"NO SILVERY TONES."

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 260, 2 November 1929, Page 18 (Supplement)

"NO SILVERY TONES."

CHILDREN'S UGLY VOICES,

"Children's voices are not naturally beautiful, and the poet who talked about the 'silvery voices' of children probably never knew any. The natural noise they make is extremely unpleasant." This was the statement made by Mr. Geoffrey Shaw, Government inspector of musie in training colleges, at the Summer School of Music, held in Oxford recently. "The singer," he continued, "should have, literally, hundreds of voices to express every possible mood, but I am afraid that most of us have only got one, which we use impartially for the 'Hallelujah Chorus' and 'Sweet and Low.' Too many, people sound exactly as if they were singing into a bedroom jug." Mr. Shaw also protested against the use of the term "school music," stating, "There is, upfortunately, an inferiority complex about the idea of school music. We have coipe to believe there are two sorts of music—the music we hear in the Albert Hall and school, music. . "In fact, we hardly believe that school music is music at all.- The loss of faith which has been hampering us in teaching music is due, I-think, to that inferiority complex."