COMMUNITY MUSIC
I. MUSIC BY PROXY
In the preceding chapters I have dealt with special musical subjects,
and have constantly referred to music as a distinct and independent art
having its own reasons for existence. I have dealt, also, with some of
its special functions as well as with its relation to the education
of children. In the present chapter it is my purpose to discuss music
in its relation to communities large and small, and this necessitates
treating it on the broadest possible grounds.
By community music I mean, first, music in which all the people of a
community take part; second, music which is produced by certain members
of the community for the benefit and pleasure of the others; and third,
music which, while actually performed by paid artists, is nevertheless
somehow expressive of the will of the community as a whole. I shall
take no refuge behind generalities or theories of æsthetics. I want to
reach everybody, including the person who says, “I don’t know anything
about music but I know what I like,” and that other extraordinary
person who says, “I know only two tunes, one of which is ‘Yankee
Doodle’”--each of these statements being quite incomprehensible, since
it is a poor person indeed who doesn’t know what he likes, and anybody
who knows “Yankee Doodle” has no excuse whatever for not knowing what
the other tune is, or, so far as that goes, what any other tune is. I
am, in short, appealing on common grounds about a common thing. My only
question is this: If there is a means of interesting, delighting, and
elevating a large number of people at very small expense, by something
which they can all do together and which brings them all into sympathy
with one another, and if the result of this coöperation is to produce
something beautiful, is it not worth doing? I intend to make as full an
answer to this question as space permits.
It is in the “doing” and the “doing together” that the crux of the
matter lies, for a purely external connection with music never brings
about a complete understanding of it. It is no exaggeration to say
that our connection with nearly all artistic things is largely
external. We do not draw; we do not train the eye to see or the hand
to feel and touch, and artistic objects remain in a measure strange
and unintelligible to us. The whole tendency of modern life and of
modern education is to delegate those functions which have to do with
our inner being. We delegate our religion to a preacher or to a dogma;
we delegate our education to a curriculum smoothed out to a common
level; some of us even delegate the forming of an opinion on passing
events to a leader who presents them to us in a “current events” class.
The religion, the knowledge, the opinion of many a person belongs to
some one else. Many a man prefers an inferior novel because the author
not only writes it, but reads it for him, whereas to the wise man the
author might almost be called an amanuensis. In any case, a writer
of genuine power never does more than his share. He depends on us to
complete him. And in like case, if we expect to understand and love
music we must use it; the composer depends on us as much as the author
does.
This external connection with music and this lack of intimacy with the
thing itself naturally leads us to lay stress on the performance of
it. We revel in technique and we exalt the personalities of players and
singers. In our opera houses we are satisfied only when we have an “all
star” cast by whom we expect to be astonished rather than delighted and
elevated. Now, fine singing, as such, is of little importance save as
a means of reproducing fine music. If fine singing means a sacrifice
of the musical effect; if it destroys the _ensemble_; if it limits the
repertoire--then it is not worth the sacrifice. Why should it ever do
so? Simply because opera-goers suffer it, and for no other reason in
the world. One merely needs to mention a reasonable plan of opera--such
as has been carried out for generations in French, Italian, and German
cities--to be laughed at by those devotees who have sat for years
at the feet of magnificence warming themselves in the effulgence of
gilt and jewels. So it is with solo recitals and orchestral concerts.
One continually hears people discussing the technique of pianists
and violinists, or the comparative merits of our various orchestras.
Local pride--the last thing in the world to connect with artistic
judgment--asserts itself in favor of one orchestra or another, until
it would almost seem that the only purpose of having an orchestra was
to excel all the others. How often, on the contrary, do we hear the
music itself intelligently discussed? In short, we are trying to be
musical vicariously by means of an occasional performance by other
people of music the greater part of which is unfamiliar and, therefore,
unintelligible to us. This is like trying to be religious through going
to church once a week and, sitting passively, being preached and sung
at! The most musical communities are not those where all the music of
the year is crowded into a festival of three or four days, but those
where there is the most real music made at home. A German musical
festival used to be the culmination of a whole year of healthy musical
activity, and the occasion for the production of new works and a wide
variety of old ones. An English or an American festival is, first of
all, an opportunity to hear “The Messiah,” and secondly, to hear a
famous soloist. The attendance on those two occasions is always much
larger than at any others. Is it not true that all the higher functions
of the soul of a man or a woman or of a community can be preserved
only by being exercised?
