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bizarre classical music blaring at Brixton tube

trabuquera

trabuquera

Modesty Bag
They've had orchestral classical music playing at Brixton tube the last few days.

Is this to inoculate us all with the Christmas spirit?
Or will it be a year-round effort to try and make life so unbearable for beggars / adolescents / evil-doers that they will not be hanging around in the station any more?
(if you don't believe me - piped classical music has been proved to be effective in keeping asbo-worthy types away, I'm sure it's been tried in other places in the UK already.)

Or maybe it's just to try and distract from the banging & crashing of the construction work.

anyone have the inside scoop?
I love it, personally. It's got that edge of madness to it that suits Brixton down to the ground. Nothing says SW9 like Rachmaninov + crackheads!
 
dervish mentioned this yesterday, said it goes right into the station. he quite liked it :) he said it was quality music rather thank lift music.
 
Oh yeah i noticed that! it's a tad bit loud for my taste but good all the same. Cannot we have some ska instead? :D
 
I rather like it too - in fact I was meaning to start a thread about it this morning. I wondered if it was meant to calm us all down, and the ticket hall does seem a bit more serene this week. But the beggar-be-gone theory sounds quite plausible...
 
I was gonna do a thread about this too - was wondering whether I'd started hallucinating classical music or whether it was in fact true...
I reckon it's an attempt to calm everybody down. And I like it :)
 
trabuquera said:
Or will it be a year-round effort to try and make life so unbearable for beggars / adolescents / evil-doers that they will not be hanging around in the station any more?

QUOTE]

You're right - that's excatly what it is for - they have it on other stations too, esepcially where they have an issue of "undesirables" hanging about - like you said, as research shows.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks God someone else noticed - I thought I had an extra special hangover when I heard that this morning :confused:

Twas very nice though - all the guards seemed to be smiling for a change and the music wasn't bad (although personally I would have preferred a bit of John Adams or Phillip Glass :cool: )
 
Hmmm....
Alex: No. No! NO! Stop it! Stop it, please! I beg you! This is sin! This is sin! This is sin! It's a sin, it's a sin, it's a sin!
Dr. Brodsky: Sin? What's all this about sin?
Alex: That! Using Ludwig van like that! He did no harm to anyone. Beethoven just wrote music!
Click to expand...
 
They ought to get some extension speakers and start playing it at the entrance to Electric Avenue once the markets stopped...
 
My recollection is that the first place the idea was tried was the Metro in Newcastle. I was living there shortly afterwards and I was certainly treated to snatches of Vivaldi at Cullercoats station when I was there. Mind you this was about two o'clock in the afternoon and the place was deserted.
 
I worked at Metronet - briefly - earlier on this year (what a joke that place was)

As part of a crime reduction strategy on another line - i forget which one, but it was one with a fair amount of overland platforms as they attract more crime - they were trialling piping Classical music - particularly into waiting rooms etc.

One of the reasoning was little herbets won't want to spend time tagging a room playing Classical Music. They seemed to think it worked.

It was relatively inexpensive so they must now be rolling it out to the sub surface lines.

I quite like it.
 
There was music at westminster tube station today but it was really bizarre - they kept playing snatches of pieces really loudly then turning it down again. Perhaps they were testing the system - if not they're just being odd.
 
fanta said:
Jazz would be better.
Click to expand...

From friends' hastiness to find their coats when I put on the CD, I have a suspicion that Don Cherry's Symphony for Improvisers may be the aural equivalent of a water cannon in dispersing ne'er do wells.
 
I'm not really a classical fan but even I thought that it gave quite a nice feel to the tube - a bit like making it into a posh shop. :D
 
IntoStella said:
Wot? More in keeping with the 'edgy' urban environment? :confused: :p
Click to expand...

No just more relaxing. :(

that classical stuff sounds vaguely martial. :mad:

Oh all fuckin right then - some bach violin concertos! :)
 
Bob said:
I'm not really a classical fan but even I thought that it gave quite a nice feel to the tube - a bit like making it into a posh shop. :D
Click to expand...

The gentrification of Brixton continues apace...
[gets coat]
 
Any attempt to drive people out of a public place that aren't actually breaking the law is quite oppressive. If a train company wants to play music in their station that's up to them and their customers, but if it's audible from outside to the extent that it deters people from staying near the entrance, then they're just being nuisance neighbours.

The Co-op also have a system in many of their shops where they have a speaker mounted on the outside of the building and loud classical music that is controllable by the staff inside, apparently to deter "youths" from "hanging around". Quite how deliberately trying to harrass people who are in a public place squares with their much-vaunted ethical policies I have no idea.

But I ask the question: just whose street is it? I don't remember it belonging to any train company or supermarket.
 
untethered said:
Any attempt to drive people out of a public place that aren't actually breaking the law is quite oppressive. If a train company wants to play music in their station that's up to them and their customers, but if it's audible from outside to the extent that it deters people from staying near the entrance, then they're just being nuisance neighbours.

The Co-op also have a system in many of their shops where they have a speaker mounted on the outside of the building and loud classical music that is controllable by the staff inside, apparently to deter "youths" from "hanging around". Quite how deliberately trying to harrass people who are in a public place squares with their much-vaunted ethical policies I have no idea.

But I ask the question: just whose street is it? I don't remember it belonging to any train company or supermarket.
Click to expand...

unless i am mistaken the underground broadcasts are only within their stations.
 
I'd hate to have to work in an environment where I couldn't choose the music :p

I once walked out at the start of a "stress management" course when the over-paid consultant thought Mozart's extremely annoying clarinet concerto was "relaxing" :mad:
 
Guardian article here - it seems the initiative works to the tune of 33% less crime.

They've had this on the Metro up in Newcastle for a while now.
 
It ought to be possible to have a little fun with this, you know, playing arias that everybody will think "oh, that sounds lovely" but are actually about heartbreak, murder and so on.
 
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