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Music as torture?
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Subject: Music as torture? From: Mrrzy Date: 04 Dec 16 - 10:51 PM Nickelback, really? What song would you consider torture to have to listen to? |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: leeneia Date: 04 Dec 16 - 10:54 PM Anything loud, high-pitched, whiny and out of tune. I was watching an educational film at the Cahokia Mounds, when the soundtrack played a loud, electronic simulation of a percussionist running a stick over a set of high-pitched chimes. (You know, those hanging silver tubes.) It actually made me scream out loud. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: meself Date: 04 Dec 16 - 11:06 PM I've never quite gotten the Nickelback thing - I mean, they're not my cup of tea, but I don't see how they're all that much worse than all those other bands who are not my cup of tea .... |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Joe Offer Date: 05 Dec 16 - 12:05 AM There's a YouTube playlist of 11 Popular Songs the CIA Used to Torture Prisoners in the War on Terror
And here's one of those annoying slide shows with a list of 21 songs the CIA used for torture. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,cnd Date: 05 Dec 16 - 12:09 AM Any harsh noise, industrial noise, or similar "genre" of "music." There's a reason the "genre" is called "noise" |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: michaelr Date: 05 Dec 16 - 01:40 AM I hear there are coffeehouses in the UK that play Fairport Convention to get the hipsters to move on. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Steve Shaw Date: 05 Dec 16 - 03:01 AM They're thinking of playing loud Justin Bieber to scare away a plague of fruit bats in Australia. Who would be tortured more, the bats or the Aussies? |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Dave Hanson Date: 05 Dec 16 - 03:23 AM opera, the Bee Gees, any boy band/girl band, pre-pubescent kids, oh FFS don't get me started. Dave H |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,LynnH Date: 05 Dec 16 - 03:34 AM "Last Christmas............" AAAAArrrrgggggghhhhhh!!!!!!!! |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Will Fly Date: 05 Dec 16 - 03:37 AM You call all that torture? I'll tell you what musical torture is - I suffered under it at a singaround on Monday evening last week. It was a lady with a high, dismal, toneless voice singing an interminable ballad that she hadn't bothered to learn, had "written it down yesterday for the first time", from sheet after sheet of paper. It was utterly, incredibly boring and seemingly endless. When the third sheet had been turned over, I lost the will to live and fell into a coma from which I could only be awoken by liberal helpings of Dark Star Winter Ale. Now that's torture. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,Pete Kiddle Date: 05 Dec 16 - 03:42 AM Folk club renditions of 'The Wild Mountain Thyme' ? |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,Senoufou Date: 05 Dec 16 - 04:24 AM Actually I'm surprised this is all so lighthearted. These prisoners were apparently chained with their hands between their legs, unable to take of the earphones, and loud songs played repeatedly foe 30 hours at a time. For several months. I don't personally find this amusing... |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Thompson Date: 05 Dec 16 - 04:42 AM I can never understand why torture is used when kindness is so much more effective. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Mo the caller Date: 05 Dec 16 - 04:54 AM Senoufou is right, of course. Unbelievable that anyone would do that in the name of 'western values'. But language always changes and exaggerates. The song that I find painful is 'Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas'. Insulting to those who believe in the 'true meaning of Christmas' (I was one of those long enough to see that viewpoint), and to those whose troubles don't go away so easily. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Steve Shaw Date: 05 Dec 16 - 05:19 AM Yeah, why "little" Christmas! But for a bad Christmas song that awful McCartney one would take some beating. And Classic FM playing carols for four solid weeks before Christmas is sheer torture. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Mr Red Date: 05 Dec 16 - 05:33 AM Opera you say, how are you on Florence Foster-Jenkins? Call me undemanding but I have yet to be tortured. When I worked with some people who had pop music blaring I had work as a distraction. Otherwise I can choose to depart in most instances. Family is different, they have to endure my preferences at times too! If irritation is the price I pay to get time out for the the chance to dance with a wonderful dancer to an Andy Cutting waltz, I pay, willingly. (other Andy Cutting waltzes are available. Pure gold) |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,Mark Bluemel Date: 05 Dec 16 - 05:34 AM michaelr said: "I hear there are coffeehouses in the UK that play Fairport Convention to get the hipsters to move on." http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/cafe-puts-on-fairport-convention-to-drive-out-hipsters-20161201118237 The Daily Mash is a parody site... However Richard Thompson reposted this on Facebook saying he was proud to be associated with it :-) |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Will Fly Date: 05 Dec 16 - 05:34 AM Eliza, the original posts to the thread were reasonably light-hearted, It was Joe's post which brought in the political torture element which, of course, is all too true. My own post was in the spirit of the original. As far as torture as persuasion (as opposed to punishment) is concerned, I'm always reminded of the competition between the sun and the wind to see which one could get a traveller to remove his coat. The wind huffed and puffed, but the traveller just wound his coat more tightly round himself. The sub beamed and poured sunshine on the traveller - who removed his coat to cool off. I always thought that was a nice parable. