You're listening to 20,000 Hertz.

The stories behind the world's most recognizable and interesting sounds.

I'm Dallas Taylor.

What came to be called elevator music is almost never heard in elevators today.

So, how did it earn the name elevator music?

This is the story of Musak, a company that changed the way public spaces sound. I like the term elevator music.

I don't think there's anything inherently pejorative about it because it's music

that's supposed to elevate people's moods.

That's Joseph Lanza.

He's the author of the book Elevator Music. His book explores the history of the Musak Company and the genre of music it promoted called Easy Listening. You're hearing one of those tracks right now. It's from one of their stimulus progression albums, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Back to Joseph.

It was a musical currency that started in the 40s, but it went on and through the 50s,

and then when music changed a bit when you had more electric guitars and drums, the easy listening adapted to it as well.

One of the most iconic tracks is the theme from a summer place.

The music was written by Max Steiner, and the most famous recording of it was from Percy Faith.

It's exactly what you probably think of when you think of music.

Usually it was strings, a lot of strings that were supplying the top melody, the vocal melody.

I don't think many people really disliked it as much as people might want to believe today.

It was just very sweet, pretty music and you'd often hear it in actual pop songs.

But this sweet pretty music actually has a grim origin.

The Musak Company got its start on the battlefield.

Major The Musak Company got its start on the battlefield. Major General George Squire served as the U.S. Army's chief signal officer during World War I.

That wartime work later on led him to develop a way to transmit music across electrical wires.

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