UKC

Hello!

Having visited a variety of indoor climbing gyms in the UK, I have found that the music style's and genres played have varied. I am currently a music student and for my university assignment I am doing market research into what is the preferred music styles for Indoor rock climbers. Would be fab if climbers could fill out my survey! Only takes 2 minutes! (all answer will remain anonymous). 

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/FCGPXYS

Cheers

Done.

For me, Eden Rock - great music. Kendal - not so good.

Did you mean "indoor climbing walls" or did you mean "US"?

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For good or bad, welcome to 2018. It's one of the less upsetting americanisms in my opinion.

most "centres" are far more than just walls now though aren't they. with lots having serious training areas even with free weights etc. i quite like the term climbing gym

Definitely bad and, yes, it does seem to have become much more prevalent in recent months.

Really? I consider it just about the most irritating because unlike stuff like "send" and so on it is almost impossible to use ironically or comically.

Yes, but the term gym could only possibly be applied once they also install wall bars and ropes for climbing up.

When did yer average gym last have wall bars and ropes for climbing up?

I think you may be in a fast-dwindling minority on this one, Robert!

You list around 10 different types of dance music separately, then bulk indie, alternative, progressive, Rock&roll and Blues all under “Rock”...

Surely this is what the word gym immediately brings to mind for many of us from our school days!

If so, then it is dwindling remarkably fast. Only a year or two ago the use of the word "gym" for a climbing wall would have resulted in howls of protest on here precipitating a deluge of "likes" in agreement.

Aye, Classical get to be “other”...

a little bit of a polling bias.

The school gym in my day, which was your day, did have wall bars and ropes for climbing up. But that was the 70s! Are they still like that?

When Simon ran the wall at Bude (before he went, as the Barn, to Tavistock and  then as Magic Wood to St Neot), you could walk in and find him playing something classical on the piano. I dimly remember being told that his cousin is John Lill, the concert pianist.

Very few school gyms still had them in the 90s, suspect very few under 35 would make the connection!

Off topic, my gym has just got a load of new machines in.

I particularly like the one where you put a quid in and get a Mars Bar out...

Did your survey, I'm getting very old - didn't recognise half the musical genres listed!

(I'm assuming that to my untutored ear they all sound like a recording of a fire in a pet shop)

Yes, I had exactly the same complaint!

But then it also has age-groups in 5 year intervals up to 49 and then everything else as "50+".  Perhaps there's a pattern there...

I am a dinosaur ... too old and ignorant to recognise most of the genres you mentioned and would really enjoy Baroque or Renaissance music at the climbing wall. Dream on I hear you all say

I was once brave enough to ask the dentist if he could time in to Radio 3 instead of 2, as a condition of allowing him to do a root filling. It helped.

If you learn anything from my answers i'lI eat my own hands.

wot no entry for Gabber!!!

now that sh1t will make for climb faster! 

no Grindcore entry neither

Why have any?  Whatever is played is not going to be to everyone's taste. Incesssant background music is a scourge of modern life.

For the last 40 years or so since Sony brought out the first Walkman it has been possible to listen to your own personalised choice of music without inflicting it on those around you.  If you want music you can have it, so why should I have to listen to it, any more than you should have to listen to mine?

That was my reply. I prefer silence.

CB

Done.

A survey which appears to be designed to get a specific result. Particular problems seem to be poor age bracketing, 50+ is too wide, most good surveys continue in 5 or ten years up to 65, the go plus. The music genres seem to be aiming at the under thirties. These genres are split into many subgenres in the survey. Then there is one option for the rest of the genres. You could have had options of rock, classical, thrash metal etc etc. Really needed more thought to get a better feel for the choice.

The wall I visit changes genre of music depending on the approximate age group in the majority, eg mid-week morning lunch when I and the other grumblies are in it tends towards rock, tea time with many young boulderers it tends towards the options you want us to choose! 

I see people do this (listen to earphones/headphones), I would like to do this sometimes, but at the climbing wall I start with the assumption that everyone is likely to do something unexpected and dangerous (and they often do), so I wouldn't feel safe.

I like having music on, if it's not my thing I tune it out, but when it it's good I find it really helps me get in the sending zone.

Eden Rock: best music in any venue (not only climbing walls) in Cumbria. Never considered that it might be possible to listen to The Grateful Dead whilst bouldering!

[Edit]

PS I haven't completed the survey as the genres, and in the case of dance music, the many sub-genres, listed don't fairly represent the different types of music out there and so any results won't be representative. Sorry.

Done, but last  question on favourite song made me laugh. Regarding the comments on music genres, even growing up listening to dance music in all its variety it would be hard to separate songs according to the listed genres, too much overlap.

Hey, and let's not forget Country.

"Hank Williams Will Live Forever In People's Hearts"

Pembroke

FA D Cook, A Morgan, 1982 April 12

(Young people: see http://climbers-club.co.uk/journal/original/1992%20Journal-p82-94.pdf for Dave Cook's obit ...)

Done. Sorry I had a rant about the genre listings and merging genres that didn't belong together! I am a music snob, so I apologise for that! No reggae or classical????

Good luck with your research  

I think it's a bit more complex: the best style of music depends on the style of route you are climbing.  Something that is good for delicate balancing on a slab is going to suck for powering up an overhanging boulder and vice versa.  

It's good when the music style changes every now and then.

Done, good luck.  I hope you are enlightened!

Agreed. Eden has the best vibe of any wall I've climbed in (although I did like the one in Bingley before it disappeared), and the music plays a part.

I think all walls should play Fela Kuti most, if not all of the time. It's upbeat without being aggressive, cheerful on the surface but listen deeper and it's full of deep expressive content. It's the kind of music that if you know it, you love it, and if you don't know it, you'll certainly like it as well - and you should get to know and love it. Unless you don't have a soul, but then, you're going to burn in hell for eternity anyway, so not liking the music at the climbing wall is the least of your worries.

I have no idea what most of that list sounds like (heard most of the terms but don't know what it sounds like).  Favourite song?  Must be a playlist generation thing.

...and no brass band music? Specifically the Monty Python theme which is particularly apt for my style of climbing.