munity singing is
teaching men to find themselves, and to do it in unity and
brotherly love.

[Footnote 24: Kitty Cheatham, _Musical America_, October 7, 1916.]

This same sort of an effect has been noted by us and by innumerable
others in many other places, and various testimonies to the beneficial
social effect of community singing, neighborhood bands, school
orchestras, children's concerts, and similar types of musical activity
have come from all parts of the country since the inception of the
movement.

The impulse to bring music into the lives of all the people is not a
fad, but is the result of the working out of a deep-seated and
tremendously significant innate tendency--the instinct for
self-expression; the same instinct which in another form is making us
all feel that democracy is the only sure road to ultimate satisfaction
and happiness. It behooves the musician, therefore, to study the
underlying bases of the community music movement, and to use this new
tool that has been thus providentially thrown into his hands for the
advancement of art appreciation, rather than to stand aloof and scoff
at certain imperfections and crudities which inevitably are only too
evident in the present phase of the movement.

[Sidenote: QUALITIES OF THE COMMUNITY SONG LEADER]

If the social benefit referred to above,--_viz._, the growth of group
feeling and of neighborly interest in one's fellows, is to result from
our community singing, we must first of all have leaders who are able
to make people feel cheerful and at ease. The community song leader
must be able to raise a hearty laugh occasionally, and he must by the
magnetism of his personality be able to make men and women who have
not raised their voices in song for years past forget their shyness,
forget to be afraid of the sound of their own voices, forget to wonder
whether anyone is listening, and join heartily in the singing.

There is no one way of securing this result; in fact, the same leader
often finds it necessary to use different tactics in dealing with
different crowds, or for that matter, different methods with the same
crowd at different times. The crux of the matter is that the leader
must in some way succeed in breaking up the formality, the stiffness
of the occasion; must get the crowd to loosen up in their attitude
toward him, toward one another, and toward singing. This can often be
accomplished by making a pointed remark or two about the s