Music Sets The Mood In Restaurants

Lately the soundtrack to dining out has gotten a lot more specialized. Individual owners still mix and match to their own tastes, like one San Jose, Calif., Asian-fusion restaurant that plays Tony Bennett and K.D. Lang. But increasingly, restaurants are buying premixed music for a purpose. Packages are customized to create a mood, get you to stay, get you to leave, cover up coughing and other peoples' cell-phone conversations, make you feel like dancing. "The idea is to blend, not be really obvious. Music should complement the service and the decor." says Karen Vigeland, campaign and product manager at Muzak, based in Fort Mill, S.C. Muzak now has audio architects building branded programs from 1.5 million songs. Still，the music is constantly monitored. Restaurants gauge the atmosphere. As it gets busier, they tune it down. They don’t want to drown out that level of murmur of conversations. When the restaurant fills up, customers can’t hear the music anymore. New music technology migrating into restaurants includes downloads from digital music players like iPods, although copyright law requires businesses of a certain size to pay royalties. Satellite radio is another way to go. Sirius has some restaurant customers and hopes to attract more with its 65 commercial-free music channels and the payment of all licensing fees, says Jim Collins, vice president of corporate communications. Some of the music channels are Sirius USA 1 (hits), the Vault (deeper cuts of rock albums) and Sirius Disorder, Collins' free-form favorite (rock to reggae, blues to folk). "Our programmers are very astute at creating moods," Collins says. "I always like music when we eat. It glosses over the silent sections in the conversation," Forrest Gingold, executive chef at La Pastaia in downtown San Jose says. "It needs to be there, but not be there, like good service."