very simple. The missing notes are really and truly in those small throats, only they want coaxing, or to speak more properly, cultivation, to bring them forth. It is simply a question of time, practice, and patience. Try the scale six times, and the seventh time there will most likely be improvement. But if there is none, the teacher resolutely turns a deaf ear to all murmurs that seem to contain the word 'can't.' Nothing daunted, she speaks in a bright encouraging tone, 'Suppose you open your mouths very wide this time, as wide as if I were going to put an orange into them. Nobody can sing with their mouths half shut.' Success this time. The goal is actually reached; the upper Mi, and even the upper Fa, is delightfully audible. But, oh dear, the voices. are anything but sweet! Rough, husky, and shrill, yet with a strong tendency to flatten, so that the combination of the instrumental sounds in tune with the vocal sounds out of tune, produces a horrible grating, almost as bad as if two semitones were struck together! Never mind! Think of the rough plank in the carpenter's shop and then of the smooth, brilliant, mirror-like table! What has changed the one into the other but steady work, planing, smoothing, and finally polishing Now voices are just as susceptible of improvement as those wooden planks. In truth, the grand secret of successful choir-singing may be summed up in one word, and that is practice.' It is not too much to say that its effects are all but magical. The In these days we are all realising more and more fully the meaning of training. It means briefly that repetition facilitates all exercises. Neither voices nor any other organs can accomplish easily anything to which they are unaccustomed. Look at the rapidly-moving hand of the ready writer, and then at the laborious attempts of the beginner; or at the swift, easy motions of the accomplished athlete compared with the stiff jerks of the novice. It is the same in singing. unused voice, like the unused limb, is awkward and inflexible. singing of scales has somewhat the same effect on voices that movements, such as running and walking, have on the limbs and muscles. The beautiful voices of cathedral boys are more than half due to the constant, steady practice gone through daily. In many a village boy's voice there is a latent beauty and power, and it rests with the teacher to bring these forth. It is difficult to believe in the magnificent and powerful voices of untaught genius such as figure in novels, because in real life these 'native songsters' are not to be met with. Generally speaking, there is only one road to excellence in this commonplace world, and that is the noble one of labour. Thus the practice of scales is all-important in forming boys' voices. It is wonderful how much more bright they will sound after a quarter of an hour of scales. So it will be well to make it a rule that every practice shall begin with this exercise. By degrees the roughness will be smoothed away and all will sound in tune, for be it remembered that what we consider harshness in a voice, is often due to its being a little out of tune. The grammar of music comes next, and sheet B will now help us. No choir can sing in time unless they know the difference between minims, crotchets, &c., the value of rests and dots. Hullah's system is excellent from its thoroughness. His method of beating time with the hands is simple, and is by no means a dull exercise. Thus a semibreve has four beats-down, left, right, up; a minim two, the word minim being repeated at the down and right beat, while crotchet curtailed into crotch, is repeated four times. All this effectually teaches the respective lengths of the different notes. Or the teacher only may beat time and perhaps this is on the whole the best plan. Reading music at sight is an art in its perfection not easily attained by the ordinary choir boy, though now and then a brilliant genius will accomplish it. Very possibly some from first to last will sing only by ear, still all may acquire something of singing by note, if in learning a fresh tune they are required to call every note by its right name, and to notice accidentals and naturals. And, as every one knows, to keep in mind the key-note of a tune is essential in reading music. Half an hour is enough to give to scales and the elementary headwork, for neither, if ever so briskly and brightly gone through, is the most enlivening part of the practice. Everybody is glad when the right of singing something more interesting has been earned. Thus, as a matter of course, comes next the question of tunes. And first a word as to choice. Not quantity but quality should be our motto in choosing tunes. It matters very little whether a choir know few tunes or many, but it does matter very much of what sort the tunes are. Is it too much to say boldly, at once, let us have no dull tunes? Perhaps the expression 'dull' is somewhat vague, but it