Development of Radio

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1052, 16 August 1930, Page 6 (Supplement)

Development of Radio

GRAMOPHONE AS SUBSIDIARY

Better Transmission IT lias come to be recognised by leading authorities in America, the home of both the radio and the various forms of “talking machine,” as well as to a lesser extent in England, that the gramophone as a subsidiary to the radio ean give a service wonderful in its range and quality. No » longer is it necessary for the minor broadcasting stations to rely on the time-honoured performances of Miss E. Platt, soprano, or Mr. Sawyer, the violinist, for every programme. It is possible to draw on the world’s leading artists recorded with breath-taking fidelity in vulcanite, and even the lonely | lighthouse-keeper may enjoy a recital by Caruso who, being dead, yet speaketh by medium of the gramophone.

Itadio reproduction has indeed reached a high pitch o£ perfection, and today the objections which greeted earnest salesmen when they knocked at the front door of any music lover’s home can now be truly said to carry no weight. As with the gramophone, with which radio must always be closely allied, in purpose as much as in technical construction, early difficulties were innumerable and seemingly insuperable. Few dreamed in those far-off days of the ’SO’s when Hertz first showed that a spark at one end of a room could make a click at the other end, or even when, years later, Marconi transmitted an electric tap across the Atlantic, that music and speech would soon be sent from one place to another without connecting wires. Yet it was only a short space before this was actually accomplished. The early forms of wireless detec-

tor, a thin wire bearing lightly against a mineral crystal, brought excellent results to the experimenter. The receiver was a wonderful success and today holds undisputed pride of place as regards numbers in England, where broadcasters are plentiful and no great range is required. It was the transmitter that gave trouble in the first days of speech transmission, and he who heard the mangled and distorted words broadcast then had just cause to shake his head in sorrow and doubt. The early radio set was no respecter of the music of the spoken word, and the most beautiful of cadences was lost amid the background of parasitic noises which inevitably crept in.

But all tbis has been overcome. On musical grounds alone no critic can condemn the better class sets, although cheap components in any receiver are apt to spoil the perfect transmissions possible by modern stations. Front the shrill wail of the first violin to the dull rumble of the bass drum or the dying sob of the saxophone, the modern radio can reproduce them all. To the hypercritical several objections to both radio and gramophone reproduction present themselves. In the country, where electric-ppvver is not readily available, listeners must rely on battery-driven sets. The humble crystal has not sufficient range to bring in any broadcaster and this leaves only a “Hobson’s choice”, for the listener. The battery set will operate either a horn or a cone speaker, and to the true musician both are inaccurate in vari ous parts of the musical register. The horn, while being almost perfect on

the high notes, will not reproduce tlie bass at all well, and the cone speaker emphasises the bass at the expense of the higher pitch. Thus each has a fault which destroys true musical balance, although there would be only a small percentage of listeners sufll ciently well educated musically to detect any flaw. Correct proportion could be restored by using one of each type with the same set. * This whole phase of the question can have little effect on the real issue, which concerns radio in relation to music. It will be readily apparent to all that, if radio helps the average man to an appreciation of the better class of music, then it will indeed have served the generation well. In the past, music has been the privilege of the moneyed few, who either paid musicians to play to them, as was the case of the early kings with the strolling minstrels of Old England,

or else who educated their own families to provide music in the home. Only a generation or two ago the education of no woman of gentle birth was complete unless she could play on the harp, or. later, on the piano. It was not until comparatively recent times that the middle classes were able to afford musical instruments in their own homes, and then came one of the most painful periods of family history. The old idea of breeding was still alive and children were forced to learn to play, although, owing to their inherited dispositions, there was no great love of music in their minds. George Bernard Shaw has commented that this was a relic of the worst type of barbarism —a a torture which would have appalled the most hardened and brutal of the Inquisitors. Huddled over keyboards. thumping their way through endless scales, fingering little airs while the metronome ticked its inexorable bidding close at hand, these children were forced to practice for hours every week while all the time their hearts and bodies were longing for the freedom and health of the open air. It is little wonder, then, that there followed a distinct revulsion against “music” of this type and the band of piano players decreased until members were almost in danger of being classed with the fabled dodo. However, today a saner outlook and modern methods are bringing the piano back into favour and, with the love of music which must follow on close acquaintance with the wireless, it is probable that this form of music (Continued on next page.)