Music: Memory Contest

In Central Park, Manhattan, was held last week a unique memory contest. To the 10,000 citizens who stood about the Mall listening to the orchestra which the City engages to entertain melodylovers, pieces of paper and sharp lead pencils were distributed. As the band played extracts from 100 different selections, the game was to jot down the name of the selection. The results were surprising in their excellence; almost all the scores were creditable. “How do you account for it?” an official was asked. “The movies,” said he. “They teach people music. The day has gone by when the girl at the piano could play Aint We Got Fun? as the aged mother passed away, or I Want a Daddy Who Will Rock Me to Sleep when the villain was in the heroine’s boudoir. The music fits the scene, thus printing itself on the memory, since most people remember more easily by the eye than by the ear. The cinema, if it does nothing else, gives many thousands a fair knowledge of popular and classic melodies.”