Muric in educationmany different forms of expression but in the main they can all be
summed in man’s desire to maintain the continuity and the unity
of lifeMUSIC IN INDUSTRY:
FUNCTIONAL MUSIC
by
Josephine MCVEIGH, Supervisor of Music, Clarkstown Central School, U. S.A.Music is played to people while they work to relieve their tensions and
the boredom created by the noise and repetitiveness of their occupa-
tions and to re-stimulate at the ‘let-down’ periods. It is used for psycho-
logical effect. It can induce greater productivity in the worker, but in
most cases such programmes are used as part of the betterment of
working conditions for the employee. Music in industry is a part of
the new development called ‘Human Engineering’. Music in industry
is not the industrial music which is recreational and educational, in
which the workers participate, voluntarily, for their own benefit. Music
in industry is a carefully planned programme which is installed only
after much scientific consideration has been given to the work situa-
tion, types of people, hours of employment, acoustical properties of
the buildings involved, the noise levels of the work carried on, the
amount of money available, the kind and number of operators needed
to control the programmes, the choice of purchased wire services or
self-operated programmes, and the necessary consideration of what
types of recordings to use, sources and availability of recorded mate-
rial and, last but not least, the legal questions of public use of music
itself and the performing fees.
Each decision of equipment and programmes is much dependent
upon the other. Budget controls the whole. Our interest here is the
music and its affects.
There are two types of places where such programmes are used:
(a) where only the employee is present-as in factories and in offices