Untitled Hold Song #1

On hold with a credit union 5/4/2020 at 3:47pm

I’m on hold with hold music.

The well isn’t dry, in fact I’ve been on hold several times in the past month, only to walk away with no name. No artist or title. Just a memory of garbled jazz and easy listening suites. I’m actually surprised this didn’t happen sooner because I think a lot of these songs are only known as a catalog number, housed in some deep internet repository.

I fantasize about how hold songs are chosen. I’ve worried before that it’s just an algorithm making a palatable selection, but what if there is a human behind the smooth tunes we hear? Out of all the possible songs, “achievement #192” eeks in and out of network static when you call Dick’s Sporting Goods to orchestrate a return. Was there a human behind that choice?

***

I was filling up my car with gas and the small, built-in television screen came alive after I inserted my credit card. A cheerful and energetic song played before an advertisement for fuel line additives blared loudly. For a few short, glorious seconds I was on hold at the gas station. In this moment I float without agency, unable to make an octane selection or complete the transaction. My right hand jiggles the pump handle, checking to see if it has engaged and ready to dispense gasoline. What was the song that played for three and a half seconds? Does it have a name? I find it interesting that so many moments of waiting have a dedicated soundtrack.

***

All my recent calls put on hold have had similar sounding music. Without much effort, you could stereotype them as hold music within seconds. I use several apps to help identify the hold songs, hoping that they each use a uniquely intelligent system to cover all my bases. I jump from one to the next until I hit gold. After all my apps failed to produce a real answer for this song, I downloaded a simple recording app so I could at least make a tinny sample and to try again later. This strategy also failed. The sound quality is pretty bad and I annoyed my girlfriend while I shushed for quiet in our small house. What’s worse was it was her phone call I commandeered.

So after a series of failures, I decided I would have to begin reviewing untitled snippets, distilling these small nuggets into something greater. Taking the fuzzy, garbled seeds and watering them with care until we can reap even the smallest of harvests. It’s time to farm. Some seasons will be bountiful, some will be thin so praise the rains when they come.

Untitled Hold Song #1

There’s definitely a saxophone in this. Percussion pushes our lives forward with a steady, unbreaking beat and you can hear sounds of life in the background. My girlfriend is cleaning the junk drawer as I listen to the hold music coming from her phone. I manage to capture 50 seconds before the automated voice says “thanks for holding.” The horn wades in and out, not caring much about the other characters and their emotions. At 12 seconds some kind of keyboard plays three or four sad notes in a feeble response. After a short rest, the saxophone climbs higher and higher until an unremarkable climax, finally reaching the dead kindness of “thanks for holding.”

I look forward to this new paradigm of hold music that does not rely on the structure of artists and titles. We are turning a corner into uncharted landscapes with only static and saxophones to guide us in the dark.