In what follows I shall try to show how we may escape from the
conditions in which we now too complacently rest. The material for the
change is abundant, for there is in every community much more love of
music than ever appears; the means are simple and inexpensive, for only
a few dollars worth of good music are needed, with a room in which to
practice, a piano and a leader. Let us make a start toward a sincere
and intimate understanding of music through making it ourselves. Let us
give up criticism of other people and begin to construct. Then shall we
learn to see music as it is and to value it accordingly.
II. OUR MUSICAL ACTIVITIES
As a preliminary to this discussion it will be well to look at the
present status of music among us, and to see how near we come to this
necessary intimacy with the art.
In any small American community the first impression one gets about
music is that it is useful to fill up gaps. At the theater, before
public meetings, at social affairs of one sort or another, music
is performed to a ceaseless hum of conversation or while people are
entering and leaving. The art becomes, in consequence, like the
cracking of the whip before the team starts, or like the perfunctory
speeches and gestures of social amenities; it is nothing in itself, and
falls in our estimation accordingly. It is true that, at such times,
only trivial music is usually played, but this only makes the situation
worse, because, after all, it passes as music. A bad piece of music
at the theater or while one is dining in a restaurant is merely an
annoyance; a good piece beats its head against a flood of conversation,
tinkling glasses and other disturbances, and is lost; one feels as
though its composer had been insulted. All this incidental music must
be partly due to the decline in conversation. We are relieved of all
responsibility save an occasional “yes” or “no” shouted above the din.
Real musical activity in the average small community is limited to a
very small number of its inhabitants. Only a few people sing; a much
smaller number play some musical instrument. There are, here and there,
choirs made up of volunteer singers, but the spirit that animated the
old choirs--the spirit which Hardy has celebrated so lovingly in “Under
the Greenwood Tree”--has disappeared. Hymn-singing in church is often
distressingly bad, and with good reason, since the composers of modern
hymn tunes seldom take into consideration the needs and wishes of
congregations. Church music has been delegated by us to paid singers,
and our church music becomes a thinly disguised concert, or, when
the really abominable vocal quartette supplies the music, a concert
outright.
What days those were when old William Dewey and Dicky, and Reuben and
Michael Mail played in the Mellstock church! What a fine personal
character such music had! How they loved to play--these simple rustics,
and how intimate was the relation between their music and the people
and the place! Read the early chapters of “Under the Greenwood Tree”
and listen to the ardent discussions between the players before they
go out on their Christmas rounds. “‘They should have stuck to strings
as we did, and keep out clar’nets, and done away with serpents. If
you’d thrive in musical religion, stick to strings, says I.’ ... ‘Yet
there’s worse things than serpents,’ said Mr. Penny. ‘Old things pass
away, ’tis true; but a serpent was a good old note; a deep rich note
was the serpent.’ ... ‘Robert Penny, you was in the right!’ broke in
the eldest Dewey. ‘They should ha’ stuck to strings.’ ‘Your brass-man
is a rafting dog--well and good; your reed-man is a dab at stirring
ye--well and good; your drum-man is a rare bowel-shaker--good again.
But I don’t care who hears me say it, nothing will spak to your heart
wi’ the sweetness o’ the man of strings.’”
In the preface to his book Hardy speaks of the advantage to the village
churches of that time of having these volunteer players and singers,
and how their displacement by the harmonium with its one player “has
tended to stultify the professed aims of the clergy, its direct result
being to curtail and extinguish the interest of parishioners in church
doings.” This holds good in our own village churches to-day, for we
consider music more a means of entertaining the church-goer than of
enlisting his interest in the services.
Women’s clubs provide a certain sort of musical life to small
communities. They foster the performance by members of rather
variegated programmes of pianoforte pieces and songs, with an
occasional concert by a paid performer from abroad, and they sometimes
make a study of a composer or a period of music. Many of them lose
sight of the only possible means of vitally influencing the musical
life of their own members and of the community at large.
In some of the communities of which I am writing there are choral
societies. In very few is there any well-sustained and continuous
choral organization giving concerts year after year supported by
the general public. The record of choral singing in America shows a
constant endeavor to attain grandiose results rather than to foster the
love of choral singing for itself. Singing societies are continually
wrecked by the expense of highly paid soloists, and are continually
striving for something beyond their reach.
