THE RIGHT TO HUM

Evening Star, Issue 22277, 2 March 1936, Page 10

THE RIGHT TO HUM

The hummer, using the word in its musical and not in its indecisive sense, is a man who knows how to comfort hmself (says ‘ The Times '). He is commonly deficient in musical endowment. He hums because humming is uniquely adaptable to sudden changes of key, and indeed to abrupt transitions to an entirely different time. He does not need to remember any words, but if he should he can always insert them, like the conductors of smart orchestras. He is, in fact, quite all right, and only asking to be left alone to go his way accompanied by the cheap and gentle music of his own devising. He does not mind that the 8.8. C. makes so little effort to discover humming talent or to utilise it when known. He is not working for reward. All the same, just as very rich men are pleased when their, stocks appreciate, and greatly complimented beauties still thirst for little compliments, so are the most contented men glad of additional good news. And for hummers comes this news, that to hum music, by a ruling of a Leipzig coui;t, is not to infringe copyright and become liable for fees. An actor in a film was sued for humming a few bars of the ‘ Star-spangled Banner’ while waiting for an aeroplane. Had he sung them, a very verdict might have been given; but he and ,all actors are now gloriously free to hum. It is a wise decision, because humming deserves wide encouragement. Jt is the only art which has no equal claim on the consideration of the divinely musical and of the quite unmusical “ treasons, stratagems, and spoils ” brigade. To the musical it represents the first step. No apparatus is needed except a month, which everybody has, and there is no sort of age limit. The humming apparatus never breaks like the voice. All who believe with Plato and many other good intellects that music has a great influence on the soul, and that it is more and more necessary as we live so much amid mechanical cacophonies, must welcome the music that is within the reach of all. People must not be encouraged to sing indiscriminately: yet singing, with its visions of the Albert Hall, enjoys all the prestige. The unmusical, for their part, must think gratefully of humming because the loudest hum is gentle compared to what wood, and still more brass and parchment, can achieve. Perhaps the great popularity of gentle crooners is a step in the right direction. Perhaps soon the ultimate permutations and combinations of the ideas on which crooners feed will have been played out, and love and the moonlight and holdings in arms will have to be allowed to rest. Language will have failed or will have been transcended, and there will be nothing for crooners but non-verbal noises; and out of all such noises the public that goes on so unflaggingly with its crossword puzzles will enjoy the puzzle which anything hummed contains; what are the missing words? Then humming may sweep the country, as a way of entertaining oneself with sound and one’s neighbour or fellowtraveller with a puzzle.