I sh quite.

You're listening to Radio Lab, the podcast from New York Public Radio, WNYC, and NPR.

This is Radio Lab, I'm Jan, I've WMR, welcome to the podcast this week, a short little something that looks forward to a program we're going to make for

season four. We're doing a program about music, kind of about pop music. Not really sure what

to call it just yet. But it was inspired by this idea that everywhere you go, there's music

playing. You know, you go to a store. There's music playing. You go to

a doctor's office. There's music playing. You are put on hold on the telephone. There's music playing.

I think someone actually counted how many times you hear music in the course of a day.

And I think it was in the hundreds. I'm not sure. But this struck me as not a good thing while we were thinking about this show. But then,

as we were poked around, we bumped into mention of a project from David Lang, composer David Lang,

who's part of the whole bang-on-a-can ensemble here in New York City. He's kind of a big

contemporary classical guy. He does kind of a big contemporary classical

guy. He does a lot of really interesting music. And he was commissioned to create background

music for the most unlikeliest of places. The morgue. He was asked to write background music

for that moment when you see a loved one for the last time.

Like, what kind of music do you write in that circumstance?

Do you even do it?

And if you do, like, what's the right mood?

What, as a composer, do you want to accomplish in that situation?

Like, what's appropriate?

Well, the project is called Sal de Depart.

I think it means translates from French to Chamber of Departure, maybe.

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