# Berlin station turns to atonal tunes to deter drug users



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

*The German rail operator Deutsche Bahn has got a new plan for getting people in Berlin not to use drugs at one of its busiest stations: atonal music. But local residents are unimpressed by the experiment.*

Germany's national rail operator, Deutsche Bahn (DB), is planning to pipe "atonal music" into the Hermannstrasse station in Berlin's Neukölln district in an attempt to drive away people who use the place to take drugs.

The initiative was revealed earlier this week by Friedemann Kessler, the head of DB's eastern regional department, and confirmed to DW by a spokeswoman, who said the idea was to begin the experiment before the end of the year.

But the details remain unclear. The music has not yet been chosen, though, according to a report in Berlin's Tagesspiegel newspaper, DB has opted for atonal music "because it completely undermines traditional listening habits."

"Few people find it beautiful - many people perceive it as something to run away from," the paper quoted Kessler, who oversees about 550 stations for DB, as saying, an opinion that might come as a blow to the organizers of Berlin's Atonal Music festival, which starts this week.

Kessler acknowledged that the initiative could be awkward to get right: There is a danger of annoying passengers, too, which is one reason why the music would not be played on the station's platforms. Kessler told Tagesspiegel that DB would "try out different volumes."

https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-station-turns-to-atonal-tunes-to-deter-drug-users/a-45138040


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## Eusebius12 (Mar 22, 2010)

hahahaha.......


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## Guest (Aug 24, 2018)

The thing is, any music being played in this context is largely regarded as either 'annoying' by people walking through or just something they don't even think about. Most likely, it will simply expose 'atonal' music composers as just another variety of musical aesthetics. People will become numb to it, probably, due to associations created in this context.


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## Steve Mc (Jun 14, 2018)

Play Stockhausen
You can never be numb to that.


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## Guest (Aug 24, 2018)

Steve Mc said:


> Play Stockhausen
> You can never be numb to that.


Well, I know people who would get high and listen to Stockhausen.


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## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

If that would deter "drug users" then it would also deter normal people, I think. If not, then I think it would actually please the drug users more than some "straightedge" music.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

It's said that the only reason why the premieres of "2001: a space odyssey" were not utter failures in audience was because lots of hippies and stoners passed the voice among them about that new movie with lots of trippy atonal music which was ideal to get high while looking at it. True story. :lol:


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Some American convenience stores deter gangbangers and other riffraff by playing Mozart outside. I suppose that if they played atonal music, they might collect avant-garde thugs with cupped cigarettes and black berets...


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

... and Wagner attracted Hitler while Mozart attracted Stalin... oh, thugs are not what they used to be, they are so soft today!...


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

They might as well equip all their train stations with gasoline fire extinguishers.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I don't suppose it'll make any difference at all to the druggies what music is played by the station if they have their own music of choice on their iPhones.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I'm not sure what drugs are involved but if this is to stop heroin use then it reminds me of the government ads that used to get aired when I was a kid (the 1960s). They used beautifully shot films of degradation, grime and filth but to us youngsters they made it seem so damned sexy! Luckily I wasn't fooled and didn't fall into the heroin habit. If, on the other hand, it is just about weed then the drug may help them enjoy the weird sounds and they might start going there just for the experience.


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

Couldn't they just buy the rights of the Electrola catalogue and play all their rare Operettas? It's rather unconfortable to be in a place with loud music that speaks your language and instead of paying for pills they get hooked for the Operetta librettos and want to know how the story ends.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

They've played normal classical music (Mozart etc) at Brixton Station to deter 'da yoof'. The jump to atonal music will just end up in a station empty of both 'drug users' and commuters.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

The reason atonal music would deter drug users is that it does not "coddle" the listener. 
People are using drugs to escape reality and tune-in to a subjective inner-space of numbness and tranquility, not unlike the effect of drones or harmonically centric music, like all tonal music does. 

Tonal music reinforces identity; atonal music does not. These drug users are trying to "reach" their inner identity, and escape reality, so atonal music is like a bad trip for the druggie, who wishes to create a subjective womb of protected identity.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Some American convenience stores deter gangbangers and other riffraff by playing Mozart outside. I suppose that if they played atonal music, they might collect avant-garde thugs with cupped cigarettes and black berets...


That's already been done in South America, by Dudamel. There is a large gangbanger problem there. I hear the crime rate is already going down.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> The reason atonal music would deter drug users is that it does not "coddle" the listener.


The reason atonal music would deter drug users is the same reason it's seldom heard on the radio: Most drug users, like most other people, actively dislike it.​


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

But in this case they´d have much better odds for actually getting to know the music 





BTW, at hidden niches at the Copenhagen Central Station they have been playing rather awful, loud band marches as a deterrence at times, to some effect. But the sheer loudness was probably the main reason.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

In Switzerland (Zurich I think) the local authorities broadcast Mozart to keep young loiterers from congregating in a major public square.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

When I worked for Muzak, we installed speakers in the entrance and played very bland easy-listening music without a beat, to deter boom-boxers from hanging around the bus stop. It did work, but I think it was only because it was a different sound which interfered with their music. It could have been anything. I think John Cage would have liked the effect of two things playing at once.


