Elevator music, also known as lift music (in the Commonwealth), piped music or muzak, refers to the gentle instrumental arrangements of popular music designed for playing in shopping malls, grocery stores, department stores, public toilets, telephone systems (while the caller is on hold), cruise ships, airports, doctors' and dentists' offices and, of course, elevators. An instrumental is a Musical composition or recording without Lyrics or any other sort of Vocal music; all of the Music is produced by Popular music is Music belonging to any of a number of musical styles that are accessible to the general public and are disseminated by one or more Music is an Art form in which the medium is Sound organized in Time. A shopping mall or shopping centre is a building or set of buildings that contain Retail units with interconnecting Walkways enabling visitors A grocery store is a store established primarily for the Retailing of Food. A department store is a Retail establishment which specializes in selling a wide range of products without a single predominant merchandise line. See also Toilet A washroom, public toilet, public convenience, comfort room, toilet room, bathroom, water closet Basic principle A traditional landline telephone system also known as "plain old telephone service" (POTS, commonly handles both signaling and audio information Music on hold (MOH refers to the business practice of playing pre-recorded Music to fill the silence that would be heard by Telephone callers that have been A cruise ship or cruise liner is a Passenger ship used for pleasure voyages where the voyage itself and the ship's amenities are part of the experience An airport is a location where Aircraft such as airplanes, Helicopters and blimps take off and land An elevator or lift is a Transport device used to move people or goods vertically from one floor to another The term is also frequently applied as a generic (and often derogatory) term for any form of Easy Listening, smooth jazz, or MOR music, or to the type of recordings once commonly heard on "beautiful music" radio stations. Easy listening music is a style of Popular music and radio format that emerged in the mid-20th century evolving out of swing and Big band music Smooth jazz, also sometimes referred to as new adult contemporary music is generally described as a genre of music that utilizes instruments (and at times improvisation Middle Of The Road was a Scottish pop group who enjoyed great success across Europe in the early 1970s Beautiful music (sometimes abbreviated as BM, or BM / EZ for beautiful music / easy listening) is a mostly-instrumental music format that

The Muzak corporation is perhaps the best-known supplier of such music. Muzak Holdings LLC is a company based in metro Fort Mill South Carolina, United States, just outside of Charlotte North Carolina, founded In fact, the term muzak has become a generic epithet for excessively bland music. A genericized trademark (also known as a generic trademark or proprietary eponym) is a Trademark or Brand name that has become the colloquial An epithet (from Greek ἐπίθετον - epitheton, neut of ἐπίθετος - epithetos, "attributed added" is a However, Muzak moved away from this type of music, for the most part, in 1997^[1] and now uses only "original artists" for its music source, except on the Environmental channel. ^[2]

References

1. ^ Annals of Culture: The Soundtrack of Your Life: The New Yorker
2. ^ Encompass LE Program Listing. Muzak Corporation (November 10 2006). Retrieved on April 19, 2007. (PDF)

See also

• Ambient music
• Furniture music
• Background music
• Light music
• Space music

External links

• Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, by Joseph Lanza
• The King has Just Left the Building: an art project related to elevator music. Ambient music is a Musical genre in which sound is more important than notes Furniture music, or in French musique d’ameublement (sometimes more literally translated as furnishing music is Background Although background music was by the end of the 20th Century generally identified with Muzak or Elevator music, there are several stages in the development of this Light music is a generic term applied to a mainly British musical style of "light" orchestral music which originated in the 19th Century and had its heyday during Space music, also spelled spacemusic, is an umbrella term used to describe music that evokes a feeling of contemplative spaciousness