MUSIC BY MECHANISM.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18954, 30 August 1923, Page 5

MUSIC BY MECHANISM.

By Arthur Mason. The two great recording and reproducing instruments, the gramophone and the player-piano, by now have completely justified their claim to be instruments of music as well as mechanical marvels. At the annual convention of the British Music Industries, recently held, it was officially stated that last year’s output of gramophone records in she British Isles was not far short of the enormous total of 20,000,000. As to the player-piano, a well-known writer on musical art read, at the same representative gathering, a paper in which, eulogising the educative powers of that instrument,' he drew attention to developments in' its construction which have transformed its artistic possibilities.

These are significant facts. The immense output of gramophone records is proof enough of the extent of the public’s demand for gramophone music. The increased powers of the player-piano are attracting to its wonderful reproductions of piano music a rapidly-increasing public. Each of these instruments, it cannot be doubted, has before it a great future. Each of them already has an influence in the world which is among the most beneficial of existing agencies for the spread of a love of music, and, consequently, for the expansion of the musical public. They are certain of a still greater activity, and not least because they are frankly out for the larger music-loving public. They have reproduced, it is true, and are reproducing a very great amount of the music usually known as high-class music. But in particular, it is their performance of music which has in it an appeal to the vast body of music-lovers,, the musically uninstructed majority, which has made them the enormously popular instruments of music they are. Producing Popular Music.— The popularity of popular music is not in the least to be disputed. Nor, should it. fie quarrelled with. There will always be popular music, and popular music will increase in popularity as the music-loving public grows. Why? Because they are a* musical public, and not a musical close corporation. If any still remain who believe love of music to be a matter of. musical erudition or anything else that is high-brow, they- must be very few and very foolish. Popular music, moreover, well deserves its popularity. Nearly always its appeal is well founded. Nearly always there is something or other of merit in this music which secures to "itself the adherence of millions of people. Its melodic line, or its rhythm, or the indefinable attractiveness of some .or other element of its construction, .takes the ear, and holds the ear of the multitude, not by accident, but because of the quality of its appeal. One of the most widely popular forms of music in the . world to-day, for example, is the dance music of the many orchestras whose performances have been recorded and reproduced, and have been given an immense vogue by the gramophone. Very much of this music deserves its popularity—not only because of its own merits as skilfully written work, but also because of the cleverness of its performers. And this is merely one form of popular music of its many forms—dances, songs, instrumental " melodies—the appeal of which is being broadcasted by the gromophone and the player-piano, not the least valuable of the functions of which instruments has been that of emphasising the fact that popular music need not necessarily be poor music, but, on the contrary, is for the most part admirable music. » Educative Powers.— There will be many people, however, who will take their greatest benefit and their greatest pleasure from the educative powers of the reproducing instruments. Those powers are enormous. They belong, moreover, to the type of educative influence which secures its results by indirect means. The instruments do not demand of the listener that he shall sit down to them for the set purpose of being instructed in good music. They merely play goodi music to him over and over again, so that he assimilates .it as a matter of course, hears most when he listens -• oftenest, learns insensibly to recognise the characteristics of music which give it distinction. Both the gramophone and the playerpiano now make available to listeners good music of many kinds and in vast quantities. By, means of either instrument the music-lover may specialise in a particular form of music. By means of the player-piano, for instance, he may listen again and again to the great pianoworks of Beethoven or ot Ohopin, or he may study the masterpieces of symphonic music through the transcriptions which give them to him in piano-music guise! By means of the gramophone he may pursue the great singer through the subtleties of the vocal method by which that singer has achieved pre-eniinence, or he may learn almost tne whole secret of the orchestra’s magic, or probe the mystery of instrumental performance of whatever kind. - Only by some such instrument, indeed, can he be so happily placed for the study of the art. He would have to go to scores of concerts to hear what 50 gramophone records may teach him. Not if he worked at the technique of the piano for years could he hope to attain the perfection of performance of a modem playerpiano. , Reinforcing Memory.— Concerts must be attended, of course, and by everyone who wishes to hear music at its most significant level. And there will always be pianists. But what a wonderful reinforcement of their memories of the music they have heard, and what a wonderful spur to their own effort to become accomplished performers is this music of the reproducing instruments! And for those who wish merely to hear as much music as possible that they may enjoy as much music as possible, or for those who have no intention of becoming pianists, the great provision of music of the highest class, and of good popular music, now available to them by medium of the gramophone and the player-piano, establishes “those instruments as incontestably the most wonderful aid to an understanding of music and to the growth of a love of music the public have ever known or are likely to know.—Weekly Scotsman.