lead in a chorus.

"Choirs experience a difficulty which is not included in your list of
points. I have received L60 per annum as an organist, L50 and a house.
On another occasion I was offered the choir-mastership of a church
choral society of 60 members. At this time I was trainer and conductor
of a choral society of 100 voices with string and wind accompaniment,
the subject being _The Messiah_. Yet I was not considered competent at
the church at which I played to put a tune to a hymn, but had to submit
to the parson's daughter, who was qualified through taking three months'
lessons from a German. On one occasion this lady went ten times through
a hymn to please her father in trying to fit a four-lined tune of the
wrong metre to a six-lined hymn! I offered to go through an eleventh
time, but he never interfered again. I could give you many instances
where these ladies themselves are the great drawback of good church
singing, but on the other hand, I could mention cases where they never
come near a practice, or interfere from one year's end to the other."

* * * * *

Knowing, as I do, the devoted way in which clergymen's daughters in many
rural places train the choir, I hesitate to endorse this charge. The
work needs to be done with tact and consideration. In the vast majority
of cases these ladies are a great help. I do not approve the plan of
playing the melody in octaves while it is being learnt, which my
correspondent advocates. I give his letter as a record of earnest work.

* * * * *

Mr. W. W. Pearson, of Elmham, Dereham, Norfolk, writes to me as
follows:--

"I have had, as you say, a great deal of experience in teaching singing,
especially in rural districts; but the neighbourhood I have lived in for
the last twenty years (Norfolk), is a very barren field for musical
culture--the worst in my experience. The voices of those who _do_ sing
in this county are, on an average, a minor third lower than those of
Yorkshire, North Wales, the west of England, and other places where I
have had experience. They are also, for the most part, _flabby_, wanting
in resonance and quality. Tenors are very scarce, and even the few who
can sing in the tenor register, have not got the true tenor quality.
This may be the effect of the low elevation above the sea-level, and
the damp humid atmosphere; or it may be partly due to _race_.

"The plan I adopt for getting b