I am writing this from the Starbucks inside the Indigo bookstore inside the Manulife Centre in dowwtown Toronto, with cheerful if nondescript pop music playing softly in the background. To get the bookstore I had to walk from the Bay subway station through a portion of the underground mall complex where almost all the stores were still closed. Throughout this area, classical music is being played (something Baroque to be specific).
I feel fairly certain that this music is being played to keep teenagers out; it wouldn’t be the first time that this tactic has been used in Toronto. Classical music has been used in the past in an attempt to keep teens from loitering in certain subway stations.
I find this misuse of music deeply offensive; it does a disservice both to the music, and to young people, as it uses some of humanity’s greatest cultural jewels as a tool for exclusion. The assumption that teenagers could never enjoy classical music is a shallow one, and says much more about those making the assumption, than the young people being targeted.
In the same vein, although even worse, is the use of music as a method of torture by the U.S. military. Various artists have recently banded together to protest this profound perversion of their creations.
About a year or so ago I saw a man on the subway wearing a T-shirt that stated “Music is My Weapon.” While music has been used as a defensive weapon of sorts over and over again throughout history in a positive sense, as a response to oppression, slavery and injustice, music, it was never meant to be twisted in this manner.
Call me naive, but I believe the only valid products of music are joy, serenity, peace, a call to action, spiritual connections, and a deeper understanding of what we are. If the products of music are the inflicting of pain, and the enforcement of alienation, then it is not music.
Even the sweetest songbird can be made to produce the raw, discordant sounds of agony.
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