This statement would not be complete were we to omit the instruments
which play themselves. The educational possibilities of these
instruments have not been realized, for they are used chiefly for
amusement. In spite of the extraordinary selections of music which one
finds in people’s houses, and in spite of the seemingly incorrigible
propensity to hear singing, as opposed to hearing music,--I mean the
exaggerated and grotesque singing of certain famous people who care
chiefly for sensation,--the graphophone, which has the practical
advantage of being portable and inexpensive,--it has transformed many
a lonely farmhouse,--and the mechanical piano-players have become
so popular that one can but conclude that there are multitudes of
people whose desire for music has never before been satisfied. Would
that this desire could be turned into proper channels; that these
instruments could be used systematically to build up taste and develop
understanding of great music. The larger number of people using them
have no means of knowing what to buy. If they could hear the best music
their allegiance would probably be secured. How many parents ever think
of the responsibility laid upon them of preserving or improving the
musical taste of their children by a careful supervision of the records
or rolls used with these instruments?
This completes the list of our own personal activities in music. And
we have to admit that the most discouraging item of all comes at the
end. For we make little music of our own, by our own firesides where
all good things should begin, and where we should find the community
in embryo. What a delightful element in family life is the gathering
together of young and old to join in singing! How few families
cultivate this custom! How few parents, whether they themselves care
for it or not, realize that their children would enjoy it and be helped
by it! Why should not such parents begin at once and be encouraged, or
even taught by their children until all can sing together heartily and
well? Is it not worth while preserving the musical sense of children,
so that when they reach your age they will not be helpless as you are?
Are you satisfied to have your child’s music merely bought and paid
for outside the home? How can you expect it to flourish under such
conditions? Let the children teach you, if need be. Copy them, learn
their songs by ear, and find out what music really is!
This somewhat meager showing of musical activity does not completely
represent our connection with the art, however, for nearly all but
the smallest communities spend considerable sums for concerts by paid
performers from abroad. But it is doubtless true that the majority of
the people in any small community hear very little real music at all
save at occasional concerts, and if a fine composition is performed
they seldom hear it again, so that it is clearly impossible for them to
understand it. In towns of from five to twenty thousand people all over
the country there is very little consciousness of what music really is.
Highly paid performers occasionally appear, and local pride asserts
itself to provide them with the adulation to which they are accustomed,
but real musical activity or musical feeling is confined to a few.
In large communities these conditions are duplicated and even
exaggerated. There nearly all the music is bought and paid for, and
very little is home-made. Nearly all choirs are composed of paid
singers. In cities, as in the country, choral societies are struggling
to find men who care enough about singing to attend rehearsals. There,
too, children go their rounds of “music” lessons. The only possible
way to estimate the state of music in our cities is to look at the
population as a whole. By counting up the number of fine concerts in
fashionable halls one arrives at no significant conclusions. Do we sing
at home, or when we are gathered together in friendly converse? Are
there small centers in cities where good music can be heard? Is there
any good music within reach of people of small means? The millionaire
regales his friends with the playing of his private organist (in
imitation of the old patron days of art, but generally without the love
and understanding of music which was the sole justification for the
proceeding), but does the dweller in the modest flat ever have a chance
to hear good music? These are questions we need to ask if we want to
estimate the state of music in our great cities. Is not all this grand
music, as I have said, merely a largess of our prosperity?
The most grandiose and disconnected form of our musical activity is the
opera. And when we consider the love of drama which finds expression
in nearly every small community in a dramatic club, we cannot but
deplore the almost complete detachment of opera from our natural
thoughts, feelings, and instincts. Of this detachment there is no doubt
whatever; the whole plan of American operatic productions is exotic,
aristocratic, and exclusive.
It is quite true that we are continually improving our musical status.
The effect of all our fine music may indeed be observed, but our
progress is undeniably slow, particularly when we remember with what
a liberal endowment we start. That endowment is very little less than
other peoples possess. Our children are musical, and there is no reason
why we should not be. Moreover, the strain of ideality which runs
through American life, however naïve it may be, would seem to make us
especially qualified to love and understand music.
III. WHAT WE MIGHT DO
I have indicated in a former chapter something of our needs as regards
the musical education of children. The problem before me now is how
to persuade American men and women into active coöperation in making
music. It is obvious that there is only one way of doing this, and that
is by singing. Only an infinitesimal number of people can play musical
instruments, but nearly everybody can sing. To play requires constant
practice. Singing in groups does not. In their right estate every man
and every woman should sing.
Now my urgent appeal for singing does not mean that every village,
town, or city should turn itself bodily into a huge singing society.
Some people will sing better than others and will enjoy it more, or
have more time for it. But there are constant opportunities for large
groups of people to sing--in church, on Memorial Day, at Christmas
time, at patriotic gatherings, or at dedications. Nothing is more
striking on such occasions than the total lack of any means of
spontaneously expressing that which lies in the consciousness of all,
and which cannot be delegated. What a splendid expression of devotion,
of commemoration, of dedication, of sacred love for those who died in
our Civil War would a thousand voices be, raised up as one in a great,
eternal, memorial hymn! What do we do? We hire a brass band to be
patriotic, devout, and commemorative for us. This inevitably tends to
dull our patriotism and our devotion. To live they must spring forth
in some sort of personal expression. In a village I know well, this
custom mars an otherwise deeply impressive observance of Memorial Day.
