Module 4.3

Problem Definition: How is music strategically employed in constructing our experience of interior space?

It is our third week of research and the project now has a solid structure. We have formed a basic script and our first interviews have gone very well. In terms of research, we are completely focused on hotels and interior designers. The formulation of identity through architecture mixed with music within the modern hotel has become really intriguing. Following the interviews today, we are completely on track and up to date with out research. The interviews were informative, clear and useful, providing us with excellent material to use with our documentary. Thus far, all of our aims have been achieved. With the addition of our script (which we shall prepare in detail during the coming days), the documentary is on schedule and shaping nicely.

Extension and elaboration of the project

The most crucial aspect of this project is the script itself. This is the factor that binds everything else together. It was crucial that we organized a script early in order to give the project direction and structure. It is the building block. Seen as the documentary will last fifteen minutes, we decided to split our script into five different parts, each one lasting at least three minutes. This allows us to control our own input and keep track of various research material. It also eliminates any errors or mix ups of information.

Part 1

For the introduction, we had the idea to interview our fellow classmates about their views on identity construction with regards to hotels and musical architecture. The perceptions and associations of our culturally varied class will form the basis of our introduction, after which a more in depth and theoretical approach will become more central. The views of our fellow students on different music played in different hotels in various countries will form a nice introductory point upon which to expand. The placement of this point in the documentary will be subject to change as the final draught of the script takes shape. The particular question that we ask is “How do you imagine the person sitting in the lobby of a hotel playing this music? What is he wearing? What is he doing?” By asking these questions we aim to demonstrate the power of music to make us visualize the specificities of a setting. This is essential for the arguments we make in the rest of the documentary. Also, this approach allows us to combine theoretical information with practical demonstration on how the processes described in the readings we have done, actually work.

Part 2

The second part of the documentary will focus on music as an extension of interior design. This includes our interview with an individual involved in interior design who possesses an in depth knowledge of the industry and how it is intimately tied to music.

·        Interview taken in the Coen Gorter Interieur Concepten

The manner in which the technical equipment used to generate music is placed inside a modern example of architecture is interesting. A CD player has now become a stylish accessory or addition to the private living space – maybe even a status symbol. Different music will generate a different atmosphere, in turn leading to various feelings about the space. This is especially important with regards to hotels where such an atmosphere can become the difference between customer satisfaction and revulsion.

Part 3

Part three of our research diary will deal with the historical aspect of background music. We will perform an in depth analysis of background music. This will include an overview of the development of such trends like Erik Satie’s “Furniture Music”. He was an avante-garde artist who experimented with music played during the intermission in the theatre. This is an important material for our documentary because it reveals important aspects of the development of background music. We will contrast today’s perceptions of background music with its initial reception. We will also use New York Times articles from the 40s and the 50s to analyze the growth of background music and the way in which it spread to factories and other public spaces. We will briefly introduce the history of the MUZAK corporation. Finally, we will talk about contemporary Muzak and it’s success. We will also mention “NO MUZAK”, an anti background music movement. 

Part 4

Part four will be a comparative study. We intend to compare and contrast background music in two public spaces and how it affects customers in different ways. This will be achieved by observing music played in supermarkets and then comparing this to music played in hotels. The more relaxed music of the hotel environment functions in a different way. It constructs identity in a different way. Supermarkets tend to use more frantic or energetic tunes to stimulate their customers while hotels use relaxing music to allow their guests to feel at home. We will introduce the concept of “time inconsistency” in order to explain how music in stores operates.

Part 5

The final element of our rough script will be the interviews themselves. This means the people – the staff and the guests of the hotels as well as interior designers and other thoughtful contributors. Keep in mind that this is a rough idea of our script structure and it is highly likely that our interviews will be widely distributed throughout the documentary.

Research Strategy:

Our research strategy remains relatively unchanged from our last entry. We have tirelessly contacted hotels and arranged interviews as often as possible. Unfortunately, many hotel managers were unavailable but we managed to contact the most important ones. We introduced ourselves and asked our list of pre written questions, adding and querying whenever possible and appropriate. At all times, we made out subjects feel at home and comfortable, resulting in a large amount of accurate information. We have also searched the Internet and university libraries for sources on our topic and this led to the discovery of the New York Times articles dating from 1941. We are also trying to incorporate a technological aspect into our study and we will soon visit an interior design agency catered explicitly to technology mixed with lavish interiors. We are also working hard on our script but this is a time consuming and lengthy undertaking. The structure of the script was outlined above and we will continue to work on actual dialogue throughout the coming days. With regards to the interviews themselves, we asked several questions and they are outlined below. We altered the questions significantly from last weeks blog entry as objectives and aims became clearer. 

Questions:

At what stage will you integrate music into your design plans?

Is there communication between the Interior Design artist and the music company?

Why do you change your CD every month?

What is the technical set up for music in your hotel?

Who determines the volume level and what are the factors?

How do you visualize the guests?

How has technology changed in your hotel?

Who communicates with the music company?

Research Results:

 The results of our work cannot yet be analyzed but we are extremely satisfied with the way our interviews have transpired. We visited a hotel and an interior design office today and both participants gave lengthy detailed answers to our questions.

Hotels: Amrath Grand Hotel de l`Empereur, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Kruisherenhotel Maastricht

Interior Design Bureau: Coen Gorter Interieur Concepten 

They spoke at length about their own feelings with regards to music and identity and how this is tied to interior design. The woman interviewed in the interior design office was most helpful and interesting, providing us with details of new developments in music and the interior, how her customers felt about music and the entire notion of musical architecture. She spoke about the finished product of interior design and how music can transform public spaces.

We also interviewed one staff member in a hotel. She spoke about different music being played at different times of the day and in different seasons. Additionally, she provided a thorough overview of the corporate process of music within the hotel industry and how different forms of music related to her guests. The research results were satisfactory. The sources are also excellent. The New York Times articles and the history of Erik Satie allow us to document the emergence of this unique form of music. Contemporary “Muzak” is present on many websites that we have found.

With regards to the technical work on our documentary we considered the following aspects:

-reflecting on our observations from Vincent van M.’s session we thought about the compatibility of our voices and considered using a different speaker in order to make the audio more harmonic and clear.

-As we are from different countries, we were worried that the unusual mixture of a Bulgarian and Irish accent may not function effectively and aimed to find voices with the most powerful effect on the listener. Reliability is important and a voice must be trustworthy. A listener must feel attracted to a voice and not distracted by it.

-Finally we decided that the documentary should be more personal and we decided to use our own voices.

-We also want to use background sounds to transport the listener into the world of our topic.

 The literature, script and interviews must be combined however, for all of our research to bare fruit. At this stage, we are working well and on track. We plan several more interviews over the next few days and when these are completed, we will devote more time to the script and finally begin the editing process.