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Stanron Date: 05 Dec 16 - 05:41 AM Music as torture? Try listening to Radio 1 if you are older than 15. All right then 45. The only thing worse would be the same thing with adverts. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST, DTM Date: 05 Dec 16 - 05:51 AM Having a short interest span, I can only listen to a few songs in a row of certain genres. These include Blues, Trad Jazz, Bothy Ballads, Heavy Rock, Classical, Rap, Disco, House,Hawiian Music, Indian Music, Instrumentals, and so on. I really need to find a secluded cave. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,Senoufou Date: 05 Dec 16 - 05:55 AM I like most types of music, including Eminem. But it's the 'played very loudly' and 'repeatedly' which would be tiresome. I don't like loud noises of any kind. And even my favourite tunes and songs would be detested after the twentieth time of hearing. It's very true that to change people's mindset and show them that their evil actions are execrable, the best way is kindness, gentleness and love. Maybe even those things won't succeed, but it's absolutely certain that cruelty and torture will merely increase hatred and provoke vengeance and counter-attack. Torture is no better than terrorism. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST Date: 05 Dec 16 - 06:08 AM I seem to remember a movie in which somebody was tortured by having "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" player at them, sped up, at volume. It was funny because it wasn't real - then. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Senoufou Date: 05 Dec 16 - 06:13 AM It was 'One Two Three' (directed by Billy Wilder) |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Leadfingers Date: 05 Dec 16 - 06:15 AM I've suffered for my art - Now its your turn ! |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: banjoman Date: 05 Dec 16 - 07:25 AM Melodeons are the worst form of torture by far, especially when someone who attempts to play one tells me that my banjo is not a traditional instrument while his screeching vile monstrosity is. In the right hands (dustbin men) they may be acceptable but not to me |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Senoufou Date: 05 Dec 16 - 07:37 AM I think that those ghastly recorders children 'play' (we use the term loosely) would drive me round the bend in a nanosecond. We used to have them at school ('Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'), and I cringe now to think of the pain and suffering we caused! |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,DTM Date: 05 Dec 16 - 07:38 AM Anybody learning how to play a recorder or violin can inflict the cruelest torture on a musical ear. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,Senoufou Date: 05 Dec 16 - 08:08 AM Oh yes, GUEST DTM, whenever I hear children attempting to play the violin, I'm reminded for some reason of all the cats whose gut was used to make the strings. It sounds as if they're all miaowing and caterwauling at once in revenge! |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Stanron Date: 05 Dec 16 - 08:17 AM Isn't cat gut an urban myth?. Gut strings came from sheep. I heard it on QI, but then again QI expounds a theory of of declining truth. That is any commonly held truth is likely to be proved untrue with the passing of time. The longer the time the greater the likelihood. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,Senoufou Date: 05 Dec 16 - 08:23 AM You're absolutely right Stanron (I've just Googled it). I know it isn't nice for the sheep either, but I'm quite glad no cats were used! |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,keberoxu Date: 05 Dec 16 - 09:34 AM My music history professor at university, a spirited stand-up-comic-manqué, used to describe scholarly, painstakingly prepared performances of music of a certain vintage, with this irony: "This is dead music, and we will now show you how it died." |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Steve Shaw Date: 05 Dec 16 - 09:35 AM Bodhran |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Steve Shaw Date: 05 Dec 16 - 09:37 AM Sorry, thread drift. I forgot that "music" was in the title. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Steve Gardham Date: 05 Dec 16 - 09:44 AM Sorry! None of the above. How tolerant am I? |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,Senoufou Date: 05 Dec 16 - 01:12 PM The point about the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay is that they hadn't had any form of trial. They were technically only 'suspects'. It's wrong in my view to detain anyone at all for years without trial. To then proceed with torturing them is appalling. Just because one Muslim is a rapist and a murderer doesn't justify imprisoning and torturing any Muslims one happens to 'suspect'. There isn't any justification for torture. None. