NATURE AND MAN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 118, 22 May 1939, Page 6

NATURE AND MAN

ADVICE FOR MODERN MUSICIANS O. LISTEN TO THE BIRDS !

‘Edited by Leo Fanning). Modern man has much to learn from birds in melody. They are not influenced by fashions. They do not feel an urge to react against principles of sanity in sound. Long ago they found a way to melody and they have not lost it. Let us thank God for their common-sense and conservatism. Can a wild jazzist or a perpetrator of chop-stick staccato teach a tui how to improve his chant! That question is provoked by the concept of some modern misusers of musical scales, indicated by Edmund Sawyer in Nature Magazine. “Many persons, presumably well trained in music,” he writes, "have claimed that birds do not sing They insist that the notes of birds are not ’musical.’ as student.' of music are taught to define the word; that birds do no’ follow the ‘musical scale.’ However technically tru? this may be. it is of passing interest to wonder what birds might think of swing, which some humans class as music. If music is an art -as. of course, it is— it would seem to be an art triumphant when it ran stir the listeners’ emotions to their deepest fire their imagination, awaken fond memories and recreate the past. It is a common human experience for the songs of birds to do all these. So. to dispute the musical status of bird songs is to be tiresomely technical and academic. If music is not sound endowed with th? power to thrill the emotions of the hearer, then it is time to ask. what is music?" Well, many folk know that the stuff banged at them from their neighbours’ loud radio sets when they are in their gardens on a Sunday morning is not music. It. is not even -a decent noise. The so-called composers of much of the modern pit-a-pat. tut-tut. chip-chop, bing-bang. riing-dorg. tommy-doddle would get an infinity of minus marks in a class tutored by a tui. Brril of Pollution. Although New Zealand i> .still a young country young in the industrial sense although ii is very old in the geological sense many creeks and rivers are being polluted. Many years ago shoals of herrings used to com? regularly up the Avon and Heathecote rivers at Christchurch, to the great delight of small boys and their elders. Household drains and factory effluents have forced tne fish * to change their habits. Of course, there is a law against pollution of streams, out pollution goes on in one way or another, just as it does in older countries. This nuisance seems to be one of th? many penalties of civilisation in it* present very imperfect stage For example, here is a comment of Kenneth Reid in the Quarterly Bulletin of the

American Nature Association: "In the entire natural resource family, water is undoubtedly the orphan stepchild ... of all natural resources, no other has been so wantonly neglected and abused in this exploitation for private profit or political expediency. Of all the various abuses and misuses of water, the selfish and inconsiderate use of the nation's waterways as convenient depositories for all undesirable wastes from both Industrie.' j and municipalties is the worst ami; most widespread. Pollution of streams) and lakes has been a gradual and in- j sidious process from an unappreciable beginning Io a present crisis of first magnitude tha<. is not merely a men- ■ ace to public health, but which strikes al the very foundations of our entire economic and social structure.” Old-time Maoris Were Conservers. i There would be no need to worry about a proper conservation of natural resources in New Zealand if all h' modern Maoris. cross-breeds ami British folk had the same altitude of | the old-time Maoris io forests ami birds, which they carefully treated as capital, to yield a profit permanently. A reminder of that practice is given by Dr. Peter Buck in his new book. “Vikings of the Sunrise.” All Polynesia knows the tale of Rata, who felled a tree without asking permission of the god Tane (he writes'. ! after lopping off the branches ami I baling off the bark, he retired for i the night. On returning the next 'day. he found the tree standing erect with no trace of human interference. | Mystified, he felled it again, but hid himself near by. Then came the elves land wood fairies, the henchmen of the | divine owner of the tree. They surrounded the fallen giant of the forest ■ and in mournful voices sang in I unison: j Fly hit hei. fly hither, O chips of my tree! Branches, take up your places, Watery sap, flow upwards. Adhesive gum. repair and heal! Stand’ The tree stands erect! i Belore Raia's startled eyes, the leaves, chips and branches came to- | gether with orderly precision. The I trunk rose on its healed stump, and ; the tree top soared once more above j its leafy neighbours. ' When Rata, unable to restrain his . anger at once more having his labour brought to nought, rushed out and upbraided the fairies, he was told fearlessly that he had no right to fell private property without obtaining permission from the divine owner. Rata admitted his fault, and the supernatural beings w ho had been arrayed against him.»<ame to his assistance. The fairies made a wonderful voyaging canoe overnight and launched it in the lagoon before his I house.