Odds and Ends

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 884, 13 July 1956, Page 24

Odds and Ends

HEARD last week a programme which sought to demonstrate the strange sounds that can be produced by a tape recorder. The compere, an earnest American who has almost certainly taken a doctor's degree in tape recorders, recorded a canary’s song, took it down an octave so that it sounded like an oboe, another octave, and it was now the hooting of owls. "Dare I," he said coyly, "take it down a third octave?" He dared, and a tugboat steamed up the harbour. He demonstrated with solemnity and erudition what any child can observe with a portable gramophone running down. All wonderfully pointless. Rather in the same vein, though far more intelligent, was the first talk in a series Sound and Music, by H. W. French, who aimed at defining the relationship, if any, between. the scientist and the musician. He proved that there was such a relationship: that the scientist, with his research into the area of vibration and the production of sound, has continually modified the composer's approach to various instruments, and by inventing new ones, has greatly enlarged the whole world of sound. Mr. French finds, however, that musicians are unwilling, mostly, to enlarge their world with new instruments, preferring

new subtleties on the old ones. What will compel me to listen to the later talks with much interest, is to discover if science can contribute anything to music outside the purely technical field. I shall report anon.