Mundane Musings

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 158, 24 September 1927, Page 20 (Supplement)

Mundane Musings

The Higher Syncopation

Probably it is true that any generation has the musical instruments it deserves. Jonathan and I both agree about this; only we mean it differently. Not that I am against the saxophone as such, any more than Jonathan, who is unusually tolerant for his youth, is against the harp or the cor anglais. The saxophone, in the hands of a good saxophonist, can produce sounds musical and sympathetic, just as the violin, in the hands of a bad violinist, can produce sounds that give intolerable pain. lam saying this, partly from a sycophantic desire to please Jonathan, who is now bigger than I am, partly because it is true. When Jonathan first introduced his saxophone into a house that before had not been divided against itself it was I, I am glad to remember, who made the first gesture of friendliness toward it. I learnt to play nice little pieces to accompany it, on the piano. The simple titles of those; early days recur to me with a peculiar poignancy : “My Girl’s Got Long Hair,” and “Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby” . . . how their oldfashioned lilt takes one back into the dim past of eighteen months ago! I like to think, too, that I even played them with a certain flair; not, of course, achieving the “pep” of Splosh Sizzle, of the Bandanians, or of Rube Glop, of the Ohio Laddies; still, I did manage to make faces in the same key as the piece in hand. But nous avons change tout cela. Jonathan has become the saxophonist in an amateur dance orchestra,, selfstyled the Boopus Bandits. Being at the house of Jonathan’s people the other day, I said to Jonathan with the patronising self-sufficiency of the ignorant: “Well, Jonathan, how’s the saxophone? Shall w© play some dance music ?” For I had a little surprise in store for Jonathan. I ha.d learnt up, “Say, whatcher know of momma doublecrossing poppa; she’s hiked him in the meter and he’s treading on the gas,” on purpose to please him. I was, therefor, a little chilled when he answered politely: ‘'Certainly, if you like.” He got out his saxophone and we started. Unfortunately we’started in different places, so I broke off. “That’s the chorus, Jonathan,” I said kindly. “This is how the verse begins—Da-da-di-di . . . and the piano has two bars by itself first.” I knew at once I had done something wrong. Something told me. So did Jonathan. “No modern dance band,” he said, in a voice hushed with pain, “ever starts with the verse. You always begin with the chorus. And no modern pianist ever starts with an introductory passagre. It sounds like a concert party.” I had not realised till that moment the degradation of sounding like a concert party. I made no reply, but turned my bowed head back to poppa treading on the gas. We played the chorus through once, and I thought my painful lapse might, with time, be forgotten. But the second time of momma double-crossing poppa Jonathan began to emit such curious and irrelevant sounds that I realised someone had blundered. “Bad luck, Jonathan,” I said, smiling tactfully at him. I knew at once that I had done worse than before. Something told me. So did Jonathan. “I was putting in some dirt,” he said, coldly. “I beg your pardon.” “Some dirt,” he repeated, louder. “It’s the thing to do now. You play the tune once, and then you put dirt in.” “Oh, is that what those noises were? lam sorry, Jonathan. I thought, as you weren’t playing the tune ” “Nobody,” said Jonathan, “plays the tune nowadays.” I began to feel suddenly old. How had I been so left behind by the advancing tide of life that I didn’t know nobody played the tune nowadays? I think Jonathan saw the shadow that crossed my face, for his heart, which is a tender one au fond, relented. “You can put dirt in, too, :if you like,” he said. It was a virtual recognition that I still had my contacts with his generation. I thought it quite beautiful of Jonathan. “Thank you, Jonathan,” I said, humbly. “You see,” he went on to explain, patiently, “all that straight jazz has gone out. It’s frightfully old-fashioned. Everybody hots it up now. It’s all rhythm and no tune. After you’ve played the tune once—just to show what it is—you put in dirt. Gee! You should hear the Speedy Six, or Blunk Pogger and his Racy Roosters! They’re about the hottest people going.” “I find no difficulty.” I said, “in believing you.” So I have been spending an hour a Mnce then, conscientiously studying the technique of dirt. But what worries me rather is this. When I have learnt to put in dirt with the speediest and have conquered the peppiest devices of tuneless rhythm, what will happen next? I cannot expect the sands of time to stand still. Will the age of dirt itself have become demode? Will all the dirt I have learnt to put in become as “straight” as the tune I have learnt to leave out?” Perhaps, if I ask him nicelv, Jonathan will tell me. WOMEN’S NATIONAL COUNCIL REV. W. MAWSON TO SPEAK At the meeting of the National Council of Women, to be held in the Old Grammar School Buildings, Symonds Street, on Monday, September 26, at 7.30 p.m., the Rev. W. Mawson, who has recently returned from Honolulu, will speak on the Chinese migration question. ELLERSLIE CROQUET CLUB On Wednesday, September 21, a very successful flag 500 afternoon was held at Mrs. Eckett’s residence,, Park Road, in connection with the Elllerslie Croquet Club. Visitors from Mangere, Otahuhu, Mount Wellington and Manurewa were present. Mrs. Sommervil, vice-president of the club, presented the trophies, the successful winners being Mrs. Waters, Remuera, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, Auckland, and Mrs. Eckett, Ellerslie.

