Elevator music

Elevator music (also known as Muzak, piped music, or lift music) is a type of background music played in elevators, in rooms where many people come together for reasons other than listening to music, and during telephone calls when placed on hold. Before the emergence of the Internet, such music was often "piped" to businesses and homes^[1] through telephone lines, private networks or targeted radio broadcasting (as in the BBC's Music While You Work, where powerful speakers were set up in factories to make the broadcast audible).^[2][3]

There is no specific sound associated with elevator music, but it usually involves simple instrumental themes from "soft" popular music, or "light" classical music being performed by slow strings. This type of music was produced, for instance, by the Mantovani Orchestra, and conductors such as Franck Pourcel and James Last, peaking in popularity around the 1970s.^[4]

More recent types of elevator music may be computer-generated, with the actual score being composed entirely algorithmically.^[5][6]