RADIO AND MUSIC.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 227, 25 September 1930, Page 14

RADIO AND MUSIC.

EFFECTS BENEFICIAL STATUS OF GRAMOPHONE. RETAINING ITS POPULARITY. Although there is a diversity of opinion in Auckland as to what extent and in what manner music has been affected by radio, there is no doubt that it has had a marked influence in popularising better mueic. "Radio has increased public interest in music by encouraging people to take more notice of the value of self-expres-sion," said the manager of a piano house. "Whert-as at one time it was just the fashion to have a, piano, now the radio is teaching the owners what a splendid thing it is to be able to play. That applies in a measure to all musical instruments, but is the basis. There are more children than ever learning to play the piano." A sheet music salesman could not eay whether or not the sales of sheet music had or had not increased. Certainly radio had given facilities for an increased knowledge of music, and there were instances of people buying music as a direct result of hearing items on the radio. Wireless v. Gramophone. Views did not coincide with regard to gramophones. A departmental manager said that radio had much reduced the sales of novelty records, which were frequently heard by wireless, but there was a steady demand for classical reproductions. Some people were not interested in gramophone music and had wireless sets; on the other hand there were others with gramophones who bought records of numbers heard "on the air." "We still have to sell radio sets against gramophone records," remarked an executive of a radio house, '"'and that, I think, is as it should be. Many people like the gramophone because they can have what music they please at any time, and there are still more who use both gramophone and radio with equal enjoyment. The alliance is good and should continue to be popular. The ordinary gramophone is losing favour, it seems, for the electrical combination of the two." With this last opinion another manager agreed, but he was definitely of opinion that radio retarded gramophone sales. Small gramophones were selling fairly well. Customers unable to afford the large electrical combinations were purchasing medium-sized gramophones and radio sets and "pick-up" equipment, which enabled them to have the gramophone music amplified through their own radios. A woman in the gramophone business said that" while the radio had decreased the sale of the instruments, it had helped to increase the sales of records and was undoubtedly a factor in raising the standard of musical taste. "We find that country people hear programmes over the radio and send orders frequently for records of particular items. Gramophones are so much more intimate. We have people, old customers, "who have the radio, but are still regular purchasers of good records, which, I think, will always hold their own." Music Teachers' Experience. A prominent violin tutor considered that radio in the end would be as great a thing for music as the introduction of the gramophone. This was already illustrated in London, where the "promenades" in Queen's Hall, conducted by Sir Henry Wood, had been taken over by the British Broadcasting Company, and all the performances were broadcasted. The attendances were larger than ever. Incidentally, a great revolution had been carried out with success in this hall, where the audiences were allowed to stand, lounge about, and to smoke. Sir Landon Ronald had said that the first thing mechanical music by radio was going to do was to remove mediocrity, so that the bona fide or gifted artist had nothing to fear. "The wireless broadcasting of concerts has had a marked effect on the attendances at the Municipal Choir and band concerts," remarked a teacher of piano and singing, "but the question of the direct influence of radio is such an abstract one it is hard to say how far the culture of musical art has been benefited—if at all. For my part, I can say I have had more pupils, and of good type, too, in the last two seasons than over before." Some pupils found encouragement in the fact that they sometimes had a chance to broadcast. The local secretary of a famous English musical academy that conducts annual Empire examinations, said that the number of entries has steadily increased during the past five years, this year providing easily the largest number. "The point that strikes me most in this connection," said a broadcasting official, "is that, with the gramophone, radio offers another means by which the masses may hear the better class of music. The radio reaches every class of people. Of course, we have to cater for all tastes, and consequently the radio must have a broadening effect on music. You can multiply the 50,000 licensed listeners by three and get some idea of the number of people regularly hearing the best music of New Zealand and other parts of the world."