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,LynnH Date: 05 Dec 16 - 01:52 PM ....and then there are these anaemic, gutless renditions of Hallelujah as a dreadful dirge.............. And another thing: "Sadly not just one Senoufou think back to Cologne New Years eve night, swarms of them, swarms of these bastards and seeing nothing wrong in their eyes at emptying their bag in innocent young white Christians." There are plenty young white 'christian' males around with the same attitude! |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Steve Shaw Date: 05 Dec 16 - 03:34 PM In that case I apologise for my bodhran remark. It was a hysterical hate comment. 😂 |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,jim bainbridge Date: 05 Dec 16 - 03:34 PM without any disrespect to the late Leonard Cohen, his music was torture to me- I used to play in a bar in West Cork and when, even after a very liberal closing time was passed & the music had stopped, a resolute few remained, the owner would use full wattage on his sound system to direct a bit of Vivaldi at them0 it always worked... |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,Senoufou Date: 05 Dec 16 - 03:39 PM So I should think Steve, it was flagrant bodhranism. Bodhrans have their feelings you know. By the way, how DOES one pronounce 'bodhran'? |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Steve Shaw Date: 05 Dec 16 - 04:05 PM I don't say dirty words so I don't know. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Stanron Date: 05 Dec 16 - 04:11 PM GUEST,Senoufou wrote: By the way, how DOES one pronounce 'bodhran'?Isn't it "Bore on"? |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Senoufou Date: 05 Dec 16 - 04:12 PM :) I think it's bow-ran. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Steve Shaw Date: 05 Dec 16 - 04:15 PM It's pronounced "sessionwrecker." I've just looked it up. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,theleveller Date: 05 Dec 16 - 04:48 PM Ten minutes listening to shanty "singing" and I'd confess to anything. Five minutes of Frank Sinatra has the same effect. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Joe_F Date: 05 Dec 16 - 09:33 PM During the Waco siege (1993), according to Wikipedia, "Increasingly aggressive techniques were used to try to force the Branch Davidians out (for instance, sleep deprivation of the inhabitants by means of all-night broadcasts of recordings of jet planes, pop music, chanting, and the screams of rabbits being slaughtered)." That seems to me to put pop music in its proper company. I wonder if the FBI paid the usual royalties for a public performance. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,Mark Bluemel Date: 06 Dec 16 - 04:17 AM GUEST,Senoufou wrote: By the way, how DOES one pronounce 'bodhran'? With distaste... |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Steve Shaw Date: 06 Dec 16 - 04:46 AM Ah, this is like the good old days, any music thread eventually and inevitably turning to bodhran-bashing. I love it! |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,Senoufou Date: 06 Dec 16 - 05:47 AM But...but... forgive me, but what exactly IS the objection to a bodhran? I mean, it's just a percussion instrument not a piece of wet poo. It just goes bang bang bang doesn't it? There aren't any politically incorrect connotations or inappropriate associations (as in the case of a wobble board for example) Please explain yourselves! (stern retired-teacher voice) |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Steve Shaw Date: 06 Dec 16 - 06:08 AM I would much rather the bodhran owner brought in a lump of wet poo to bash than a bodhran. Smellier, maybe, but a damn sight quieter! |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Stanron Date: 06 Dec 16 - 06:42 AM GUEST,Senoufou wrote: but what exactly IS the objection to a bodhran?People who play tunes in tunes sessions first have to learn to play their instrument. (not enough?) Then they have to learn a lot of tunes. (still not enough?) Then they have to learn to play these tunes at the pace they get played by the people who have been playing them several nights a week for the last five or ten or more years. By the time they can do this they will have become aware of what might be called generic 'dialects' of playing. Some-one who has just bought a 'Bore on' goes to a session for the first time and tries to join in. Who has the good time and who has the bad time? There are good bodhoran players and playing with them is a pleasure. They will have gone through a similar process to other players over similar periods of time. It's the first day thumpers who give the rest a bad name. