music week: plainsong or bimmeln

The nearly viral nature of communications—especially found in the musical jingles, incidental, errant and intentional peeps and beeps and tones that seem to occupy that real estate between recognition and interpretation, has always been a fascinating subject for me that I think becomes more of a study once one reflects on the auditory cues that one chooses and those refrains that become entrenched and inseparable. What’s memorable and well-marketed went viral long before the term even came about, and it is really a remarkable thing how an idea, offensive, campaign can recreate itself in thought in just about any medium, humming, the catch of a tune, from some flawless orchestral arrangement to something misremembered, tapped and tinny, and even the most abstract of associations.
It’s funny to observe the reactions of people, who of course have an ear for their own personal alerts, and yet when there is some discordant clang, they’re sent digging in their pockets and handbags to eliminate heralding fanfare. Sometimes the beckoning, when positively identified, becomes impossible to ignore and I wonder, unpackaged, what responses people really do have. Does it matter if the alarm is over a ring, pulse or fully-formed melody, and is a song easier to ignore for some since it is not cued for resolution, but rather just stopping? Distraction and abstraction is nothing new—perhaps just in terms of proximity and portability (we can announce the coming of any mood and disposition but our internal soundtracks are rarely made public accessories to communication beyond the signals that we’re about to turn inward and away from our immediate audience). Those associations established over the long-term, commercial jingles, are the same species of transitional siren that can take up residence anywhere, just a bit receded into the background and have the stubbornness of seniority. I remember an misunderstanding that elevated into a tiff over being told to use i-ask to clean the bathroom—properly. What the hell is i-ask, I thought, since there was none in the janitor’s closet, before realizing the that was the European way to pronounce Ajax—which there was not any either but rather a bottle of Meister Proper, the German name for Mister Clean. Fine—but I think the whole matter could have been settled much easier by whistling the Mister Clean song. I wonder about people who grow up with a different (but parallel set) of commercial culture and those without the benefit of bells and whistles and advertizing executives. Likewise, it’s not facial tissue, a handkerchief or a Taschentuch but Tempo or Kleenex, which in fact, does say bless you.