sufficiently describes, for practical purposes, the correct yet tuneless compositions that are scattered up and down our hymnals, interspersed with the more attractive and better kind. Why is it de rigueur to have a tune to every hymn? There may be three hundred and more good hymns in existence, but it is very doubtful whether there are three, or even two hundred good tunes. The result is that the number is made up with a very inferior article indeed. Why should choirs be condemned to learn even one thoroughly unattractive tune? They do not like it, certainly congregations do not, and such tunes are seldom sung with spirit because there is nothing that catches the ear, nor excites the smallest amount of interest in anybody's musical mind; in a word, nobody has any heart in the matter. But shall we leave a number of hymns unsung on this account? To this may it be replied, that a few dear friends are better than a multitude of acquaintances. Still if many hymns are wanted, there is a way out of the difficulty by providing our choir with hymn-books as well as tune-books, for while we resolutely keep in mind the rule that there shall be only one tune to a hymn, the reverse is quite allowable, to sing more than one hymn to the same tune. In this As the choir advances in knowledge, it is a good plan to have a manuscript collection of tunes in addition to the printed one. way we may avail ourselves of the gems in every collection. the hymn-book is Hymns Ancient and Modern,* we may borrow a few tunes from the Hymnary, or S.P.C.K. Church Hymns. Thus, if Very possibly a thorough musician does not find entire satisfaction in any hymn-tune. To him it is a meagre and abbreviated form of composition when he can have the soul-satisfying anthem and vigorous, elaborate fugue. Just as a scholar keenly enjoys an argumentative essay, because it is a delightful exercise to his reasoning faculties, while a story that pleases humbler minds is to his taste insipid and unsatisfying. But it has taken years to bring his mind to this pitch of subtle appreciation. In the same way, except in the case of a heaven-born musician, it will take years of cultivation for an average person to be able to enter into the beauty of Bach's fugues, or the obscurer parts of Handel and Beethoven. Yet we need not condemn the multitude to whom Bach is incomprehensible, but who find pleasure in a simple air. Their enjoyment of music is real, though lower in degree than that of scientific musicians. There are people in the world to whom music is a name and a noise, and nothing more. These we must leave out of the question altogether. But the great mass of an average congregation are people who love music in its simpler forms, who are capable of being touched and roused and elevated by it, and it is these whom we must consider in our choice of tunes. For surely, after all, if church music fails in being popular, i.e. liked by the multitude, one object at least in having it is defeated. At the same time we need not descend to tunes that are weak, trashy, and ballad-like. All we crave for is melody; that we really must have at any price. Happily, in these days, tunes that have this chief of merits as well as others are not rare. One of our best composers, the late Dr. Wesley, has written hymn tunes that are a boon to the Church for ever. What can be better than 'Aurelia' and 'Alleluia.' They are attractive even to an uneducated ear, yet are so perfect as compositions, that a cultivated musician may find pleasure in the massive chords. There are many more of this character by different composers, among whom those by the late Dr. Dykes stand out prominently. The great merit of any tune would seem to be completeness. It should not be The new edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern allows scope for varieties of taste, as to many of the hymns two and even three tunes are provided, and most of the newly added tunes are of an attractive kind. a patchwork of odds and ends and borrowed shreds, but a work perfect and finished, each part having some connection with the leading idea. Such a tune as 'Dominus reget me,' No. 197, Hymns Ancient and Modern, is a good illustration of this kind of completeness. Next, let every tune be thoroughly learnt. This can seldom be accomplished quickly, for what we want is that our boys should get a tune so thoroughly into their heads that it becomes, so to speak, part and parcel of themselves. Yet how often in village churches a new tune is 'put up' for Sunday, that the choir had never seen until the previous week. As a natural result, the hymn is sung unsteadily and doubtfully, and of course with no spirit or heartiness. The whole flags, and people ask Why the singing went so badly?' The secret is, that the choir have sung the new tune over three or four times, at only one evening's practice; whereas the same tune repeated every week for a month will be a totally different affair. It