Radio Broadcast (May 1928-Apr 1929)

32 RADIO BROADCAST MAY, 1928 still. They are good in their way, but they remain a makeshift, a borrowing. Multiplying them to the w'th degree would still be doing nothing to serve the ultimate ends of radio as a permanent institution. Radio must develop its own artists, actors, actresses, and orchestras. These may also do work in the other field but they must be first of all radio performers. What Mr. Aylesworth lists is not radio performers but names, names, names. Mr. Flamm, quoted above, agrees with us — but — we do not agree with him. Our version of the predicament was not pessimistic. His is. We claimed that nothing was being done to get radio out of its rut. He claims that nothing can be done. THE BROADCASTER CAN'T IMPROVE BROADCASTING THERE the broadcaster — if Mr. Flamm can be taken as representative — lays all his cards on the table and discloses himself for what he is — an unimaginative soul who isn't fitted to guide his own destinies. He laments that the broadcaster can appeal only through sound. He should rejoice. Sound. There is his medium — plainly and unmistakably identified. There are half a million sounds in existence awaiting his use of them. Obdurately he ignores them. The conclusion toward which we have been laboring should by now have made itself manifest: the broadcaster can't improve broadcasting. If broadcasting is to be extricated from the rut of dull routine in which it finds itself, it is evident that the help must come from without. Why? The reason is plain enough. The broadcaster is first of all a business man — an impresario. If he transcends that he may, in some instances, be also an interpretative artist. But by no stretching of the imagination can he be regarded as a creative artist. Nor are the gents on his staff of continuity writers likely to be creative artists. Creative artists are rare birds and not likely to be found among the hirelings of a big industry. The result is that nothing is being created for radio; without creation no art can come into being — including radio art. True, there are program makers who go through some of the motions of creating. But they haven't got the goods in them and what finally results is merely a banal, or at best "tricky" arrangement of a lot of old stuff. The broadcasters, however, have no occasion to resent this indictment of their artistry. We wouldn't have them artists! Imagine what would happen to the National Broadcasting Company if a crew of long haired birds should try to run it. It would go out of business in three days. The broadcasters are marvels of efficiency in their own field. They have effected the most rapid growth that any industry has ever known. All honor is due them. The only trouble is that they are trying to extend their field outside of its legitimate limits. Impresarios, well and good; but creators — phooey! Now the truth of the matter is that there is an Art of Broadcasting. The only trouble is that it hasn't been discovered yet. There have been inklings and foreshadowings of what it is to be. But these foreshadowings, though they're as obvious as the nose on your face, have been practically ignored. To mention a couple of these harbingers, one was the Eveready Hour's "Galapagos" and the other was that same organization's "Show Boat." These two programs came at least nearer than any others to demonstrating what the new radio art form will be like. But excellent as they were they only faintly suggest the unexplored possibilities of what we hereby dub "Sound Drama." We don't propose to write you a "Sound Drama." In the first place that's not what we're hired to do, and in the second place we haven't the necessary talents to do it. But it is within our rights and powers to prophesy what the so far unwritten "Sound Drama" will be like. It will be a little like the Stage Drama. It will be a little like the Opera. It will be a little like the Symphony. It will be a little like Literature. It will be a little like the Oratorio. And it will be exactly like no one of these. What it will be is the perfect synthesis of all the modes we have mentioned. Which also means it will be quite a chore in the making! No ordinary ham is going to be able to take all these art forms and weld them into a whole which will be not merely a conglomeration but a unity, an art form in itself. It is a task for a creative artist of the highest ability and originality. The artist who does it will have to be Playwright, Composer, and Poet all at once — in other words such a man as was Richard Wagner. He need not be technically equipped in each one of these fields of art. But his taste, at least, must direct the efforts of collaborators to a unified end. (It is needless to add that he must also familiarize himse'lf with the mechanical limitations of radio transmission and adapt his music and all else he offers to these requirements.) The time is now ripe for the new art to appear, for the radio lords have brought radio up to the point where it is susceptible of being made an art. To their credit it must be said that radio is miles ahead of the writing that is being done for it. Radio technicians have done astounding things. They have developed their apparatus and their knowledge of transmission to the point where they can do wonders. But there are no wonders to be done. Most of the truck that is on the air is an insult to the excellence of the apparatus that transmits it. Radio play directors have made