TO OVERCOME “MIKE” FRIGHT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 801, 23 October 1929, Page 16

TO OVERCOME “MIKE” FRIGHT

AUSTRALIAN INNOVATION INSTRUCTING PERFORMERS What will eventually prove a boon to aspirants for broadcasting honours is the introduction in the Australian Broadcasting Company regime of a special microphone class to be held in the company’s studios every Saturday morning. Special facilities for microphone training are being made with an endeavour to oiler these advantages to applicants whose work on a preliminary test has been declared satisfactory by those who are in charge of the auditions. Madame Evelyn Grieg, of the A.B.C. Bureau of Advice, will select a number of singers each week who, in the opinion of the programme committee, have shown promise for broadcasting in their preliminary audition. These auditions are given three times a week, and a large number of voices are heard. Although many students, after years of vocal training, have

really fine voices, they are continually being turned down by broadcasting stations on account of their voices not being satisfactory “on the air.” Experience before the microphone remedies all this. At the classes, students will be placed before a microphone in the studios, and will be directed during the performance by an illuminated signboard under Madame Emily Marks’s control, giving detailed instructions which can as easily be seen by the class, while the voice is transmitted to a loud speaker, as in ordinary broadcasting. Madame Emily Marks has been associated with microphone training classes for some years in America, and assisted Professor Henri Zay, one of New York’s leading teachers, in broadcasting from station WZZ, and claims to be one of the pioneers of this form of instruction.

Realising the tremendous importance of artists becoming familiar with the technique of the microphone before broadcasting for listeners, the

Australian Broadcasting Company is of the opinion that splendid new talent will be discovered among those who give auditions, and if at first they do not give a satisfactory audition, the training that is necessary to make a successful broadcasting artist will be given in the establishment of the microphone class, which will not cost the students anything. The A.B.C. is anxious to hold out a helping hand to all new recruits in broadcasting, and hopes that, by the inauguration of the microphone class, they are assisting those who possess the necessary qualifications to broadcast, but require a certain amount of tuition to overcome what is commonly known as “mike fright.”