David McCarthy, of the City of London Cemetery and Crematorium, writes:

The Wesley Music System

"In September 2001 I first heard the Wesley Computerised Music System being demonstrated at the Joint Burial and Cremation Conference at Buxton.

"My initial thoughts were that it was just another way of playing CDs. How wrong I was! The system is an exceptionally good way of having music available in a digitised format, thereby allowing easy access and programmability for individual services. This, combined with the ability to have special requests searched for and then sent via the Internet to the system, was for me a great selling point.

"It was, of course, very important that the people that would have to use the system should see it working, so a trip was arranged for several members of Corporation staff to see the system operating in situ. I was sold on the system, but our Crematorium Manager Alan Lee MBE and Crematorium Supervisor Mick Chambers were not so sure. While the system sounded good, it didn’t offer them anything that they couldn’t do already simply by playing CDs.

"However, it did have a lot more to offer than just playing CDs, as we were to find out. It had the facility to programme a complete day’s services and to control them from within the chapel. It had the built-in facility to fade music in and out without having to go to the controls. It came with the facility to obtain music and deliver it by Internet direct to the Crematorium. In short, it was much more than a new CD player.

"Another important issue was that the music on the system was licensed to be played in public. We all have CDs given to us by the public with requests to play them, not to mention the copied CDs and tapes that are supplied. With the new system the licence fee and artists’ royalty for music to be played in public is paid as part of the contract.

Installation

"It was decided earlier this year that we would introduce the Wesley Music System at the City of London. As you are all aware, we never do things piecemeal at the City, and it was therefore decided that if we were going to use the system then it should be installed in all of our chapels. All five that is!

"The first problem we found was that, while the sound system currently in operation in our chapels was top of the range when installed, it was now showing its age, and several of our chapels needed to have new speakers installed.

"Wesley Music installed two vertical Bose MA12 speakers plus an MB4 sub-bass at the front of the cremation chapels in each of our modern Crematoria. The installation was in keeping with the chapel and the sound was a definite improvement on the old speaker system. In addition, the speakers allowed you to walk from one side of the chapel to the other, or from front to back, without any noticeable variation in the output. These speakers supplied a nice even spread of music throughout the chapel.

"The installation was not all plain sailing, and we experienced many teething problems, such as keyboards and monitors freezing, and music not working from the key fob control. Also we experienced problems with the sound itself not being anywhere near as good in quality as we expected. Investigation by Wesley Music highlighted the problem, which was that further items of our old music system needed to be updated if the new digital system was to work to the quality that we wanted.

"Another problem highlighted by one of our Chapel Attendants was that Wesley Music had set up the system incorrectly as it played music in Mono only. What a waste of a brand new system to make such a mistake! However, as pointed out by Neil of Wesley Music, you don’t actually want to play stereo music in the chapel, and the system had been deliberately set up to deliver in Mono. The whole point of the new speaker system is to supply an even spread of music across the chapel, not to have each speaker giving out different sounds. That made sense. The bereaved were sitting in a burial or cremation chapel not in their living rooms. They needed to be able to listen to the full complement of sound from ANY position within the chapel, not for example, just one half of a stereo signal if they happened to be seated at the extreme right or left of a pew.

"The music installation was a learning curve - not only for us at the City, but also for Alan and Neil of Wesley Music. As Alan Jeffrey said:

"Obviously we are really delighted to have the system installed and used at such a prestigious location, and the co-operation we have been shown by the Crematorium staff at City of London has been invaluable throughout. This was a big project, and the experience of equipping such a vast and busy facility, not to mention some of the product development issues learned along the way, will provide immeasurable on-going benefit to all our clients as a direct result of this process. Despite some local difficulty in the location of radio receivers, and the odd 'keyboard lockout', it may have been challenging at times, and not without one or two teething problems, but it is now so gratifying to see the staff and clients receiving the benefits of our system on a daily basis."

Demonstration

"Finally the new system was working to our satisfaction, and we decided to advise Funeral Directors and Funeral Arrangers of exactly what the system could do for us all.

"Although we told the Directors and Arrangers about the system, they were not overly impressed, and it made little if any difference to their old habits of bringing in copied CDs and tapes. Further action was obviously needed.

"Apart from the sound and the convenience of being able to programme music, a really important new innovation is that we are able to search for specific music requests and have them sent direct to the Crematorium ready to be played at the service. This is done by requesting and supplying the required music via an ADSL line which is fast and efficient.

"Funeral Directors are, as we all know, a sceptical lot, and preferred the system that they had always used, i.e. to bring their own music on the day. However, we wanted to discourage that practice, and so we arranged a demonstration at one of our Funeral Arrangers’ Meetings. We hold these meetings on a regular six-monthly basis and one was due, so I decided to organise a demonstration. With the help of my colleagues I arranged for the Funeral Arrangers to arrive at our Cremation Chapel from 5:30 onwards, and on arrival to be given a form to fill in where they could request 3 pieces of music. They were then taken into the grounds to be shown our facilities. While they were out one of our Crematorium Operators requested the music they had put on their forms.

"By the time they had returned and had their refreshments, we were ready for the demonstration. In the short time we’d had at our disposal 8 or 9 pieces of music had been obtained and sent through to us. The demonstration was a great success, with even the most sceptical of Funeral Directors now making regular use of the request system.

No More CDs and Tapes to be Played at Services

"That was the first hurdle with the Funeral Directors. The second is to stop them from bringing in tapes and CDs on the day. We had already issued a Music Brochure which shows all of the music currently on the system, and made it plain that the system is far superior to CDs and tapes, but still the Funeral Directors would bring items in on the day.

"We first spoke to Funeral Directors at one of our regular Liaison Meetings and they were all in agreement that privately ‘burnt CDs’ and tapes should no longer be used. This was followed up by a letter to all of our users advising that we will no longer play ‘burnt CDs’ or copied tapes. We will instead obtain the music via our supplier.

"All in all I feel that the new computerised music system is an improvement to the service that we offer at the City of London. No more CDs that don’t play properly, no more empty CD cases handed in on the day, no more poorly recorded tapes, no more tapes that get chewed up in the tape deck. Instead, we have digital music that can be obtained quickly and efficiently via the Internet, and services that are well planned before hand, not at the last minute as families arrive on site."