h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Over at the Core Team, we were just discussing the poor quality of music we get 'on hold'. I'd just spent 15 minutes phone-tagging with my insurance provider, who always plays what I privately call 'the Sirius Cybernetics Theme Song'. It's proprietary to them, and it's relentlessly cheerful, jingly, and, frankly, trashy. (The insurance people are as nice as they come, I'm just criticising the muzak.)

What kind of 'on hold' music do you get? Any favourites? Any particular dislikes?

If I can get enough responses, we'll put it in .

Give me some music critiques.

The only one I can remember because it is truly terrible is the on hold music of my doctor. When I have to call there I usually spend a lot of time listening to it because they always have so much to do. If you have not heard it you cannot imagine how bad it really is: Mozart played on a xylophone.
Who thinks of that? And who would actually decide it is a good choice to play at people who are sick and need to see the doctor?

Yeah, now, that's just unfair...

I have a particular aversion to what I call 'lounge jazz' in on-hold music. Sadly, this seems to cover about 90% of it.

It's laziness, really. It's not impossible to write good modern instrumental music. I occasionally listen to this one from 1987:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4p4z4oVFdg&index=1&list=PLdSsAj-Nxz3WsPT_Uk_nkRzsdlWQDU4P_

I can't remember who I was calling recently, possibly a mail-order eyeglass company or pharmacy, or maybe a hospital records department...


But it was one of those LOOOOONNNNGGGG calls. One of those LONG calls you end up making several times because the roboperator's list of choices are all just not exactly what you think you need so you try one choice and it's not quite right but since there's no way to simply go back to a previous menu so you hang up and try again later.

But even when you pick a choice and stick with it you're three callers deep in the queue and, apparently, each customer needs at least 10 minutes.

The thing is, the Muzak choice doesn't really matter because no style of music is pleasant when it's a 20 second loop interrupted repeatedly to assure you that your call is important. After 10 minutes, you've heard it 30 times but it seems like 300. After the second 10 minutes you start to hallucinate to the rhythm. After another 10 minutes you pray for a painful death... for whoever eventually answers because it is abundantly clear your call is NOT IMPORTANT TO THEM REALLY, IS IT!?

Oh, I hear you, BG. They should really stop saying that in such insincere tones...

Ah, lounge jazz. Who decided that people who couldn't agree on disco, classic rock, Baroque, or hip-hop would all be willing to settle for butterfly piano?

Icy, the music in the link you provided sounds like Vangelis' music for "Chariots of fire."

I sometimes hear some Vivaldi. If I'm on hold with my broker, there will probably be some Beethoven. I've never heard anything angry or rappy or hip hoppy, but occasionally something will be new agey, which is basically amorphous.

I would prefer any kind of mainstream music over the self-congratulatory stuff I hear when I'm waiting for my pharmacy to serve me. They sound so chipper and efficient, but they aren't giving me the one thing I want.

My mobile phone company seem to have a variety of poppy music. In itself its ok, but it sounds bad. The best way of describing it is as though it's like an auto-focus camera hunting for focus but never quite getting there. All sort of whooshy.

PP.

Whooshy indeed

A while ago I had to contact a government department, and their on hold music was new-agey instrumental but very well designed for the purpose of encouraging you to hold on until they could answer the phone - there was a really cute 'boop-boop' in the middle that made me laugh, so I was willing to wait for it to happen again

Unfortunately, my enjoyment was interrupted several times by a computer voice saying 'The office is open until 6pm. Your call will be answered soon'. At 6.05pm I had been on hold for 20 minutes, and I didn't think my call would be answered soon after all, so I had to say goodbye to the boop-boop...

I agree that hearing 'Your call is important to us' over and over and over and over and over again is far worse than any dodgy taste of music could ever be. But most annoying was a high-pitched:
Beep! Beep!Beep!

<BB<

"Your call is important to us" always elicits the words "No it isn't!" from me.

Who shouts at the voice recognition software?

I have no reluctance about that!

At least the music means you can put the handset down in just audible range. What I hate is the pause, just before the loop restarts, when you have the faint hope that you're actually about to get an answer.

Yes - this causes an unfair cycle of anticipation, followed by thwarted expectations. I think it's bad for your health.

On balance, the anticipation is what people live for, which is good for their health.