Open Microphone

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 804, 17 December 1954, Page 28

Open Microphone

€€ CYORRY I'm late. Mr. Young gave us a party. It was our last broadcast." It was one of the young singers in T. J. Young’s Studio Class, sorry that this was their last session for the year. Many children throughout New Zealand will have been sorry, too, that this was the last singing lesson for 1954 in the Broadcasts to Schools, and sorrier still that this would be Mr. Young’s final Singing Class in the studio.

TEACHING THEM TO SING

For 18 years-except, for one year when he was in England, seeing and hearing how they

did it over thereT. J. Young has broadcast his

weekly singing session, 460 broadcasts altogether. Hundreds of children, thou-

sands of them, perhaps, several generations have learnt their singing this way; and many teachers, particularly in rural schools, have been helped and encouraged in their musical work by the authoritative but cheerfully informal voice and voices coming through the loudspeaker. "Turn to page .. .," and the studio broadcast is on its way-just, as someone said, just as if they’re in the r9gom with you. "We started on pitch and we finished on pitch; but we got a bit of a twist somewhere in the middle.’ The children in the studio have, through the years, taken almost a professional interest in their work, As Mr. Young says, he asked of them their best and they always gave it. In this was his greatest satisfaction and that of »the young singers, too. A criticism of these studio lessons, made from time to time. is that the class sounded almost too perfect, a hand-picked group to which no city school teacher, let alone any country ones, could aspire. But then, a broadcast, if it is to go across smoothly, must be well prepared. A drone at the back and a few off-pitch singers or some slow pokes in rhythm might give "‘they’re just the same at home" realism, but this would most certainly be at the expense of putting over the points that Mr. Young was striving for in the achievement of good tone production and lively

singing. After all, the best teaching is by example, the best examples that can be obtained. Nevertheless, the group of children from Kelburn Normal School who have assisted Mr. Young in each year’s broadcasts have never been chosen for their singing. They have been selected on an L.Q. basis from a composite class of Standards 4, 5 and 6. The high I1.Q.’s -and some of them have been very high indeed-mean that the children are all quick in the uptake, thus saving rehearsal time; and the composite class gives continuity as there has alws been a core of singers left over from#,.ée" previous year. The actual broadcasting , group is increased during the year as children who have started with. sometimes considerable, vocal and pitch difficulties have improved with coaching based on the same principles illustrated® in the broadcast lessons. In fact, Mr, Young has had to cope with all the difficulties that confront any other teacher of singing in the schools that listen in. Each broadcast has involved a considerable amount of preparation. Nothing has ever been left to chance. Rehearsals have taken from three to ‘four hours each week. The children memorised everything, no music dr any written aids whatsoever being taken into the studio. This has meant, of course, that with no distraction of any sort, the utmost concentration could be given, not only to the singing, but to assisting Mr. Young to the full in bringing out the points he wished to make. Mr. Young himself has never let up in the whole 18 years in working out each broadcast down to the last detail, to the extent even of bringing in experts to advise the singing of Maori songs or, for mstance, of songs in French. In this sort of session, broadcasting becomes a powerful ally of education. Music, among all subjects, is hampered most in the primary schools by lack of adequate teaching. Many teachers, with the best will in the world and considerable enthusiasm, too, have not the skill nor the experience to cope with the problems that arise in children’s singing. Music, particularly its performance, cannot be taught from books. When you hear it done by an expert, things begin to fall into place. Over the years, Mr. Young has received many letters from teachers, expressing appreciation, asking advice and, what is more, making suggestions for improving his broadcast session. The children in the schools, too, have written, not only passing on their enjoyment, but offering criticism or im, plied criticism. In his 17 years of broadcasting to schools, T. J: Young has made a valuable contribution to the development ott singing in the primary schools of New, Zealand. His successor in 1955, Geor Wilkinson, head: of the music depart> ment at Dunedin Training College, will take over what has become almost a tradition of school singing broadcasts. * OME of these rationalists dig into a reference book, get a few facts, and think they have established a scientific case," Dr. E. M. Blaiklock, Professor of Classics at Auckland University College, said to us the other day. He was commenting on the controversy on Mithraism and Christianity which followed the recent discovery of the Temple of Mithras near St. Paul’s by;-

TEMPLE OF MITHRAS

the archaeologist W. F. Grimes, In a talk, Mithras and Christianity (broad-

cast over the YA and YZ link on Thursday, December 16) Dr. Blaiklock showed cer-

tain points of contact. He said, for instance, that December 25 used to be

celebrated as the birthday of Mithras, and that "shepherds certainly don’t watch their flocks by night ‘all seated on the ground’ in midwinter in Palestine." But in the main he emphasised the great gulf, especially in spirit, between the two religions. Dr. Blaiklock told us that he has a personal interest in the discovery of the Temple, for on a chilly March afternoon in 1951, Mr. Grimes personally showed him round his Roman excavations in London. Grimes was recently described by "Pendennis" in The Observer as a "lively, lean, sandy-haired man of about fiftv," who remained a de-

tached figure in all the hubbub following the discovery. Grimes was not surprised, "Pendennis" said, at the extent of this hubbub, for during the war when his job was the preservation of historic monuments, he had been impressed by the numbers of workmen who had a natural curiosity about, and feeling for, the past. Ps

ON THE DISTAFF SIDE

A COUPLE of years ago, a young lady *" named Barbara Carroll was found in a back street café of New York playing a brand of piano that, though undeniably rooted in the jazz tradition, had a style and a sound all its own. This discovery quickly led to the arrival of Miss Carroll at The Embers, a more select place noted for the quality of its

hot music as well as its hot food, and her playing in those fashionable surroundings led

Mm turn to appearances on radio and teievision. Then Richard Rodgers decided to rewrite a role in his musical comedy Me and Juliet, and to install her in the part as a walking, talking and playing pianist. A programme by the Barbara Carrol] Trio at present being heard from the YA stations gives some idea of what Barbara can do. Her style varies from the quietness of "Goodbye" or "Cabin in the Sky" to the breakneck pace and sly humour of "Give Me the Simple Life." There are other distinctive characteristics in her playing-the constant varying of mood with a series of crescendos and diminuendos, the use of the left hand not merely as a_background but as an instrument with a style of its own, her sudden departure from a straightforward statement of a theme into a brilliantly imaginative paraphrase of it. The bass and drum accompaniment are the contributions of Joe Shulman and Herb Wasserman respectively, who have been co-workers with Barbara Carroll for a long ‘time. Barbara herself is one of that growing body of distaff musicians who have made jazz their own special province. : ye

KEEP IT IN REGENT STREET

he) [FRANK MUIR and Denis Norden, the scriptwriters of Take It From Here (a new series of which is being heard

from the ZBs at 8.30 p.m. on Sundays), keep a wary eye on overseas listeners’ requirements when writing their weekly comedy show for the BBC. If they have

to "plant" a situation in London, they know very well that they are on safe

ground when speaking of a place which is universally known, such as Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square or Regent Street. Other less familiar localities may mean nothing to overseas listeners, who wil] therefore lose the point of the joke. So they take great care to keep the action in well-known districts. If they are poking fun at another radio programme which is not heard by overseas listeners, they always contrive to explain its scope and meaning in the body of Take It From Here. Such care in writing makes no difference to the programme as heard by listeners in Britain, but ensures that it will be enjoyed to the full by listeners in New Zealand and other parts of the Commonwealth.

NEWS OF BROADCASTERS, ON AND OFF THE RECORD