IT'S THE OLD ADAM COMING OUT!

Radio Record, 3 June 1938, Page 9

IT'S THE OLD ADAM COMING OUT!

j_ OOK right .... The camera of a New York reporter catches a strange scene. "Swing’’maddened dancers in a night club are storming the orchestra, embracing the performers, swaying their bodies to the rhythm of jungle music. That sort of thing doesn't happen in New Zecland. For some reason, racial or otherwise, our emotions are not stirred up to the same pitch. We don’t lose control. We-those of us whe ore "swing" eaddictsmerely close our eyes and tap our feet, But what ingredient is there in swing’ that maddens mobs in America? and how much does that seme ingredient affect "‘swing’’ fons nearer home?

ry VHE psy- ; chiatrists--the mental specialis t s -of America have at last begun to sit up and take notice of a new epidemic that is sweeping the country — "swing" — hysteria, Fortunately (perhaps inevitably ) few of the symptoms haye yet appeared in British countries.

We have yet to see half-crazed dancers mob a dance orchestra and embrace performers, others making grimaces that would frighten a professional uedici ine man in deepest Africa, still others seized with cSnvulsion-like puroxysms that are a fair imitation of an epileptic tit. 2. .

such things are possible only in an amazing society that folerates Hollywood "religious," Rene divorce Jaws, negro lynchings, aud elected judges, There seems litthe doubt that the people who ure so powerfully affected are in themselves unbalanced emotionally and mentally. Nevertheless, American — scienfists have thought it worth while to consider the nature of the stimulus as well as the weaknesses of the yictim, Tere, more or Jess, is What they have found out: WING wmusic-in common with the musie of African rituai daunces--is strongly and insistently rhythinical, In tone it is monotonous, With frequently recurring eadences ip a minor key that clu borate a simple, emotionally excil jug theme, sunt orvhythm ais the Jasis of swing. This rhythm is cunningly designed in a tempo slightly fas: ter than the average human heart beat-T2 per minute, Faster respiration and eventually a faster heart-beat are in duced hy aural suggestiou, This speeding up of bodily functions. -. a kind of musical bypnosis-- tends to break down normal reserve and to dull the faculty of self-criti-cism. Where there is a_ pro-

tiouticed mentad unbalance the ine toxication is ageras vated to a degree that approximates musical D.T.’s. But here you ask: "What about normal people — surely swing does not have that effect on them? Anyway, what harm is there in experiencing this musical excitement?"

FRAKING the questions in order, the American League of Music Students, which recently issued a paper on the subject of swing, is satistied that normal people, once they have become familiar with swing music, experience exactly the same reactions ‘as abnormal people, but in a very much

inodified degree. They do not lose control of themselves, The harm, if any? The American League of Music Students has satisfied itself that swing music is aphrodisiac. Ritual dancing among African negroes is admitted by observers to be aphrodisiac, and it is a reasonable supposition that the related "swing" has the same effect, but in a degree very largely modified by civilisation, But do not leave the supposition merely to logic by the American investigators and the anthropologist. Professor Arthur Cremin, president of the society, conducted one of those uasty experiments American psychologists afte given to. He told a reporter about it unblushingly in these words: . Io placed a young man and a girl in a room where we could watch them without tng obseryed. First, we provided a programme of good musie, classieal pieces and popular songs, such as wallzes. They were friendly, but that was all. "Later we arranged another meeting. This time the radio played swing music. They were much bolder, both of them. The boy took much more leeway in his actions and the girl didn’t object." (Continued on page 39.)

It’s The Old Adam

THEY STARTED PETTING (Continued from page 9). When directly questioned, Professor Cremin. admitted .that under the ‘influence of swing .musiec the young couple -_promptly started petting, One case, of course, wasn’t enough for the scientists, 80. they tried a -few more experiments, They.ali led to.the one conclusion, NE feels yery much tempted to leave it at that, bunt as it happens I know a very decorous girl who is ad(dicted to. gwing. I am sure that, if subjected.to the American. experiment, she would have upset calculations... With the snakelike plasticity of the psychologist, Professor Cremin also -eovers that point. Deeorous people who are addicted to swing, he says are addicted to swing because they are decorous. So I think that, fearing contradiction only by dance band leaders. and the decorous,. we can Jet it go at that, and admit .swing mnsic has its vogne to-day because, of all music, it is the most Hkely to raise .the spirit. of Old Adam in us--even if Old Adam is well disguised behind closed . eyes and 4 faintly tapping toe... \