"BARBARIC SWING"

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 11, 13 July 1944, Page 6

"BARBARIC SWING"

STANDARD OF BROADCASTS

A criticism of broadcasting stations wliich failed to fulfil their major task of education was made by Mr. *. Martyn Renner in-an address to parents of Rongotai College pupils this week on the new curriculum for postprimary education. Mr. Renner was emphasising the importance^ music ,and art in education, and the propel use and pronunciation of the Engiisn "Where they should educate by fos•iering^a: taste for good music, they strivf to please all types of listeners, particularly those who mistake the barbaric strains of 'swing' for good music and those who consider no song worth listening to unless it is of the 'drooling' sentimental type," said. Mr. Renner.' "Listen to any request session and you will get the measure of how low is the standard of musical appreciation amongst us and how little the broadcasting stations do to raise it.. Granted that all sorts of people listen to the wireless and pay their fees to do so—the wise and the ignorant, the educated' and the' uneducated, the high brow and the low brow—and that they are entitled to get value for their money; granted all that, yet there' is no excuse why art should be so brazenly prostituted to entertainment and why the young people of today should be hourly confronted with false instead of true standards of art and have their taste for really good music utterly spoilt. "The broadcasting stations could be ■■ a -very- valuable and a very powerful instrument to instill into young people a love for real music. But by their constant presentations of false and meretricious forms, they negative the effect of whatever real artistic compositions they put over the air. However, the removal of music, arts, and crafts from the list of extra subjects of the secondary school curriculum and their definite inclusion in the core subjects, may ultimately have the effect of increasing the number of those trained to appreciate the beautiful in art; and, by increasing the number of young people who are proof against, or will not be mislead by, what I have termed the false and meretricious, ultimately raise the general aesthetic taste of the community as a whole." ' ■ . f