The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1892-02-05
Church Music.

A person with an experience in church
choirs extending over forty years, would
very naturally have some positive convic-
tiOns upon the uses and abuses of church
music. Whether those convictions be intel
ligent or not may be debatable.
Without doubt David organized his choir
and orchestra for the sole purpose of aiding
in the worship of the congregation by lead
ing them in the service and not for display
or to entertain the assembled people. And
| there is no record of any of the sOloists get
| ting off the key, or that the congregation
| felt relieved when the anthem was finished.
| The service was probably given by the
choir and received by the people in the same
| spirit as were the minstratiOns of the
priests, viz, to unite and lead the congrega-
tiOn in the service of praise. The Office Of
the minister is not to worship for his people
but with them, and the mission of the choir
is the same and there are few if any excep-
tiOns to the rule that church chOirs under
stand this and accept it as their true position
before the congregation, and nothing will
enthuse a choir and make them sing so well
and heartily as to have the congregation join
them. The more the people sing, the better
the choir will sing. The impression some
people have that chors prefer to sing alone
is erroneous. This of course refers to the
| singing of hymns.
| Two points being admitted first that il is
desirable for the congregation to sing, and
second that the choir desires they shall sing,
we ask the question why don't they? One
reason is many times clearly apparent.
Not long ago one of the chOirs i'm this city
was on a special occasion enlarged to such
| an extent that there were not hymn books
| enough on the choir platform to supply them
and search revealed the fact that not a
Jew in the church contained one, and not a
dozen were brought by the congregation
which came i'm an hour later, and of course
the singing was done mostly by the choir.
The range of hymns used in our churches
now is so great the masses cannot be ex-
pected to have any large proportion of them
committed to memory, and unless the words
and music are in the hands of the people the
singing very naturally drifts into the hands
of the choir. Where else can it drift, ex-
cept to drift out of existencep
The church and choir referred to is not an
exceptional case. There are multitudes of
churches without sufficient hymn books,
and still people wonder why they don't have
good congregational singing.
Within the memory of many people there
were no hymn books with tunes and the
ch0irs were obliged to use two books, sing
ing the words from one and the music from
the other; but a great change has taken
place and chOirs rarely sing hymn that
does not have the music OH the same page.
Let there be a generous supply of these
books in the pews. Let every person in the
audience who can sing at all have one in his
hand and it is not presumptious to prophesy
what the result will be.
When the choir is paid for service, the
matter and manner of its work is easily con-
trolled by the proper authority, but it would
be difficult to hold volunteer choir except
for the advantage they get in musical train
ing in the practice and rendering of so called
choir pieces. One such piece in each ser
vice however will satisfy most chOirs anC
the verdict of congregations everywhere i:
that they enjoy the variety thus afforded.
Suppose we trv to get along without 9
choir and have one person to lead? Bu
difficulties here present themselves. Very
few persons have the proper quality anC
power of voice and when the congregation
Is large and all sing, no one voice can leaC
them, but the greatest obstacle Is, there arr
few persons who have the will power anC
enthusiasm or personal force combined with
the necessary musical education to do suct
task. 1t is easy enough to stand up be
fore an audience with stick In hand anC
sing with them, but to guide, enthuse, con
troll or i'm short to direct them as do the pre-
centors i'm a very few of the churches II
large cities is another and very difficul
thing The persons who are capable of per
forming such service are very expensive ant
few churches can afford such luxury. Any
one having had experience will say 1t is {
very tedious and monotonous task and the
statement may be made without fear o.
contradiction that not enough men or womer
both capable and willing can be found t.
supply our churches each with one.
Again, the range of music that most con
gregations can sing we'll Is so limited that Il
soon becomes monotonous and multitudes o
churches which have tried the precentol
have become tired Of 1t and returned to thu
leadership Of choir.
What hymns shall be sung can never b'