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## Eusebius12 (Mar 22, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> The reason atonal music would deter drug users is that it does not "coddle" the listener.
> People are using drugs to escape reality and tune-in to a subjective inner-space of numbness and tranquility, not unlike the effect of drones or harmonically centric music, like all tonal music does.
> 
> Tonal music reinforces identity; atonal music does not. These drug users are trying to "reach" their inner identity, and escape reality, so atonal music is like a bad trip for the druggie, who wishes to create a subjective womb of protected identity.


Does that mean they are subconsciously, consciously, or superconsciously validating the role of the church


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## Eusebius12 (Mar 22, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> That's already been done in South America, by Dudamel. There is a large gangbanger problem there. I hear the crime rate is already going down.


Mmm. I guess gangbanging can have different meanings in different places.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

millionrainbows said:


> When I worked for Muzak, we installed speakers in the entrance and played very bland easy-listening music without a beat, to deter boom-boxers from hanging around the bus stop. It did work, but I think it was only because it was a different sound which interfered with their music. It could have been anything. I think John Cage would have liked the effect of two things playing at once.


There is a beach in New York City (I haven't been there in many years), that was very crowded in the summer with mostly Latino / Hispanic beach goers. The young Hispanic men would have their boom boxes and blast them at top volume, trying to drown out the neighboring boom boxes, though they were all blasting pretty much the same kind of music, Hispanic pop or rap. I thought more of Ives than Cage, but either way it was quite a soundscape.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

This has been tried with various levels of success in my city. At the main railway station years ago, classical music was played to discourage homeless people from taking shelter there. This was abandoned and I assume the subsequent remodelling of the station made it less attractive to those people. It was decluttered and the number of seats where reduced.

In a suburban area where youths would congregate in streets and do burnouts with cars, Barry Manilow and Frank Sinatra where played, and this was a success.

Music forms a background noise in other spaces in the city to create a welcoming atmosphere, particularly in relation to shopping and recreation. I've heard Satie's Gymnopedies in my local shopping mall as well as the likes of 80's pop. I'm sure Satie would be thrilled, this is in line with his concept of armchair music. I've heard things like Piazzolla's tangos and blues like B. B. King in cafes, and of course bars have either piped or live music.

I am puzzled at the use of atonal music, its like using a sledgehammer to crack open a nut. Perhaps the railways in Berlin are desperate. In any case, even if this succeeds in deterring certain people, it doesn't solve the problem. It will simply move elsewhere. I don't blame the railways for doing this. Its simply something which is a deep social problem, for example longer term solutions would be addressing drug addiction directly (eg. more rehab services) and same with the housing shortage which is a problem in most Western cities today.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

The effect of opiates is significantly to remove the emotional component of pain - awareness of the pain may still be present but not that aspect of it that makes it so awful - so if atonal music is really so painful for listeners then opiates may help them to withstand it. The experiment will turn the public into drug addicts and drug sellers will gain a new marketing ploy.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Atonalists should be ecstatic at the thought of a ready made market.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Not atonal, but here's classical music being used to calm drunks at McDonald's: https://www.inverse.com/article/33942-mcdonalds-classical-music-drunk-suppression


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## sonance (Aug 20, 2018)

The newspapers say that the Deutsche Bahn now refrains from playing atonal music after the station manager visited a concert by the Berlin Initiative Neue Musik [new music] with atonal music. The concert was meant to take a stand against social inequality. The audience had a lot of fun.

But the Deutsche Bahn will pursue the idea of deterring drug users by using "natural sounds". The information doesn't say which - chirping of birds? roaring of the Niagara Falls? howling of wolves? ...


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## mathisdermaler (Mar 29, 2017)

Last night I had a very spiritual experience with an overly potent marijuana edible (legal) and Edgar Varese's Octandre. Atonal music and drug use are often complementary for me, but I do suspect Im in the minority.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

But that'll just introduce hipsters. That's like getting rid of mice and introducing rats. Yes, the thugs'll be gone but I'd prefer them to beret'd yoof drinking artisan coffee. Which reminds me of a joke I like: How do you kill a hipster? Drown him in the mainstream.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I think we could deter lowlifes from public places by playing opera arias.


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

As a resident of Berlin for thirty plus years Hermannstr. U Bahnhof (U.7/8) has a certain, let us say, "ambience" after 21:00 to which I think atonal music can only be described as an improvement compared to the adjacent Department Store (Karstadt) music which is normally piped in.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I used to clear my house parties by playing Rick Wakemen's 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth'. It worked for 2 years and then people started enjoying its absolute dreadfulness. "Go on Merl, play the bit where they sing 'crocodile teeth, lizard's head." they would say. Ffs. I soon found that Lou Reed's 'Metal Machine Music' did the same job, but much quicker.


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