"TOO OFTEN AND TOO LONG"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 359, 10 May 1946, Page 22

"TOO OFTEN AND TOO LONG"

A Plea for Selective Listening

(Written for "The Listener" by

ROBERT

ALLENDER

E are an indignant people; we like to- protest noisily. Our opinions are often formed intuitively or by acceptance of half-truths, half understood. So we criticise our radio programmes. Wearenotsatisfied with the programmes and we flaunt our disapproval. With some justification we decry our broadcasting service, but it has not occurred to us that we, the listeners, may be as much at fault as the programme organisers. Do we know how to listen? If our radio programmes are the best in the world, they will not satisfy us if we do not know how to listen to them. Admittedly, New Zealand radio programmes have faults. More need then for intelligent, discriminative listening. Upon our ability to discipline ourselves depends the future of broadcasting, for an alert, intelligent audience will demand and receive good programmes, and, conversely, the best programmes will not save our all-wave noise-boxes from the junk heap unless we listen intelligently. Careless listening is not our worst habit-too often we do not listen at all. Although the radio is switched on and there are sounds coming out of it, we do not hear them. We are reading our novels, playing bridge, or picking the next All Black team, and there is the radio blaring so that it can be heard }in the house next ~

door; yet we who are sitting within three feet of it do not hear a_ sound. We have trained our minds to shut out the sounds we do not want to hear. Self-imposed deafness has been practised for centuries. Since earliest times. man has been able to exclude unpleasant or unwanted sounds from his

conscious mind. If we move to the city after living in the country we are disturbed by the noise of the traffic until, sub-consciously, we train ourselves to exclude the harsh sounds from our conscious minds. Similarly, after a little practice we learn to shut out the noises of the radio from our consciousness. But without ear-plugs we cannot entirely exclude noises from our minds, and although we may think we are not listening to the radio, in reality we are. Half-Listening The dangers in half-listening are numerous;: the most serious is the effect upon the half-listener (the lazy listener) himself. He slowly loses his ability to listen consciously and keenly and, in time, he becomes so accustomed to music and

speech in the background that when he tries to listen fully he cannot. He may still be able to distinguish between C sharp and E flat but it is difficult for him to settle to listening alone. A Bach fugue is no longer enough. He must have books to read, people to talk to, while he is listening, and soon he finds good music and bad equally satisfying. Long before wireless broadcasting was discovered, background music was common. In Victorian tea rooms and bar tooms trivial jingles mingled with the conversation, adding to the gaiety. As it was then, background music did not weaken the listeners’ powers of appreciation, for the musi¢ which was played in the background was music which would not withstand critical listening. It was light-hearted nonsense, and so it was accepted. To-day’s radio background music is not limited to pretty waltzes and gay little polkas. Careless radio listeners take Beethoven sonatas with the evening news and enjoy grand opera at breakfast. Naturally, Beethoven and Verdi are now treated as casually as the bacon and eggs and card games which they frequently accompany. Instead of stimulating appreciation of music, misused radios tend to discount all music which demands careful audition because they enable us to listen to music without "hearing" it. In a concert hall we dare not talk while an item is in progress; at home, mo-one cares. Because of its simplicity, inconsequent music makes the best back- . ground. The "Beer Barrel Polka" can -be enjoyed when it is heard behind the conversation of a roomful of people, whereas more serious compositions are either dull or disturbing unless listened to with complete attention. Lush, simple melodies adapted from major compositions by Tchaikovski and Chopin are .phenomenally popular to-day because they are arresting and easily appreciated. Loss of ability to appreciate and to discriminate are the most obvious results of careless listening, but it is not only our critical senses which are threatened by the ever-playing radio. In homes where children learn their lessons and parents read books and converse with their friends to the tune of sonatas and serials, every activity is adversely affected by the radio. Lessons cannot be learnt properly, books cannot be carefully read, and discussion of any but the most trifling matters cannot be held while the radio is playing. The lessons can be learnt after a fashion, the books can be read hurriedly, and the conversation can be pushed along, but there is neither pleasure nor profit in learning or reading after a fashion. Educationists could produce interesting statistics if they selected two comparable groups of secondary school pupils and set one group to work for a week with a background of radio music and