The “taps” at the soldiers’ graves in their silent resting places, the
sounds of minute guns booming, the long procession of townspeople, the
calling of the roll of the small company of soldiers who marched away
from that village green half a century ago, with only an occasional
feeble “Here” from the handful of survivors, the lowering of the flag
on the green with all heads uncovered, all eyes straining upward--these
make the ceremony fine and memorable. It needs to complete it only
some active expression on the part of every one such as singing would
provide.
“I know not at what point of their course, or for how long, but it was
from the column nearest him, which is to be the first line, that the
King heard, borne on the winds amid their field music, as they marched
there, the sound of Psalms--many-voiced melody of a church hymn, well
known to him; which had broken out, band accompanying, among those
otherwise silent men.” So relates Carlyle, in “Frederick the Great,”
of the march of Frederick and his army before the battle of Leuthen.
“With men like these, don’t you think I shall have victory this day?”
says Frederick. Is not such singing a wonderful thing? Those soldiers,
with a common dedication to duty, and a common disdain of death, send
up to some dimly sensed Heaven, from the very depths of their being, a
song. How otherwise could they express the thoughts and feelings that
must have been clamoring for utterance in their sturdy breasts? Their
bodies were marching to battle. What of their souls? Shall the very
spirit of them slumber on their way to death?
And we? We watch from afar; we are dumb; we look on this profoundly
moving ceremony, this simple pageant, and utter nothing of what we feel
and what we are. Why do we not sing? Is it not partly because of that
self-consciousness which hangs about us like a pall, and partly because
we were never made to like singing well enough to pursue it? The former
difficulty we could overcome easily enough if the right opportunity
continually offered itself. The latter, too, would disappear as
occasion arose when we could sing something worth singing. “The
Star-Spangled Banner” is a candle-snuffer on the flame of patriotic
feeling; never was there an air more unsuited to its purpose. Since we
have almost no indigenous national melodies, why should we not sing the
old songs, chorals, and hymns that have survived all sorts of national
changes and belong to every people? The tune for “America” is not an
American tune, neither is it English. It originated in Saxony. There
is no nationalism to stand in the way of such music, because it speaks
elementally and universally. There are scores of fine melodies which we
could well use.
The one place where singing might be fostered is in church. But where
the worshipers are asked to sing a hymn pitched too high for them, or
one that moves too quickly, or is full of unfamiliar and difficult
progressions in both melody and harmony, what other result can be
expected than poor singing and the gradual abandonment of all music to
a paid choir? The real purpose of the hymn tune has been lost. It was
intended to serve the needs of all the people, and to do this it must
be simple in both melody and harmony, and within the range Of every
man, woman, and child in the congregation. The sturdy old hymns and
chorals of our forefathers were so. Nothing is finer in church music
than good unison singing in which every one takes part. No skilled
choir singing can ever take its place.
Even the manner of singing hymns has changed. Many of them are raced
through at a pace which leaves one half the congregation behind, and
totally eclipses the other half! In many of the old hymn tunes there
is a pause at the end of each line, during which the members of the
congregation had a reasonable chance to take breath. Even these pauses
have often been eliminated, thus destroying the sense of the music
and giving a colder shoulder still to the musical and devotional
aspirations of the congregation. (If space permitted I should like to
dwell here on the genesis of some of these old tunes. They were deeply
embedded in the common life of our remote forefathers, and had no taint
of self-consciousness in them. Springing from the soil, they survived
all changes of dogma and custom. And they will survive. We shall come
back to them when we have survived our present attack of prettiness.)
