Music Charms the Sailorman

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 816, 9 November 1929, Page 11

Music Charms the Sailorman

CATHOLIC TASTES HEARD ON WATERFRONT “O Sole Mio” and coal-dust—not general, but “sailors don’t care!” A collier was lying- at Western Wharf a few days ago discharging her dirty cargo. Coal-dust, that all-pervading substance, was rising in clouds, settling on everybody and everything, and the sailors and officers working about the ship got their full share, but then they are uis-ed to it. Spell-o came along, paint brushes and chipping hammers were dropped, mugs of tea were handed round and the loud-speaker was brought out on deck. Afternoon tea with music is a delight not reserved exclusively for patrons of tea rooms. A coating of grime, together with sweat rags, paintdaubed boiler-suits and the thirst of honest toil gives to a sailor’s mug of “man’s tea” a relish unknown to the man who toys faddily with a dishwater brew while entertaining a pretty girl in some city tea lounge. Add to this relish the tranquilising effect of “O Sole Mio” after manual drudgery, and the seaman’s delight is complete. MUSIC PLAYS BIG PART Music plays a very large part in a sailor’s recreations, and on every ship that visits the port of Auckland may be found musical instruments of one sort or another. When his watch is over and his meal eaten, the sailorman lights his pipe or cigarette and lies back on his bunk for a yarn or a read. The fortunate owner of a gramophone is not long in setting his machine going, and from the fo’c’sle alleyway come strains both light and classic, for the seaman loves his symphonies and operatic excerpts as well ap the shore music lover. Once the music is started all else is forgotten for the time, an appreciative ear is turned toward the gramophone and its owner is given no peace until he has put on his complete repertoire of records and then done it all over again. And the sailor lies back to drink it in—the music of men coming from a man-made machine—infinitely sweet, and sweeter far than the land-lubber knows it, when it is accompanied by the music of the sea—that soft, soothing, swishing and gurgling as the water, cleaved by the stem, flows past the bow plates within a few inches of his head. RADIOS TO JEWS’ HARPS Consistent observation in all sections of the Auckland waterfront has brought to light a strange assortment of music providers. From sumptuous radio sets in the cabins of officers on passenger liners berthed at Prince's Wharf to a twanging little Jew’s harp on a scow riding at anchor in Freeman’s Bay—they all have some instrument to show. Gramophones are universal. They are to be found in the quarters of skippers, officers, seamen and firemen, on all types of vessels, down to the smallest hooker. Officers, apart from radio sets and gramophones, sport an occasional banjo or steel guitar, and there are one or two on passenger boats who amuse themselves and entertain others at the piano or harmonium. But the greatest variety is to be found by touring the fo’c’sles —a mouth-organ blown by an enthusiastic “Aussie”; an accordion on which an Estonian is laboriously playing the world’s most mournful dirge—“most musical, most melancholy”—a ukulele giving forth bright syncopated vamping at the hands of a New Zealander; a nigger plays a banjo as only niggers can and sings a plantation melody; a South Sea Islander makes captivating, throbbing melody with his steel guitar, and there is glamour to it; a Chinese seaman on an oil-tanker plays incessantly on his one-stringed Oriental fiddle, a monotonous series of bars in a minor key; and Englishmen, Irishmen, Scots, and Welshmen play everything under the sun from concertinas and mandolins to the modest flageolet or tin whistle. “LUSTSPI EL” AND “DU WACKADU” An indication of the appeal music has for the sailorman is provided by the numbers of seamen who congregate at the door of a little gramophone shop in Quay Street when records are being demonstrated. On a percentage basis, their numbers far exceed those of the shore-dwellers who “listen-in” at gramophone shops up the city. They have been seen at this shop listening with no less wrapt attention to Keler Bela’s “Lustspiel” overture than to such American importations as “Du Wacka-du Wacka-du!” The seamen’s musical tastes are verily catholic.