music at the speed of light

In the late 1960s a young boy in Portsmouth had written to Dutch electronics company Philips suggesting a new medium in which recorded music was read non-contactlessly by laser beam so that the disc would never wear out. The letter was never acknowledged, but I wonder if it may still be lurking in their archives. That boy is my brother. We both regret he never kept a copy. Years later it was indeed Philips, together with Sony, that in 1982 introduced CDs. But it was maybe thirteen years or more before I myself used the then new-fangled technology.

Our father, who had never known CDs, had a small collection of LP vinyl records which he “enjoyed” on his then state-of-the-art Pye Black Box. “Enjoy” may not be the best description, as he seemed to find much music too emotional to handle, and would often leave the room shortly after putting stylus to disc. He enjoyed the radio more, from the likes of the BBC Light Programme (later Radio 2), presenting so-called “light classics” in Friday Night is Music Night, Your Hundred Best Tunes and, most memorably for me, These You Have Loved. Memorable because, with his whimsical way with words, he would call the programme “These You Have Loathed”. Maybe he was just ambivalent.

It wasn’t many years before CDs declined in popularity in favour of streaming and other media. Today charity shops pile them high and sell them cheap. I should say they typically pile them low - near the floor - where most of the likely customer demographic struggle to reach, or if they manage it, struggle to stand up again. Like me. Despite their supposed decline in favour of other media and online streaming, CDs have been shown to be indestructible, and still in favour with audiophiles. “Classic” labels such as Naxos continue to churn them out; often more obscure works given a chance to shine for the cognoscenti.

And so it is that I can often buy four or more random recordings for a Pound, sometimes revisiting Prog Rock sounds from long lost vinyl, or discovering something new (or old). I’ve also rediscovered a guilty pleasure in the wealth of “British Light Music Classics” and from across the Atlantic, the similar treasures of Leroy Anderson. The guilt is self-evident in the extent to which such music was used as an opiate or as a tool for subjugation of the proletariat. The melodies filled the middle ground between “heavyweights” and “easy listening” and were most popular between the 1940s and 1960s. Essentially genteel music for working class audiences, it might have featured in seaside bandstands. Some pieces were used in, or written for radio, cinema and, later, television. To anyone not familiar with the genre, I always think of themes from old public information films, or from 1950s and 1960s comedies such as Hancock’s Half Hour. 

The music itself was always very melodic, but not always easily hummable due to an unexpected chromatic or jazzy edge, sometimes to comic effect. An often scintillating sound combined with a bouncy rhythm. The pieces are short, and typically have homely names as can be seen in these examples. Best known is the music of Robert Farnon (originally from Canada), Jumping Bean (1947) and Peanut Polka (1956) among his rich oeuvre. Ronald Binge wrote the achingly tuneful Sailing By (1963) used in the BBC Shipping Forecast, and The Watermill (1958). A personal favourite is Puffing Billy (1952) by Edward White, inspired by the sounds of the steam railway in the Isle of Wight. Indeed I can hear the old locals’ greeting (little heard today) in the melody, which seems to have the locomotive calling “Alright nipper, alright nipper, al-right nipper? B….er yeah!”. Once heard, you'll have an "ear-worm" for some time.

While billed as “music for all”, its cosiness also evoked too much of Middle England, cream teas and village greens. Less popular with me, for the above reasons, is the music of Eric Coates in the Knightsbridge March (1933), the Three Elizabeths (1944), or in keeping people in their place with Calling All Workers (1940), the theme from Music While You Work on BBC Radio for many years. Television serves the same function today.

I am also partial to some later music framed as “easy listening”, such as the rich close harmonies crafted by Mike Sammes, whose eponymous Singers entertained a generation of Gerry Anderson puppet-series fans through his theme tunes, and advertised everything from supermarkets to tractors. Thanks to found discs, I have rediscovered the symphonic sophistication of much 1960s popular music that I never appreciated at the time.

I enjoy the counterpoint of contrasting challenges to the ear in the output of Bartok or Messiaen, or in the meditative panpsychism of JS Bach. But whether old “pop”, folk fusion, operatic metal, light or heavy classics, it’s all music. Today a privileged obsession with exclusive genres is increasingly irrelevant. Apocryphally, Louis Armstrong is supposed to have said that “all music is folk music” having never heard a horse sing. He forgot to mention the birds.

LINKS

Compact disc - Wikipedia

Light music - Wikipedia

Robert Farnon - Jumping Bean (youtube.com)

Robert Farnon Society - Home

Mike Sammes - Wikipedia