CHAMPION CORNETIST

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 128, 24 February 1938, Page 12

CHAMPION CORNETIST

Brilliant Blind Musician PLAYS FROM MEMORY Dominion Special Service. Palmerston North. February 23. Though he is now champion cornetist of New Zealand, Allan Morton, the blind youth who won the B flat cornet championship this afternoon, is modest about his success. Interviewed shortly after the result had been announced, he was loath to talk about himself and he strongly emphasised that he did not desire the “sympathy-for-the-blind” attitude. “I don’t like that sort of thing,” he said. Morton was willing, however, to describe how he learns music. He has never seen a printed note of music in his life. He does not read music—he feels it. His music, like that of many other blind musicians, is translated into Braille, which he reads with his fingers. To do this he plays his instrument with the opposite hand to that which is normally used by a cornetist. His next task is to memorise the music. “I don’t play by ear, yon understand,” he said.. “I play from memory. Sometimes it takes me from 10 days to two weeks to memorise a piece. No, I can’t ‘sight read.’ It is impossible to do that quickly enough, but it is quite easy to read music at a reasonably fast rate. Memorising music is merely a matter of training the mind. I have never been able to read music by actual sight, so I was trained from the very start to memorise and therefore do not find it difficult.”

Morton, who is a member of the New Zealand Institute for the Blind band, has just passed his eighteenth birthday, and has been playing the cornet for about seven years. He is also a member of the Blind Institute’s dance band and is a keen pianist. His tutor. Lieutenant G. W. Bowes, is conductor of the Blind Institute’s band and is also conductor of the First Battalion Auckland Regiment, which is taking part in the contest. He is well pleased with Morton's success. "Morton has exceptional qualities of musicianship,” he said, “and given the opportunity I would expect him to develop into a first-class champion. He showed remarkable aptitude from the very start.” .