An Investigation of User Attitudes Towards Public Spaces Without Background Music

Abstract

In the business world, customer satisfaction is a key factor for success. Naturally, all businesses aim to provide as much as possible for their customers. They analyze and try to meet all their needs. Designs for commercial spaces are especially well thought out. Marketing professionals are keen on observing consumer behavior and laying out design principles to increase spending. Background music is one aspect of commercial spaces such as department stores, supermarkets and shopping centers that has been studied for such purposes. The general acceptance that music is pleasing and everyone would like some music to accompany them, has led businesses to focus on choosing the right type of music and determining optimum sound levels without considering an option where music is absent.

Over the last half century, first, the boom in the recording industry and later, the digital revolution has made powerful equipment affordable and music itself accessible. As a result, background music has become almost ubiquitous in the public realm. However, more and more, music is being perceived as disturbing noise. The high levels of sound or the inappropriate choice of music, or both, are seen as the cause of most disturbances. Yet, the use of background music itself is not being questioned. As no community has a common music taste, in public spaces we need to share, elimination of background music should be given more consideration. This paper presents a summary of the literature focusing on background music in commercial settings and reports preliminary results from a questionnaire study for customer preferences with regard to background music in public spaces - cafes and restaurants in particular. The survey dwells on perceptions, expectations and preferences of customers in spaces with and without background music in order to determine if spaces without music are preferred over spaces with music.