MUSIC WHILE YOU WORK

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 368, 12 July 1946, Page 5

MUSIC WHILE YOU WORK

Sir,-Your commentator on 1YA’s "Music While You Work" sessions expresses doubt of the value of the findings of an Industrial Research Bureau as compared with the actual feelings of the workers who must work to "this noise." Personally, I must confess that I like the noise, and although I may be_ biased, being a modern dance musician myself, I also manage a clothing factory where the staff definitely look forward to this session, considering it the best day session on the air, and are indeed very quick to remind me to turn it on at 3.45 if I am not on the dot at the radio switch in due time, It may be well to remember that Auckland has the lafgest and most influential swing club in the

country and that perhaps in consequence Aucklanders are more swing-minded than most New Zealanders, Apart from this, dance music is always popular with the general public, who appreciate the rhythm and melody of popular tunes‘ without necessarily subscribing to the modern swing idiom. We must alway except the highbrows, but more power to the elbows of 1YA’s programme organisers while they cater for low and middle brows, for they can rely on more satisfied listeners among factory workers who like bright music, than they can command in their usual heavy, if educative evening sessions. 1YA’s "Music While You Work" sessions (and I hear them all) inglude a mixture of everything from "Donkey’s Serenade," to Tommy Dorsey and Frank Sinatra, and while attempting to please everyone, they keep the music bright in an honest attempt to entertain the workers in industry. I am prepared to say that these séssions have a distinct value to morale among routine workers, relieving the monotony and brightening the late afternoon’s work when fatigue may be expected to be greatest,

BERT

PETERSON

(Auckland),