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,colin Date: 06 Dec 16 - 07:04 AM banjos and bagpipes.. played singularly or collectively |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,Senoufou Date: 06 Dec 16 - 07:16 AM I adore banjos and indeed bagpipes. There's a chap who stands outside Marks and Spencer in Norwich piping away, wearing a very smart Highland dress complete with hairy sporran. It always brings tears to my eyes (I lived and worked in Scotland for some time) and I usually give him a few bob. Banjos have a sort of trying-to-be-cheerful-in-spite-of-adversity air about them. And seeing a homeless person sitting on the pavement sadly blowing a tin whistle makes us both tearful. My husband knows what poverty and destitution are, and he's the first to succumb and put some coins in the 'musician's' hat. Bodhrans...well, why not? I say. 'All God's chillun got a place in de kwaya' and all that. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Steve Shaw Date: 06 Dec 16 - 08:50 AM Well if it were owt to do with me, all God's bodhran-owning chillun would go to heaven with the bloody things wrapped round their necks, and the sooner the better! See how I don't wish them ill? 👹 |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,Senoufou Date: 06 Dec 16 - 09:08 AM You utter beast Steve :) At least you're directing them to heaven and not the Other Place. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Will Fly Date: 06 Dec 16 - 11:04 AM The Other Place is reserved for people at sessions with shaky eggs, pineapples, bones and other assorted rattles. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Steve Shaw Date: 06 Dec 16 - 11:11 AM You forgot rain tubes. Although I once saw someone with one of those at a session seriously piss off a rather uppity recorder player... |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,Senoufou Date: 06 Dec 16 - 12:39 PM Oh I had a rain tube once! Are they those large stalks (size of a didgeridoo) of a cactus-type plant, with the thorns pushed into the inside, then filled with broken shells or some such? When you up-end them the shells fall down and it's supposed to sound like rain? I used to do it in front of our cats and they would freak out! But when we moved house, I sold it. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Steve Shaw Date: 06 Dec 16 - 02:48 PM A wise decision! |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,Senoufou Date: 06 Dec 16 - 03:16 PM Well I think my husband was a bit afraid of it. Anything with so-called 'magical properties' is a bit off-putting for him. And we get enough rain as it is! |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,DTM Date: 06 Dec 16 - 07:23 PM Re bodran players. Alas, I am sorry to say I don't like them -even the good ones. Apart from "I will go" they just don't t add anything good to a song. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: CupOfTea Date: 06 Dec 16 - 08:30 PM Covering the facetious and serious sides of the question: Hearing someone slaughter a song that is precious to you. Any song that has ear worm potential played repeatedly till it wears a groove in your brain. Too much too loud anything- gets to the physically painful point. Experienced this ONCE: National Lampoon's road show spoofing Woodstock, "Lemmings" ended with the Pink Floyd-like band cranking up the volume till the audience started leaving in droves. The vibration made your insides rattle, and empty chairs moved across the floor. Painful gimmick. Something with a catchy tune that makes you want to sing along that has horrid lyrics you wouldn't utter unless subjected to some physical torture. I'm with Senoufou on torture being wrong as well as ineffective, and truly don't like the idea of any music, however bad, out of tune, or inane it might be, used as a weapon against someone. Joanne, who has already exceeded her lifetime allotment of "MacArthur Park" |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Mr Red Date: 07 Dec 16 - 04:48 AM Call me a philistine. Radio, records etc is "Mental Wallpaper" I prefer to participate. As a musician (OH! OK a drummer) or a dancer. So I guess if a band don't understand music for feet then torture is close. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Steve Shaw Date: 07 Dec 16 - 04:55 AM Any minimalist crap by Steve Reich. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST Date: 07 Dec 16 - 09:20 AM I love and play music semi-professionally but I NEVER listen to music on the radio (don't have a TV). I do listen to CDs etc I've mainly chosen my self. Why on earth listen to somebody else's choice of music? It's bad enough to listen to a friend's choice while visiting, but on a long term basis listening to other people's choice of music??? Noooooo... that IS torture! |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: leeneia Date: 07 Dec 16 - 09:46 AM Surely one reason people listen to radio is to hear new music and new musicians. ================== Here's a form of musical torture for me: I go to a symphony orchestra performance. I'm seated fifteen minutes early so I can read the program and compose myself for beautiful music. Out comes a trombone player. He sits himself on stage, starts practicing his hardest bit in a given key. Out comes a viola player. Does the same thing, only it's from a different piece, in a different key. Out comes an oboist... You get the idea. Soon there are a lot of people on stage producing a god-awful musical madhouse. If a melody is like a lovely fragrance wafting through the air, then this is like a mental patient with really bad BO. I've quit going to the symphony because of this. I'm a music lover, not an item of livestock. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Steve Shaw Date: 07 Dec 16 - 09:49 AM Is there any worse experience than waiting in a draughty tyre bay on a wet November afternoon watching a greasy skinhead in filthy overalls fixing your car as Radio 1 blares out from a tinny ghetto-blaster that isn't quite tuned in? |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Steve Shaw Date: 07 Dec 16 - 09:52 AM Are you sure it was just practice, leeneia, and not one of those trendy new pieces of avant-garde music? 🤓 |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Will Fly Date: 07 Dec 16 - 10:33 AM Well - that's quite a mixed list of dislikes. I have to say I'm quite fond of the occasional mass tune-up and mini-practice by orchestras before the leader appears and they tune up properly prior to playing the first piece. To me it's a pleasurable cacophony of anticipation, and I like picking out the individual bits. Great fun. As for the radio, I don't listen in the house because I'm usually playing or practising or arranging my own stuff, but a long car journey can produce some new finds, depending on what you listen to. And I like a classical music programme or a jazz programme while I'm cooking. I also like friends sending me material or playing me sounds they like if I'm at their house. Good grief, how would we learn about different music and new, potentially interesting music if we didn't expose ourselves to other sources of sound information? I can play my own choice of music on CDs, SDHC discs or my iPod in the car any time, but I can also weary of just hearing the music that I've collected constantly played back to me. There's nothing greater than hearing something that you've never heard before, something interesting that tickles the music buds and makes you want to hear more, to get home and get an instrument out and play it or research it. Which is the joy of a good session. We can beat up the same old tunes every time, but it's always a treat when a stranger introduces a new tune, or one of the regulars plays something new and we all say, "Hey, what was that called?" If we're lucky, we never stop learning. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: leeneia Date: 07 Dec 16 - 01:30 PM Good one, Steve. But yes, I'm sure it's not avant garde music because it's not listed in the program. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: Steve Shaw Date: 07 Dec 16 - 01:43 PM That's just about the only way you can tell with some of it! 😂 |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,Stephen Harvey Date: 07 Dec 16 - 01:44 PM Any song performed poorly (as per the example in Will Fly's initial post) but especially a performance designed solely to allow us plebs to bask in the glory of the performer's impressive vocal acrobatics, never mind the disservice it does to the song. This seems mostly to occur in 'pop' music (however one defines that - and some of which I enjoy) where it seems to be a horrible mutation of Black Gospel styles. It works in the original but seems ill-conceived in adaptation. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,Pete from seven stars link Date: 07 Dec 16 - 05:50 PM Back to the OP link . I thought the dog one was hilarious. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: GUEST,Guest 7 Dec 0920 Date: 08 Dec 16 - 02:45 PM I don't listen to music programmes on the radio because however much I might respect the presenter, they work from playlists of APPROVED music from the station owner. There is very little scope for such a presenter to play what he wants to, enabling me to make a judgment about whether to listen again. I'm a far better judge of what I like than a vast media corporation.- the days of John Peel are OVER, sadly. I am not prepared to iisten to ANY radio programme where Murdoch, Denis O'Brien, the Sony Corporation or any other commercial interest decides what is played! I don't except the BBC or RTE from this- even when a 'traditional' or a jazz programme is advertised, you can almost hear the gritting of teeth from some presenters when another load of commercial crap is imposed on them (and us!) from above. So still, no thanks, I have a vast collection of recorded music & still surprise myself by what's there & almost forgotten. Not to mention what's available online! Mind you, Steve's memories certainly ring a bell although an hour of Radio 1 without all the rest of it would make me give a lot more than name, rank and number, and very quickly. |
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Subject: RE: Music as torture? From: punkfolkrocker Date: 08 Dec 16 - 10:57 PM This thread immediately puts me in mind of late 60s / early 70s mood music compilation LPS.. The sort you'd see stuffed in racks in Woolworths for 50 or 75 pence.. ..and the more upmarket themed Hi Fi test LPs my dad used to bring home from the shops most Saturday afternoons.. Ah.. those Sleeve artworks of moodily lit scantily clad dolly birds, or the more boring abstract patterns and landscapes... "Music For Torture" Hugo Montenegro and his Electro Shock To The Gonads Orchestra RCA 1972 [HI FI Choice Magazine - Best LP for stereophonic speaker demonstrations] [CIA Monthly Digest - Cleanest and least bruising alternative to Water Boarding & Pharmacological torture 8/10 - June 1973]... 😱 |
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