DEVELOP THAT PARADE-GROUND BARK!

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 136, 30 January 1942, Page 13

DEVELOP THAT PARADE-GROUND BARK!

Singing Lessons Will Help Sergeant-Majors

HERE is an old story about the young naval officer with a bad stammer who gave a party of bluejackets the order to quick march and was then unable to produce an about turn, and but for the fact that the bluejackets had sufficient initiative to stop they would have been marched over the side and drowned. In the army, of course, not every parade ground mishap is due to this cause. Very often it’s simply a matter of tired throats reducing commands to a hoarse whisper. In this connection H. Nevill Smith, of the vocal staff of the Sydney’ Conservatorium, who is visiting New Zealand, has an interesting theory. The man who has learned singing and voice production is likely to go further in the army and win promotion more quickly than the man who hasn't. Mr. Nevill Smith doesn’t mean to say that a pleasant voice is likely to win friends and influence people in the army and gain promotion that way. But his experience suggests that knowledge of voice production will ease the often arduous business of shouting -orders across the parade ground. It stands to reason, he says, that the youhg subaltern or sergeant who after an hour or two of drill can only whisper his orders is under a handicap alongside the man who can shout away for hour after hour without fatigue. An Australian by birth, Mr. Nevill Smith spent several years in America before returning to Australia to join the Sydney Conservatorium. In America he was connected with vocal colleges in Phoenix, Arizona, and Los Angeles. He gave frequent broadcast recitals, from the local Phoenix station, from WAEF, New York, and from WOR, Newark,

Mr. Nevill Smith’s chief relaxation when not teaching young people to sing is painting. His water colours are hung in several American galleries, and in Sydney, a few years ago, he held a oneman exhibition which was opened by Lotte Lehmann. The main purpose of Mr. Nevill Smith’s visit to New Zealand was to visit his sister who, as Amy Nevill Smith, was a well-known music teacher in the South Island, but retired sometime ago to live at Geraldine.