Muzak

[Teasing the Korean]

Stimulus progression (1950–1960)[edit]

The company began customizing the pace and style of the music provided throughout the workday in an effort to maintain productivity.^[17] The music was programmed in 15-minute blocks, gradually getting faster in tempo and louder and brassier in instrumentation, to encourage workers to speed up their pace. Following the completion of a 15-minute segment, the music would fall silent for 15 minutes. This was partly done for technical reasons, but company-funded research also showed that alternating music with silence limited listener fatigue, and made the "stimulus" effect of Stimulus Progression more effective.

This was the time when Muzak began recording their own orchestra – actually a number of orchestras in studios around the country, indeed around the world – composed of top local studio musicians. This allowed them to strictly control all aspects of the music for insertion into specific slots in the Stimulus Progression programs.^[18][19]

A growing awareness among the public that Muzak was targeted to manipulate behavior resulted in a backlash, including accusations of being a brainwashingtechnique and court challenges in the 1950s.^{[20][better source needed]} The popularity of Muzak remained high through the mid-1960s. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first president to pump Muzak into the West Wing, and Lyndon B. Johnson owned the Muzak franchise in Austin, Texas. NASA reportedly used Muzak in many of its space missions to soothe astronauts and occupy periods of inactivity.^[21]

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muzak#Stimulus_progression_(1950–1960)

[Rabshakeh]

I always wondered what was meant by the phrase “piped music”. Was it necessary to have an actual cable?