Microphone Fright

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 810, 2 November 1929, Page 10

Microphone Fright

Nerves Attack Radio Speakers

AjVIOXG the maladies produced by modern scientific development is “microphone shyness,” an affliction to which public men are particularly susceptible. Business men and politicians, who in the ordinary course of events will face without tremor the bitterest opposition, are sometimes reduced almost to nervous hysteria by the ordeal of speaking to an unseen audience over the radio broadcast.

It is judgment by the unseen which contributes chiefly to unnerving public men when they are delivering a radio address. To the speaker W'ho relies tipon a responsive audience to give him confidence in the first few seconds of his talk, the mere thought of facing an empty, unresponsive microphone is a paralysing one. His audience might number a dozen; or it might be 10,000. For immediate purpose, at least, he alone must judge whether his message is well received. Just v why public men should be more susceptible than others to the germ of "mike-fright” it is difficult to determine, hut in Auckland at least those who are called upon to deliver serious chats to the people across the air usually display more nervousness on their first appearance than does the child who faces the examiner for its first scholastic test. A well-known magistrate, who in the course of justice has probably sent many men to Mount Eden gaol, displayed so much nervousness when faced by the microphone that a special table was provided for him in the corner of the studio. There he was happy with his notes. A city solicitor, who is noted for his aggressiveness in the courts and his tenacity to his client’s cause iu the face fit the. strongest opposition, trembled perceptibly when he heard the official announcer at IYA introduce him to listeners. His first questiou after the talk was a very subdued inquiry:—“How did I go?” He added that although he was prepared to face the sternest judge on the New Zealand Supreme Court Bench, he was by no means confident of speaking to people whom he could not see. And so it is with all those who approach the microphone for the first time. From the time he enters the studio aud hears, on the first floor, the strains of an orchestra practising a lively tune for that eveniug’s progamme until he finds that his talk upon a serious problem of the day is to follow a bright comic interlude, the radio speaker experiences practically every human emotion that has any relation whatever to misgiving. As he sits in the waiting room and fidgets with his notes, several laughing performers, carrying jazz instruments, pass before him on their way out. The dull drapiugs of the studio depress him, and the loud-speaker above his head only distracts him from collecting liis few final scattered thoughts. He finds coming over

him that freezing feeling of the lecturer who enters the hall to find that nobody has turned up. Then when, after an age of suspense, his turn comes all too soon and the red light above the microphone informs him that he is on the air, he is inclined to doubt this possibility. “Good evening, everybody,” he greets them, aud wonders if the aunouncer has forgotten to switch him over. He has not yet recovered from the comic interlude which preceded him, and lie cannot help imagining the impatience of his listeners when his voice breaks in upon their evening enjoyment. If he pauses, or momentarily misses his notes, listeners might think he has stopped, and twist frantically at the cat’s whisker on their crystal sets. They might even cut him off altogether and think he has gone away and forgotten them. So he reads—yes, reads —steadily on; aud just when he is beginning to enjoy himself thoroughly he finds that his time is up and he has reached the last page of his notes. He feels like saying: “Thank you, ladies and geutlemen, for your attentive hearing.” But how does he know? So he stammers a fervent “Good night, everybody,” and signals the announcer that this, indeed, is the end. Later, when he receives the congratulations of his friends, and their assurance that “he came over great,” he wants to rush back and do it all over again. The Auckland Radio Exhibition, which ends this evening, lias given one or two public men an opportunity to face the microphone, but ill speaking from the Town Hall they did not have to endure the terrors of the dentist’s chair while waiting in an empty room for their turn to arrive. Remarkable though it might seem, some of the most gifted elocutionists become stilted and stiff when they take their first turn on the radio programme; noted singers will not let themselves go, and some literally hug the microphone lest their voice does not reach the listeners. Some men will not stop talking. Reasonable lattitude is then allowed, hut the interests of listeners must be watched, and it has bee'll known to happen that when a lecturer reached a nicely rounded sentence, the switch went down and cut him off the air, while he went on talking merrily—to nobody. And in a nearby studio the programme was going ahead to schedule. —L.J.C.