These 'Golden' Melodies

Radio Record, 8 July 1938, Page 14

These 'Golden' Melodies

Special to the x "Record"

By

E. M.

Dorkin

| ae | Do You Know This? PE you wrote ‘@°'song that every radio and every gramopaone in the world blared out for-months, you would receive for it only ebout £500? -. . If you were o world-famous composer-a "Gershwin or a: Frimi--whose work was played by the world’s leading orchestras and bands, sung by stars earning £100,000 a year, recorded by ‘every leading gramophone company, it is unlikely: that your income would exceed > £1500 a:year?. oo ae | _ . Theat six London hotels in 1934-35 paid | £96,000 in providing music for guests, and of | this the authors of the music played received | the noble sum of £600 to be divided between them? That if it doesn’t stop soon composers are going to wake? oe

USIC, . like ‘the "poor, has: been: with -.us~ -since the beginning of history-but never, has it been with us..:so.con- . stantly and obtrusively . as it is tovday.\ : Tt rhe 5 performance © it-has** become so much a D of life it would seem almost impossible to conceive a world over which music was no longer poured in never-ending streams. ' To-day a man may, if he so morbidly desires, breakfast to music lunch and

dine and sup to music, read and talk and drive and play and sleep to music. Jt is a luxury available to all the civilised world for the mere twiddling of a knob or the pressing of a button. Playing, singing, recording and distributing of musi¢ are prosperous branches of one of the world’s greatest and most prosperous industries. Though music may seem "free" it costs the world countless millions of pounds every year. Orchestra leaders, singers, dance bunds-great in-

dividual performers are paid thousands of pounds for a single performance. Calculated pro rata to its part in programmes, the New Zealand public pays £300,000 a year for the music it gets on the air, There’s money in music-more money in musie than there has ever been before. But here is the great snomalysurely one of the greatest and strangest anomalies of civilisation: The composer-the real creator of niusic-has the poorest paid job in the world, He has less chance of earning bis living, less chance of winning riches in: reward for his genius, than he had twenty years ago when the world’s consumption of music was not one hundredth part of what if is to-day! For the moment, take that statement at its face value. What is going to be the end of it all? Is the composer going to be starved out of existence and music itself walk the slow road of self-destruction-or will some more edquitable system of profit-sharing be devised under which the composer can once more claim financial independence and receive rewards commensurate’ with his services? It’s along, strange story. AY back in the beginning of the " .@entury, myriad homes obtained their recreation of music when little Willie played the latest popular hit ou the plano, from yecords on those "newfangled" gramophones, from occasional concerts, minstrel shows, visits to the

theatre. No fewer than 8000 sellers of sheet music did a thriving business in the United States alone. The composer of a popular song might expect to receive royalties on anything up to a million copies of his music. Those were, indeed, palnny days. The composers of real hits made fortunes; the composers of "stock" numbers made comfortable incomes. But the palmy days were — not destined to last long. As record sales crept up sheet

music sales crept down, There was, however, still enough to be made from gramophone rights to keep the composer in modest comfort. Then came radio. Within tev years of its birth it bad ulmost completely displaced the gramophone in the field of mechanised music. Snap goes the composer’s second string. Rut the conwoser stil] held the copyright of his

music. He demanded a smal Sum for each public performance of his music so that his profession should in some small measure at least receive compensation for the delivery of art in the stamp-mill of science. To-day, after interminable legal battles, receipt of this performing right provides a means by whieh a composer can assure himself of about one-quarter of the income he previously received from other sources, Now cousider these actua) cases: A is a suecessful composer of ballads. In 1925 he made £1547 from the sale of sheet music. In 1984 be made £515 from the same source and received £233 in performing rights. Tig earn: ings were diminished by two-thirds in ten years. 3 is a well-known composer of ballads and light instrumental music. Jn 1923 he paid income tax on £924 from the sale of sheet music, and in 1934 paid tax on £336. The same composer received £380 for mechanical rights in 192+ and only £54 in 1934. Against that he received £614 in performing rights. (is on the topmost rung of the composing ladder. In 1928 he made nearly £5000. Six years later his income had dropped to less than £1500! OU may protest that these are ° al] pretty comfortable incomes, despite the startling deere ses. True. But remember that those men are world leaders in their prefession. Remember that the peorle who sing or play their musie may receive almost as (Contd. ou p, 41).

66 Golden 9} Melodiess

POOR COMPOSERS (Continued from Page 14.) much for a single performance of it as the composer receives in a whole year from all his work. Remember, too, that there are hundreds, thousands of smaller men composing "aeceptable’ music who receive for it a mere pittance. Unable to subsist on what they make out of diminished royalties and performing rights, they are forced to seek patronage of publishing firms and "write to’ order" on a fixed salary. If unable to find one of those rare jobs, they simply give it all up as a bad job and turn to clerking or navvying to keep off the bread-line, How many. great musicians are being strangled by this unprecedented state of affairs? How many people with great creative talent in music are ‘discouraged from even beginning to develop. it because music, the most profitable and generally used luxury of modern civilisation, is being blocked at its source by the short-sightedness of the users of music-who play with millions of profit and are content to throw pence to the people whose creative brains make that profit possible. ‘Figures talk, you tenders of. music mills that deluge the world with sweet, canned sounds! Count the profits ane then calculate how much you give to the men whose genius first conjured the haunting tunes your high-priced executants have played and your amaz--ing machines have reproduced. endlessly through the soundless ether. ; . Do- you really think it is-even remetely-a fair division of the. _ spoils?