The decline in hymn-singing is evident enough. Save in churches where
the liturgy restrains the ambitions of the choir, almost anything is
possible; and even under that restraint there is a constant tendency
toward display. What is the office of church music? Is it to astonish
or delight the congregation? Is it to supply them with a sacred concert
or fine singing? To take their minds off the situation in which they
find themselves? To ease the effect of a dull sermon, or obliterate
the effect of a good one? To serve as a bait to catch the unwary
non-church-goer, or as a means of retaining the waverer within the
fold? Or is it to induce devotion and religious feeling, to keep the
moment sacred and without intrusion? If the choir is to sing alone, why
should we accept from it display pieces, or arrangements from secular
music, or silly “sacred” songs overburdened with lush sentiment, or
anthems of a certain fluent type composed by anybody who can put a
lot of notes together in agreeable sequence? Why should we tolerate
the solo in operatic style, or contemptible solo quartette music,
suitable (and hardly that) for the end of a commercial “banquet”? Is
there, then, no reality behind church music? Is it merely any music
set to sacred words? He who has ever studied any art knows that this
cannot be true. The finest church music--of which Palestrina and Bach
are the greatest exponents--is based on something more than a casual
association with sacred words. In the Protestant churches of our cities
the music is very largely derived from modern English sources, and I
count this an obstacle to our progress. Beginning with the last half of
the nineteenth century, English church music has been dominated by a
school of composers whose music is charming, or pretty, or melodious,
or what-you-will, but is not either profound or devout. Nearly all our
organists are, musically, of English descent, but they treat their
forefathers with but scant respect. There is no difficulty whatever in
procuring good music for choirs. There is a supply suitable for solo
singing or chorus, for small choir or large, to be purchased at any
music shop. There are a dozen fine composers whose music is never heard
in most American churches; composers such as Palestrina, Vittoria, and
others of the great period of church music; or Bach, or Gibbons, Byrd,
and Purcell, whose music is in the true idiom, an idiom now almost
entirely lost; or John Goss, Samuel Wesley, and Thomas Attwood in the
early part of the nineteenth century, before the decadence had fairly
begun. The earliest of this music is written for voices unaccompanied,
and is therefore too difficult for any but a highly trained choir; but
there are plenty of simple anthems with organ accompaniment by the
early English composers named above, and there are a certain number of
Bach’s motets suitable for choirs of moderate ability.
Let me mention “O Thou, the central orb,” by Gibbons, as an example
of a fine anthem in the old style, and “Oh, Saviour of the World,” by
Goss, as an example of the simpler and later type. These are beautiful,
simple, and dignified anthems suitable for city or country choir. If
the city choirmaster will give over for a time trying to provide the
congregation with brilliant music which is chiefly notable for its
extravagance of technique and its striking effects, his listeners will,
perhaps, be able to revert to that state of quiet devotion which the
rest of the service has induced. Many choir directors would doubtless
like to use simpler and more devotional music, but are hindered from
doing so because they feel upon them the weight of the opinion and
taste of the congregation, and perhaps of the preacher. Everybody,
regardless of his qualifications for doing so, feels at liberty to
criticize the music he hears in church.
Social and musical clubs for women exist in great numbers all over
the United States. They are often useful in practical ways, but their
contact with artistic matters is, on the contrary, often ineffectual.
They offer their members continual sips at different springs, but no
deep draught at one. The average member of a women’s club, if she is to
be helped in anything, must be helped from the position in which she
then is; and this is particularly true of music. But she is torn out
of her natural environment and asked to listen to a recital of, say,
modern French music, not one note of which answers to her intelligence
or her feelings. The passion for the last thing in music without any
knowledge of the first is fatal to any one. And when one considers the
enormous membership in clubs for women in this country, one can but
wish that more effort were made to help the individual to progress
simply and naturally step by step. It is not to be expected that the
average woman, whose time is very likely occupied with domestic cares,
should make an extended study of music; but it is possible to give her
a chance to hear a few simple, good compositions, and to hear them
several times during a season, so that she may learn to understand
them. The more experienced and more advanced members of women’s clubs
are apt to dominate in these matters and to forget the needs of the
others, and there is certain to be a few rare souls who dwell entirely
in the rarefied atmosphere of the very latest music, and who look down
on the common ignorance of the mass. Some women’s clubs purvey only the
performance of great players or singers, and pride themselves on their
lists of celebrities, all too forgetful of those delicately adjusted
scales which demand equal weight _in kind_. If a women’s club in a
small town (or in a large one, for that matter) should abjure for the
moment pianoforte and vocal recitals of the latest music, and should
proceed to devote a little time to singing, in unison, some fine old
songs in which every one could take part, a fair start would be made.
I am not attempting to belittle the musical capabilities of these
clubs, nor am I decrying expert performances; I am merely speaking for
the average woman who has had little opportunity for musical education
or musical experience, and who is usually left far behind as club
programmes run, yet who is capable of understanding music if it be
brought to her in the proper manner. Ask her to sing with you and she
is brought into the fold instead of straying blindly outside. Every
meeting of a women’s club (why qualify?--of any club, save, perhaps, a
burglar’s, where silence would be desirable) should begin with a hearty
song. Step by step--not a violent leap to a dizzy height; we cannot
become musical by the force of our aspiration even though it be quite
sincere; nature unrelentingly exacts of us that same slow growth which
she herself makes. There is no to-morrow.
