The Problem With Happy, Uplifting, and Optimistic

I was recently at a presentation on sonic branding where a producer from one of the world's biggest music production houses showed a series of interesting case studies, all of which focused on how the notes had been generated: throwing nuts at taiko drums, dropping hardware onto piano strings and generally whacking unlikely objects against unlikelier surfaces in order to come up with a memorable melodic signature. I asked him later why all the stories were about timbre (the sound) and none of them were about the musical notes, which all, in fact, sounded pretty similar. He sighed (at least, in my memory, he sighed) and said that the issue was the client briefs. They're all variations on the same three words: Happy. Uplifting. Optimistic. Nobody wants suspended chords, open intervals, colour notes, tempo changes or any of the other tools that composers have available to create distinctive, memorable music that sticks with you. It's all 'dum-dee-dee-dum-dum.'

I think about him whenever I'm in the supermarket, listening to all the self-serve checkouts play the same bouncy trill, over and over again. What if they were programmed to play different notes and timbres that worked together to form little checkout ambient symphonies of differing mood and pace throughout the day? And different stores could have checkout tones that reflect their neighbourhood and its cultures? What if checkout tones were actually worth listening to? That would be interesting.