Turn it down!

I’D like to add my “Amen!”, to Cape Times reader Aron Gersh’s complaint about loud music in our cafés and restaurants (“Noisy coffee shops”, Cape Times, March 28).

In nearly every Cape Town coffee shop, restaurant and retail establishment I’ve patronised, customers are bombarded with tooloud, recorded “House” music. It seems there’s no escape. What’s most disturbing to me is that we don’t request this music; it’s provided, along with the decor, seemingly, to enhance our eating, drinking or shopping experience. Well, for me – and many others – it’s not working. We’re not offered a choice of music, and it’s nearly always too loud.

As a result, I’ve become, “A Loud Music Mr Grumpy”. At coffee shops and restaurants, I’m constantly asking employees, “Would you please turn the music down a bit? My friend and I want to chat.”

Sometimes this works, but often I’ve had to get the managers involved.

This is my usual pitch: “Honestly, nobody here is really ‘listening’ to the music; they’re busy doing other things; eating, drinking, talking, whatever. So, the music really doesn’t add anything; it just means that customers who want to carry on a normal conversation have to speak louder, and all this does is add to the overall noise level.”

I usually get a nod or a polite response, but nothing really changes.

In my view, management doesn’t get it. More likely, they just don’t think about it. “The Music” has always been part of the normal routine; the doors open; the lights go on, followed by the recorded music.

The only way this forced-upon-us practice can ever be moderated, is for customers to politely suggest to management that, music-wise, they’d really prefer “The Sound of Silence”. Bill Constantine Oranjezicht