ON DIVORCE Browsing through a woman's paper of English origin the-, other day, I came upon an article entitled “Why So Few of Us Divorce One Another.” The writer —a man maintains that the majority of marriages, if. not actually unhappy, are fraught with disappointment, and he asserts that a fair proportion of the married folk the average person knows is not really happy—in some cases desperately unhappy—and yet these unhappy people do not even think of divorce. “In our gloomier moments,” he says, “we may admit that hardly any of our married friends have achieved positive bliss.”

After giving opinion of the effect of. the married state on the mind of the individual and saying that divorce is pursued with the necessary fierce determination to attain it only when there is a fresh husband or wife waiting in the background, he summarises thus:

“It may be stupid and unenterprising of the ordinary wife to be unable to picture life without her husband; but, when it comes to the point, she is unable. It may be quite against masculine traditions for the ordinary husband not to hanker after another wife. But he doesn’t —not genuinely. They don't honestly care to trust themselves with other spouses, or, worse, condemn themselves to loneliness. They don’t want to h,e wrenched asunder. That would hurt. They want to stay put—which may hurt, too, sometimes, but not so dreadfully.” In my humble opinion, says an Australian woman, which is of no great consequence, of course. I hardly think that the average being is so selfcentred as to look at the issue from the angle of his or her own well-being and comfort. The worst of us has many little traits of endearing quality and moments of unselfish kindness, and it is generally the matrimonial partner who is most aware of these, as well as of the less-likeable qualities of the other. But the majority of folk with whom I have come in contact seem to remember the kindness that is done them far more than the unkindness. How often have we ourselves been won over again with an act of generous thoughtfulness by a person with whom we have been deeply annoyed? The generosity has taken the sting out of the hurt and ws forgive and mostly forget the cause of our anger. How much more so must the little tendernesses and intimacies of married life rise up and confront us in quieter moments to refute the bitter thoughts of separation and divorce and plead for the erring one who once was our lover and friend? From a woman’s point of view a sin of weakness is not so hard to forgive. The eternal mother is in us all—the weak call to us, and not, as a rule, in vain. The idea of being needed again after the sinner returns to repentance goes a long way to reconciliation with a womanly woman. To get rid of ants in the garden, turn a flower-pot upside-down near their nests. They will make their home in this and ants and eggs can be destroyed by pouring boiling water over * * * To prevent plaster of Paris from becoming hard while being used, add a little sugar to the mixing- water. * * 9 To stretch a patent-leather shoe, wring out a rag in very hot water and place on the shoe while it is on the foot.