MUSIC OF THE PIPES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 227, 29 October 1943, Page 16

MUSIC OF THE PIPES

-But They’re Made of Bamboo in Feilding

HAT musical appreciation can be developed through handwork has been demonstrated by at least one school in New Zealand. That school is the Manchester Street School in Feilding, and the schoolmaster responsible for this old-yet-new activity is A. L. Dewar, who receives the full support of his headmaster (F. Gaze). It is fun making musical instruments out of bamboo, and some of Mr. Dewar’s pupils, after being shown how to do it, are out-doing Mr. Dewar. At least that is what he told the Station Director of 2ZA. The Bamboo Pipe Band will broadcast a recital from the Studio of 2ZA in the Saturday Night Special series on November 13 at 8.30 p.m. This session will be compéred by Miss Iris Sutherland, who will provide some sidelights on the folk music which the pipe band will ‘play. Also the conductor, Mr. Dewar, may have something to say about the story of wood-wind instruments. He might even advise listeners how to make the pipes. It’s easy when you know how. So easy that the Station Director of 2ZA made one at home out

of an old curtain rod, in a few minutes. Everything went: well until he tried to play it. However, with a little more perseverance and _ considerably more precision, his pipe may yet become a musical instrument. Full instructions for the making of bamboo pipe instruments were set out in an article by Mr. Dewar in the New Zealand Education Gazette for June, 1943. Miss Iris Sutherland is secretary of the British Music Society of Palmerston North. Music (particularly folk music), is her hobby, and nursing is her profession. Miss Sutherland has given a number of recitals from 2ZA, and she will probably sing to the accompaniment of the Bamboo Pipe Band _ on ‘Saturday, November 13. Of course the children are delighted at the thought of broadcasting, and they are practising hard and tuning up their instruments or making new ones. They are also excited at the prospect of visiting 2ZA to rehearse and to see how a tadio station works. They may even have the experience of hearing themselves on a record. Catching Them Young Its sponsors claim that this movement involves more than a casual interest in something novel which will eventually die out. It serves a dual purpose of education and entertainment. The music most suitable for performing on these instruments is folk, and a groundwork of folk-music is recognised as a good foundation for a musical education. Also, it is felt that many of the children will gradually and naturally progress from these primitive instruments to the more complex. Many a

musician has received his or her earliest impetus from a school choir or a school band, Dr. J. Maddy, Professor of Music in the University of Michigan, has said that every person has musical talent to some degree, and the opportunity for a musical education should be the birthright of every child. Music’s function, he believes, is to enrich our lives by musical participation through self-ex-pression. "Training professional musicians for an already overcrowded field and subsidising professional organisations will never make us truly musical. The only way is to catch us young and teach us to sing and play ourselves."