"7. I have very little alto singing in school, for the reason that it has a tendency to encourage loudness. In my choir I arrange for three or four of the oldest boys to sing alto.
"In conclusion, I may say I am thoroughly proud of my boys' singing from standard I. up to the top of the school, and I believe my success has been chiefly from abundant use of the modulator for scale practice, and never allowing loud singing. Proud as I am of my boys, the girls certainly excel them, and ten years ago their tone was worse, if possible, than the boys. I have no instrument in school, but occasionally use a violin."
A correspondent from another agricultural county—I will not give his name—favours me with some rules which he has used more or less for thirty years. In one school taught by the writer, the inspector said he could not distinguish the boys from the girls' voices—truly a high compliment. My correspondent names a new hindrance to church music in rural places, namely, the clergyman's daughter!—
"Practise the scales up and down to the words 'la' and 'ha,' the latter for the purpose of separating the teeth. Commence at the key of C to C1, then from D to D1, and so on upwards as high as the voices of the boys can reach, never resting satisfied until they cover two octaves firmly. In teaching new music, and, generally speaking, in accompanying the boys, play the note they are singing and its octave above—on the stopped diapason and flute if an organ, or the corresponding stops on a harmonium. Let there be no other accompaniment, and on every occasion the octave above the note sung. This is very particular. Check one voice singing above another. Have no leaders. Stop or subdue all harsh voices, and make them listen to, and try to copy the pure notes of the flute; let the boys sing well within their strength. If you lack power, increase the number of choristers, and subdue the voices. I always choose smooth flowing chants, with the reciting note ranging from F to C. I do not care to go higher than G above the line in anthems or services, but have trained them to start on B♭, 'The Sisters of the Sea,' by Jackson.
"I never trouble about altos, they are too difficult to get, and indifferent and troublesome when obtained, but in verse parts of services or anthems, one of the best boys will supply the deficiency, and even take up the lead in a chorus.
"Choirs experience a difficulty which is not included in your list of points. I have received £60 per annum as an organist, £50 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 boys to use their upper registers is a very old-fashioned one; but it is very effective. It is to make them sing the major diatonic scale, ascending and descending; beginning at a low pitch, and gradually raising it by a semitone at a time."