STREET MUSIC

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 83, 18 January 1928, Page 6

STREET MUSIC

,A WEALTH IN LONDON. The English have few claims to distinction where classical music is concerned. They have few great composers, and fewer great artists. But what a wealth of music abounds in London streets and squares (writes a correspondent of the Newcastle "Weekly Chronicle"). To be sure,., it is not always the kind of music that has charms. Some will unkindly say that it is no music at all. But that is going too far. One cannot harshly call it a noise. Let us be content, and call it not good music nor badmusic, but street music. You will hear it first in London when the milkman calls. There is the -atter of his. pony's feet, a rattle of bottles and cans, and then a high-pitched, call of "M-U-k!" or rather husky yodel. Most milkmen prefer yodelling- Next, probably when you are dressing,, you will hear the rumble of a heavy cart and the slow "ploy-plot, plop-plop" ot a heavy horse's shoes. Then comes a drawn out, not unanelodious cry of "Coal!" a mournful, poignant cry, that strikes a note of melancholy, and. is; f-ometimea- followed by a quavering, plaintive "Who'l Buy?" and a din©-| dong of a heavy handbell. But no one j buys, and. the coal man plods weariljf j his doleful cries fading with the j distance. Street cries in London are. mostly monotonous. In a dreary monotone the blind beggar with his shiver- 1 ing dog calls "Pipe-lights, cigar-lights*, pipe-lights, cigar-lights," and ola women call '"Buy a box of matches, sir!" in tones Avhich express neither J hope, despair, nor the faintest interest. Barrel-organs are everywhere in plenty; loud ones, soft ones, with new tunes and old tunes, sprightly tunes, and dreary tunes. They make the air hideous in some silent, solemn square untih bribed to depart, or else compete madly with the roar of traffic in busy streets, aided by flapping spoons or | tremulous strident songs. Brass bands, too, are much in evidence, on week days thumping and blowing martially through the streets, and on Sundays droning out hymns in the smug respectability of Bayswater. Cornets also are plentiful on Sunday, as well as harmoniums and wailing violins. As evening draws on most street musicians retire. But there is always to be seen the-old and bent mouth-organist playing wheezily in the open doorway of the public-house, till warm air and strong beer mellow men's hearts and open their pockets. AH this is but a fraction of London's street music, which is heard day and night equally m the broadest street and the meanest alley. Much of it is dull and most of it doleful, but it is a music all bv itself—such as is heard in no other country but England and no town but. London. And London would be a sadder place without its sad street music.