If all the people in a community expressed themselves at appropriate
times and seasons by singing, it would naturally follow that a goodly
number of them would form themselves into a singing society. This
society would satisfy the desire of the community to hear such
music as can be performed only after considerable practice. I cannot
emphasize too strongly the connection between the community and the
singing society. The latter should be the answer to the community’s
desire, and not be a spectacle--if I may mix my metaphors to that
extent.
IV. AN EXPERIMENT
I live in a town of some six thousand inhabitants which about answers
to the description given near the beginning of this article. There was
a singing society in the place about thirty years ago, but since then
there has been little choral singing. Two years ago I asked some thirty
people to come together to practice choral singing. I then stated that
I should like to train them if they would agree to two conditions:
first, that we should sing none but the very best music, and second,
that our concerts should be free to the townspeople. These conditions
were at once agreed to and we started rehearsing. We found it possible
to get the use of the largest church containing a good organ, and we
found four people who played the violin and two the violoncello. Our
little orchestra finally grew until we had some eight or ten string
players. We borrowed kettledrums and one of our enthusiasts learned to
play them.
We have given three concerts, at each of which the church was more
than filled--it seats about six hundred people. Our programmes have
contained Brahms’s “Schicksalslied” (Song of Fate) and parts of his
“Requiem,” Bach’s motet, “I Wrestle and Pray,” arias from the “St.
Matthew Passion,” and similar compositions. Our soloists have been
members of our chorus, with little previous experience of such music
as we have been singing, but with a profound sensibility to it brought
about by continued practice of it. The townspeople who have come to
hear our music have given certain evidence of a fact which I have for
many years known to be true, namely, that when people have a chance
to know thoroughly a great composition it invariably secures their
complete allegiance. We have therefore repeated our performance of
these various works, sometimes singing one piece twice in the same
concert. We have given, for example, the “Schicksalslied” three times
in two years, and both singers and audience are completely won over to
it.
Our singing society is supported by the payment of fifty cents each
by any individual who cares to subscribe. We give two open concerts a
year, at which six hundred people hear the finest choral music at a
total annual expense of about seventy-five dollars. Every one connected
with the project gives his or her services free. Our concerts take
place on Sunday afternoons. At the last one I tried an interesting
experiment. Bach’s motet, “I Wrestle and Pray,” is based, as is common
in his choral pieces, on a chorale which is sung by the sopranos in
unison, with florid counterpoints in the other parts. At the end the
chorale is given in its original form, so that the congregation may
join in the singing of it. It was a simple matter for us to get six
hundred copies of this chorale reproduced by mimeograph, and these were
distributed in the pews. The result was almost electrifying to one who
had heard the feeble church singing of feebler hymns in our churches.
The second time the motet was sung--we performed it at the beginning
and at the end of this concert--nearly every one joined in and the
echoes rolled as they had never rolled before in that church. Why?
These very same people send up feeble, timid, disorganized, slightly
out-of-tune sounds every Sunday morning in their various churches. Has
a miracle happened that they are lustily singing together? Not at all.
They have merely been offered an opportunity to do what they are all
quite capable of doing, namely, singing a hymn suited to them. This
chorale has a range of but five tones--from _f_ to _c_; it is largely
diatonic, proceeding step by step of the scale, and it is noble and
inspiring. How often had such an opportunity been presented to them
before? Why not?
The members of our chorus are such people as one would find in most
American towns of the same size. Perhaps we are more than usually
fortunate in our solo singers and our orchestra. I believe the chief
reason why a project like this might be difficult in many places is
because it might not be possible to find a leader who cared more for
Bach and Brahms than for lesser composers. The technical problem is not
extreme, but the leader must have unbounded belief in the best music
and tolerate nothing less. The moment this latter condition lapses,
choral singing will lapse--as it would deserve to do.
There are many small communities where choral concerts on a large scale
are occasionally given. Great effort and great expense are not spared.
Several hundred voices, a hired orchestra, and hired soloists make the
event notable. But the music performed is of such a character that no
one wants to hear it again; neither the singers who practice it nor the
audience who listen to it are moved or uplifted. There have even been
systematic efforts in some middle western states to establish community
singing. The effect of such efforts depends there, as here, on the kind
of music which people are asked to sing, for this is the heart of the
whole matter. No advance in music, or in anything else, can be expected
without constant striving for the very best. And it is quite within
bounds to say that most of these efforts are nullified by lack of a
really high standard. Finally, let me say that a concert of good music
by a local choral society is, to the people of any community, immensely
more valuable than a paid musical demonstration by performers from
abroad which costs five times as much money.
