised as a form of pollution, like graffiti - only worse, because you can't not hear sound while you can - sometimes at least - look in a different direction and not see something you find disturbing. The right not to have one's environment polluted - whether by smells, sounds, sights - is surely a more fundamental right than the right to force pollution that you happen to like on other people, irrespective of the unpleasant effect it has on them.

 

[Meerkat]

Classical music is less polluting than a load of scratter vandals....

 

[kevjs]

You can please everyone now . Supermarkets now have autism hours , lanyards .

I hope most are a bit more sensitive than my local supermarket - come 10 O'Clock you go from a pleasant lighting level and no background music to full brightness and excessively loud and awful music in an instant.

Could at least do what cinemas and bars do - slowly turn up the lights and then the music!