is a good plan at first to write out every tune on the lined blackboard, that the scholars may be familiar with the look of every note. And from the very first it is well never to allow a tune to be learnt except with notes. It will soon be just as easy for the boys to associate the note on the third space with the word Do, as it is for infant-school children to learn the printed letters A B C. A strip of music paper, on which the scale is written, with the names beneath every note, may be given to each boy to learn at home, that needless time may not be consumed at the practice. Yet the words of each hymn must also be thoroughly known, and become at last so strongly bound up with the tune that the two can hardly be disunited. Indeed the expression has been used that a tune should be married to a hymn. Sometimes this union is so absolutely perfect that the thoughts of the hymn writer seem interpreted by the magic of music more fully and exquisitely than by the words in which they are clothed. Music has no rival in the art of expressing subtleties of feeling. It is a divine language in which human coarseness and selfishness have no part. It expresses the better soul of words, so to speak. Another important point to be remembered in teaching a choir is, that good singing is always quick and brisk. Hymns should nearly always be sung rather fast. And by fast is not meant hurried; the two things are widely different. But if singing is allowed to be very slow, an incredible number of errors immediately follow. First there is the risk, if not the certainty, of flatness. The tendency of voices to flatten, always strong in village choirs, is infinitely greater when they are allowed to drag along like a heavy road-waggon. And the slower singing is, the more inevitable is that worst of errors, a drawl. The word is perhaps connected in our minds with the ancient order of village choirs, now nearly extinct, and we may flatter ourselves that the fault itself is gone out of fashion with the trumpet and bass viol. But, alas! popular errors are hard to kill. Experience testifies that the modern choir boy may drawl just as effectually as his predecessor at the beginning of the century. What is a drawl? It may best be explained thus: Let anybody strike two intervals, say Do and Mi, on the piano. Then let the same person sing the lowest note, and without taking off the voice, drag it upwards to the higher one, ascending through the infinite number of gradations that exist in the human voice. This is sometimes called slurring notes, and in Italian portamento. No doubt it is effective enough used occasionally in an Italian solo, but it ought never to be permitted in hymn singing. Yet the drawling chorister will slur every note, and perhaps enrich the effect by a nasal twang, because he will not take the trouble to open his mouth wide enough to allow a free passage of the notes; thus they are compelled to escape by the byway of the nose. Nearly all untaught singers have a tendency to drawl and sing nasally, and so the effort of the teacher must be, to teach a style the exact opposite of this. She must insist on the utmost distinctness and crispness of tone, each note being so distinct, as to sound, in fact, a little staccato. An accompaniment played rather staccato on the organ or harmonium will often have the effect of counteracting the drawling style, and will give vigour and alertness to halting, sleepy hymnody. And once more it may be urged that one important point will have been gained when the choir have acquired the habit of singing fast. A new choir may be taught this from the very first, but any choir, old-established or new, will improve in a wonderful way, if they can only be persuaded to do this one simple thing, e.g. to hasten their time. The singing will become at once hearty and inspiriting, and a real enjoyment to the congregation, instead of being a miserable dragged-out performance, leaving the worshippers not 'glad,' which is surely one result at least of praise, but weary, depressed, and languid. But all hymns are not hymns of praise. Music and poetry would be alike insufficient for human needs, if they could express only one emotion-namely, joy. The emotions are numberless and infinitely varied, especially when the heart is stirred into spiritual life. Sadness, contrition, gratitude, yearning, and simple intense love to Him Who is Love itself, all may find expression more or less perfectly in hymnody. Hymns such as Weary of earth and laden with my sin,' and Lead kindly Light,' are full of exquisite pathos, and have brought tears into many eyes. It is needless to say that these should be sung in a different way from hymns such as Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven.' Still we must remember that pathos does not consist in heavy slowness. Rather should it be expressed by soft lightness and crispness, while a great deal of expression may be given by |