RECORDINGS FROM SAMOA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 429, 12 September 1947, Page 15

RECORDINGS FROM SAMOA

Work of NZBS Unit With UN Mission

OME weeks ago The Listener reported that an NZBS team, consisting of J. H. Hall (Supervisor of Talks), and two technicians (D, Cameron, of Wellington, and G. E. Gruzelier, of Auckland), were accompanying the United Nations Trusteeship Council’s mission to Western Samoa, to make recordings for the UN archives. The party is now back after having taken records of about 175 twosided discs. __ During their tour of duty, the techniians found that the heat was a troublemaker for their equipment. The amplifiers, which generally run up a temperature while working, reached a heat of 80 degrees before they were used; but the

stay was too short for humidity to affect the gear. In the Mission headquarters the floor was springy, and 15-stone, barefooted Samoans, walking heavily on their heels, caused constant vibration, to which the recorders are extremely sensitive. The New Zealanders did. not record every conference of the mission, but went once across the island with it, and about half of the recordings taken were of the proceedings. The remainder were of talks by prominent Europeans and Samoans (including heads of departments, and members of the hospital staff), and of vocal items by Samoan men, women and children. These items were mostly native songs by _ school choirs and other groups, but in some cases English songs were presented. No direct broadcasts of the conferences were made, as Samoa has no broadcasting station of its own; but there is a station now under construction. People with receiving sets in Samoa rely mostly on American programmes for their entertainment. They can get Honolulu, and sometimes 1YA on the broadcast band; otherwise they depend on the shortwave reception of United States stations.