ong, and
thus, by concentrating the attention upon the meaning of the words,
make the singers forget themselves. Sometimes having various sections
of the crowd sing different stanzas, or different parts of a stanza
antiphonally will bring the desired result. By way of variety, also,
the women may be asked to sing the verse while the entire chorus joins
in the refrain; or the men and women may alternate in singing stanzas;
or those in the back of the balcony may repeat the refrain as an echo;
or the leader and the crowd may sing antiphonally. In these various
ways, considerable rivalry may be aroused in the various sections of a
large chorus, and the stiffness and unfriendliness will usually be
found to disappear like magic. But if the director is cold and formal
in his attitude, and if one song after another is sung in the
conventional way with no comment, no anecdote, and no division into
sections, the people will be more than likely to go away criticizing
the leader or the accompanist or the songs or each other, and the next
time the crowd will probably be smaller and the project will
eventually die out. The chronic fault-finder will then say, "I told
you it was only a fad and that it would not last"; but he is wrong,
and the failure must be attributed to poor management rather than to
any inherent weakness in the idea itself.

[Sidenote: VARIETY OF SONG MATERIAL MADE POSSIBLE BY COMMUNITY
SINGING]

The majority of people have no opportunity of singing except when they
go to church; but many do not go to church often, and even those who
go do not always sing, and only have the opportunity of singing one
type of music when they do take part. Moreover, for various reasons,
the singing of church congregations is not as hearty as it used to be
a generation or two ago. The opportunity to spend an hour in singing
patriotic hymns, sentimental songs, and occasionally a really fine
composition, such as the _Pilgrims' Chorus_ from _Tannhaeuser_, is
therefore eagerly welcomed by a great many men and women--those
belonging to the upper classes as well as the proletariat. When once
the barrier of formality has been broken down, such gatherings,
especially when directed by a leader who is a good musician as well as
a good mixer, may well become the means of interesting many thousands
of men and women in the more artistic phases of music; may indeed
eventually transform many a community, not only from a crowd of
individuals into