V. MUSIC AS A SOCIAL FORCE
Leaving this actual experience and its effects on the community, let us
ask ourselves what this singing means to the individuals who do it. In
the first place, it makes articulate something within them which never
finds expression in words or acts. In the second place, it permits
them to create beauty instead of standing outside it. Or, to speak
still more definitely, it not only gives them an intimate familiarity
with some great compositions, but it accustoms them to the technique
by means of which music expresses itself. They learn to make melodic
lines, to add a tone which changes the whole character of a chord; they
learn how themes are disposed in relation to one another; they come
into intimate contact with the actual materials of the art by handling
them. This, we do not need to say, is the key to the knowledge and
understanding of anything. You cannot understand life, or love, or
hate, or objects, or ideas, until you have dealt in them yourself.
Singing has the profound psychological advantage of giving active issue
to that love of beauty which is usually entirely passive.
The artist has two functions: he draws, or paints, or models; he uses
language or sounds. This comprises his technique. But he also possesses
imaginative perception. Now, nothing is more certain than that our
understanding of what he does must be in kind. We learn to understand
his technique by actual experience of it. So, also, we learn to enter
into the higher qualities of his art by the exercise of the same
faculties which he uses. Our feelings, our minds, and our imaginations
must take a reflection from him as in a mirror. If the glass is blurred
or the angle of reflection distorted we cannot see the image in its
perfection. The light comes from we know not where.
Let any reader of these words ask himself if the statement they
contain of the qualities of music and of our relation to it could not
with equal force be applied to his own business or occupation. Is
not his understanding of that business or occupation based on these
two essentials: first, familiarity with its methods and materials,
and, second, some conception of the real meaning, significance, and
possibility that lie behind its outward appearance and manifestation?
I have not laid sufficient stress on the advantage to men of singing.
Not only does it enable them to become self-expressive, but it gives
them the most wholesome of diversions, it equalizes them, it creates a
sort of brotherhood, it takes their minds off per cents, and gives them
a new and different insight. This is, of course, not accomplished by
the kind of music men now sing, which is chiefly associated with sports
and conviviality. So long as music is only outside us, so long as we
educate our children without bringing them into actual contact with its
materials, giving them little real training in the development of the
senses, just so long will it remain a mystery, just so long will its
office be misunderstood. What a perplexity it is now to many of us! How
it does thrust us away! We have got beyond being ashamed to love it,
but we love it from afar.
From a sociological point of view this discussion has thus far been
somewhat limited. Now, the possibilities in music to weld together
socially disorganized communities have never been fully realized
in America. Were we to set about using it directly to that end,
we should find out how valuable it is in breaking down artificial
barriers. By choral singing, people in any one locality can be brought
into a certain sympathy with each other. Groups who attend the same
church, the fathers and mothers of children whom the settlements
reach--wherever there is a “neighborhood” there is a chance for
singing. It needs only a person who believes in it, and who will
rigidly select only the best music. And where neighborhood groups have
been singing the same fine music, any great gathering of people would
find everybody ready to take part in choral singing. This would make
community music a reality, and would doubtless so foster the love of
the art as eventually to affect the whole musical situation. Any one
who has ever had personal experience of bringing fine music to those
who cannot afford to attend concerts knows that such people are as
keen for the best as are those who can afford it. There is no one so
quick to appreciate the best as the person who lives apart from all
those social usages of ours which constitute our silk-spun cocoons.
There we lie snugly ensconced, protected from sharp winds, completely
enshrouded, while these other folk are battling with life itself.
We may be satisfied with a gleam or two through the mesh; they are
not. They meet reality on every hand and know it when they see it. No
make-believe can deceive them.
And when I say this I mean that the experiment has been tried over and
over again. In what are called “the slums” of the greatest American and
English cities I have seen hundreds and even thousands of poor people
listening to the music of Beethoven, and to a few simple words about
it in rapt and tense silence, and have heard them break out into such
unrestrained applause as comes only from those who are really hungry
for good music. Put a good orchestra into any one of these places and
you will find the best kind of an audience. Such people have no taint
of hyper-criticism, no desire to talk wisely about the latest composer.
They have not constructed for themselves a nice little æsthetic formula
which will fit everything--a sort of protective coloring; their minds
are not “made up.”
Let us not misunderstand this situation. I am not writing about
painting or sculpture, for I know that these arts involve certain
perceptive and selective qualities of the mind which require long
training. I am writing about music, which appeals to a sense
differentiated and trained long before the sense for color-vibration or
for beauty of form was developed, a sense which we possess in a highly
developed state in very childhood.