allowed the other group to study for the same period in a silent room. Music While You Work For several years enterprising manufacturers have been installing radios in their factories in the hope of increasing output. To-day, after the experiment has been well tried, many. factory owners admit that music and dramas increase output only slightly. Granting that a workroom radio increases output by one manufactured unit per employee per day, does the reward compensate for the inevitable dulling of the employees’ mind? Is it true that honest work, work that is worth doing, can be executed best in noisy rooms? Are we to believe that tranquillity, serenity, and thought are no longer essentials to good craftsmanship? Factory work is a substitute for craftsmanshipand, to overcome the motonony fatigue from which most operatives suffer, industrial psychologists advocate factory radios, Perhaps they have forgotten that radio itself is a substitute. Factory workers can counter boredom with their own voices, If music will enliven them, they should make it themselves. "Turn off that radio!" ought to be the war-cry for a crusade against the desecration of music and drama. Our radios play too often and too long. Radio will not become an art medium, and we shall not be satisfied until we learn to ration our listening. But restricted listening is not necessarily intelligent listening. Short audition periods can be as harmful as long ones. There are further rules which we must heed before we can claim to be alert listeners. Choosing Our Programmes First we must learn how to choose our programmes. Before we go to the cinema or to the theatre most of us consult our newspapers to see what is on. When we have found the advertisements and sorted the information from the superlatives we decide what we shall see by assessing the worth of the actors, the director, and the author (in that order, I am afraid). How many radio listeners consult the published programmes before ,

they switch on thei | sets? Searching the dial is a hazardous and irritating adventure. If, by accident, the listener finds the type of programme he wants, it is quite likely to be half over, but even if two satisfactory programmes are found in an evening, the process of finding them is so distressing that when found they cannot be fully enjoyed.

Programme co-ordination (the system whereby the programmes of all radio stations are co-ordinated to provide any listener with the type of programme he wishes to hear at any time) and the free distribution of a programme co-ordina-tion chart, showing the type of entertainment broadcast by each station throughout the day, are in my opinion essentials to good listening. But although our broadcasting service does not publish co-ordination charts, listening can be planned. The programmes of all New Zealand radio ‘stations are published weekly in The Listener. Before you switch on the radio take a sheet of paper and make a list of the programmes you wish to hear during the evening. I suggest that you have three columns:Time Station Programme 7.30-8. 0 2YA Moonlight Sonata 8. 0-8.15 2ZB Easy Aces 8.15-9. 0 2YD Wuthering Heights 9. 0-9.15 2YC Benny Goodman Guided by a similar list, which takes not more than ten minutes to prepare, you can enjoy two hours’ listening, listening of your own choice, with only three dial movements. Surely this is preferable to spending at least a quarter of the listening period twisting knobs, wincing at "static,’’ and listening to stations for short periods to find out what they are broadcasting. Individual Listening So far I have assumed that everyone has a suite of rooms and a radio for his exclusive use, which is of course a reckless assumption. In fact few homes have more than one radio, and there are usually at least three people gathered during the evening in the living-room to listen. Whether all of them have chosen their programmes before the radio is switched on or all wish to turn the knobs until they find pleasing programmes, the result is the same -disagreement and disappointment. More than two people can seldom find programmes to please all. of them simultaneously. You may protest that one must suffer good-heart-edly the programmes which. the others have chosen, but for me this putting up. with Artie Shaw when I want Palestrina is too much. If I go to the theatre or to the cinema I choose a play or film which I want to see. I don’t have to go to plays and films which I shall not enjoy because every other mombtr of the household wants to see them, The solution is a home planned to suit one’s domestic habits. Small radios which receive sufficient stations clearly are no longer expensive and soon they will be cheaper and better. In a few years sound-resisting walls will be standard in our houses, Is it Utopian to suggest that the next step is individual lis-tening-a radio in the living-room, if we want one there in addition, rape! a set in every bedroom first?