exhaustive researches in the realm of noises. They have learned how properly to imitate hundreds of noises in nature. But so far they have been unable to put these noises to any artistic use. The radio engineers and the studio staffs have done their share. They have set the stage. What they need now is something worth while to put on that stage. And they ought to realize that they can't produce it. They must call for outside help. Their position is much like that of an expert violin maker who has put in months of loving craftsmanship in the making of a perfect instrument. This same craftsman doesn't attempt to perform on the fiddle when it is finished. He leaves that to the artist. So the radio program makers must sooner or later summon the aid of the artist. An artist is attracted to a new medium by four different factors: /. The artistic possibilities of the new medium. 2. The possibilities of reaching an appreciative audience through that medium. j. The permanence .of the medium. And, 4. The rewards available in that medium. That radio has artistic possibilities we are firmly convinced. That radio has a large and sympathetic audience is an obvious fact. That the medium is at present a most ephemeral one happens also to be a fact, but one of no permanent importance. Now, a program is given once and forgotten sixty minutes later. Which is generally what it deserves. But there is no reason why a radio creation of sufficient merit and meaty content could not be given again and again and find a permanent place on the repertoires of stations throughout the world. As to the rewards available for creative radio program designing, that brings us up against the practical. At present there is no financial inducement for any one to worry his head over the future of radio — unless he be a paid "continuity" writer, in which case he does just enough worrying to earn his salary. Many millions of dollars are spent in this country every year on radio programs. It is our conjecture that of these many millions of dollars less than a tenth of one per cent, goes to paying for the writing of broadcast programs. Much of it is wasted on paying the extravagant bills of opera singers and other overpaid interpretative artists. If less money were lavished on the individuals who interpret things, and more money spent in getting them something to interpret, matters would be vastly improved. As a practical suggestion of a method to start the ball rolling, we propose the following: Let some station or syndicate of stations post a prize of $5000 for the best specially composed program of sixty minutes duration submitted in manuscript by October 1, 1928. The privilege of purchasing other compositions at more ordinary rates could be reserved by the station offering the prize. Certain copyright stipulations would also have to be arranged. What will this winning composition be like? We will suggest its make-up. It will be a collaberation between a modern composer — a Honneger, say — and a writer or poet. The announcer will introduce it with not more than two or three minutes of explanatory foreword. He will not intrude again. This imagined program will open, say, with a vague rumble of distant noises. They will steadily grow louder and presently organize themselves out of the chaos into recognizable sounds. They will be-the noises of nature, perhaps the beating of surf, the noise of a street, or the buzzing of insects. They will constitute the setting. But these noises will be craftily selected, manipulated, minimized, or exaggerated. Some may be amplified to a high degree — as they would sound, for instance, to the keen ears of a wild animal. They will suggest the mood of the entire piece. Imperceptibly they will melt into music, the music of the symphony orchestra, which will continue to build up the mood. Then the music will grow quieter, a modulation will change its key and its tempo until presently it will merge, without any break, into the human voice. Not your ordinary human voice, but the voice of an artist actor which can convey the slightest nuance of emotion. And the words will not merely be words, but just the right words. They will be as informative as the words in any stage play, but at the same time they will be prose poetry. They will further clarify the situation, or plot, which will of necessity be an elemental and emotional one. The speaker's words may at any time change into song and perhaps back again. Presently the noises will be heard again, or the orchestra, or perhaps a chorus of voices — observers commenting on what transpires. And so on, all these various sound sources will be manipulated and shuttled about until the comedy or the melodrama, the tragedy or fantasy, whatever it is, has come to a close. In thus briefly setting down our ideas of the possible trend of such a Sound Drama, we have perhaps made the thing seem simply curious and "tricky." Perhaps we have made it seem "highbrow." If it is properly composed and executed it will be none of these. It will be a gripping emotional thing that will completely carry us away. It will not be something vague and disjointed that we will forget immediately it is over, but something rememberable and pleasurable. And it will have accomplished its end, not through visible means, nor verbal description, but through an appeal to that much neglected organ of ours — the ear. And still the broadcaster laments that he "can appeal to his audience only through sound — nothing else!"