Imagine a small opera house in the lower East Side of New York or in
the North End or South End of Boston, which the people there might
frequent at sums within their means; imagine a small Western city
with such an opera house; and compare the probable results with
those now attained by our gorgeous and needlessly expensive operatic
performances which, whether at home or abroad, leave little behind
them but a financial vacuum, and a dim idea that somehow opera means
famous “stars” singing in a highly exaggerated manner in a strange
language, in stranger dramas, where motives and purposes are stranger
still. Concerts and operatic performances such as I have advocated
would supplement and complete our own musical activities. These paid
artists would be playing and singing to us in a language we ourselves
had learned by using it. Music would be domestic; we should understand
it better and love it more.
I am familiar with the old argument that concerts and operas so
conducted would not pay. To this I reply that it is probably true. Does
settlement work pay? Does a library pay? Does any altruistic endeavor
anywhere pay? No; nothing of this sort ever shows a money balance
on the right side of the ledger. But we do not keep that column in
figures. It foots up in joy, not in dollars. The best kind of social
“uplift” would be something that made people happier. The real uplift
is of the soul, not of the body. Let a rift of beauty pierce the dull
scene. Let us have a taste of heaven now; and let it be not yours or
mine, but theirs. In music everybody makes his own heaven at the time.
But it is not money that is lacking. Hundreds of thousands are annually
spent to make up the deficits of our symphony orchestras. Millions are
spent for the physical well-being of our poorer people. Beauty for the
well-to-do, who are, like as not, too well-to-do to care much for it;
materialistic benefits for the poor and unfortunate, who are fairly
starving for something bright and joyous. What would it not mean to
these latter were they able to go once a week to a hall in their own
part of the city, to hear a fine concert at a fee well within their
means, and to know that there would be no chairman there to tell them
“what a great privilege,” etc., but that they would be let alone to
enjoy themselves in their own way. These, after all, make up the great
body of our city populations; from these humble homes come the future
American citizens; in some ways they are superior to us, for they
survive a much harder battle, and preserve their self-respect in face
of enormous difficulties. Why should we dole out to them what _we_
think they need? Why not offer them something that puts us all on the
same level?
The inevitable conclusion to be drawn from an investigation of our
musical situation is that we need only opportunities of expressing
ourselves. Every village contains a potential singing society, every
church contains a potential choir, every family in which there are
children might sing simple songs together. There is a singing club
hidden away in every neighborhood. Every city might have, on occasion,
thousands of people singing fine songs and hymns. What is the present
need? Leaders: educated musicians who have learned the technique
of their art and have, at the same time, learned to understand and
appreciate the greatest music, and who prefer it to any other. Our
institutions for training musicians are sending out a continual stream
of graduates, many of whom begin their labors in small towns and
cities. Nearly every community has at least one man who has sufficient
technical knowledge of music to direct groups of singers, large and
small. What kind of music does he, in his heart, prefer? The answer is
to be read in programmes here and there, in the record of unsuccessful
singing societies, in the public performances of “show pieces.” Should
not our institutions pay more attention to forming the taste of their
students? Is it really necessary to teach them technique through bad
examples of the art of music? Can they safely spend several years
dealing with distinctly inferior music for the sake of a facile
technique? Is rhetoric or oratory superior to literature? There is
no such thing as teaching violin or piano-playing _and_ teaching
music. If the violin or piano teaching deals with poor music which the
pupil practices several hours a day, no lessons in musical history,
theory, form, or æsthetics can counteract the effect of that constant
association. We cannot advance without leaders. We look to the training
schools for them. And these schools cannot expect to supply them to us
unless they so conduct their teaching as to develop in students a love
and understanding of the best.
This article, then, expresses my conviction that the average American
man or woman is potentially musical. I believe the world of music to
be a true democracy. I am convinced that our chief need is to make
music ourselves. I believe that under right conditions we should enjoy
doing so; I think all art is closely related to the sum of human
consciousness. And just as I see great music based on what we are and
what we feel, so I see the expert performance of music as being merely
our own performance magnified and beautified by extreme skill. I see,
in short, a necessary and natural connection between ourselves and
both composer and performer. I believe that all the great pictures and
sculpture and music lay first in the general consciousness and then
became articulate in one man. I believe no statesman, no philosopher,
no, not even a Christ, to be conceivable save as he lies first in men’s
hearts. What they are _in posse_ he is _in esse_. That we all are more
musical than we are thought to be; that we are more musical than we get
the chance to be--of this there is no doubt whatever.