Our Work: Training Young Men to Sing

OUR WORK.

TRAINING YOUNG MEN TO SING.

[Note. —This article, and following similar ones on the same subject, will give an outline of Prof. Evan Stephens' mode of procedure at his training rehearsals for the Y. M. M. I. A. Choir, and are intended as a guide to leaders of singing in any and «,11 Stakes where the subject maybe taken up in future. And a similar move ought to be instituted in every Stake of Zion until practical musical training will have been given to all our young men.]

REHEARSAL NO. 1.

The presiding authorities of the Y. M. M. I. A. of the Stake having notified each organization in the Stake that a Young Men's Choir, consisting of ten ormore members from every association within reach, would be organized on a certain night, with a view of training them to do effective singing in their own Association meetings; also as a complete choir for the Stake, and individually as missionaries when called out into the world to preach, sing and pray, while holding meetings. At 7:30 about 150 members were present. All had taken seats promiscuously, none of them being assigned to certain parts, etc., or ever supposed to have any previous training or special ability. The conductor calls them to order and briefly outlines the object of the meeting, their aims for the future, the great need of the training from various standpoints: that of having decent singing at the various Association meetings, that of singing creditably when placed in the world before strangers, the magnificent possibilities of a great chorus of male voices from an artistic point of view, both as a local choir, and still

630 IMPROVEMENT ERA.

greater a union of a hundred such choirs, when every Stake shall have one organized, for great musical festival occasions. Also the ultimate carrying of the work done at these rehearsals into each association* until not only a few from each shall be able to sing intelligently either the melody or parts of the songs, but each entire association. Thus this choir might in a sense be considered a sort of normal department* and each member should be prepared to aid in teaching the association of which he is a member all that he has been taught. Finding what part they are adapted for, the director seats himself

at a little cabinet organ, and after asking each one present to heartily and as naturally as possible join him in "la-laing" some scale tones, and notice closely for themselves whether the lower tones or upper ones are the easiest for them to produce, he plays and sings, all joining him, down to F below, and then up to tones from C (second space bass cleft) F or G above middle C. This is repeated a number of times until all sing readily and have well noted how high or low they could sing comfortably. Then all those with high voices are requested to take seats on the west side of the hall, and those who reached the lower tones on the east, leaving those who could neither sing the upper or lower ones with ease in the centre. The majority are in the centre, a fair number to the east, and a minority to the west. Each ward represented is then called separately, to find if each has a representative in each division, and if so, if there is a fairly balanced number in each. When not fairly balanced, either an exchange is made, when the voices at all permit, or the present members are given another week to enlist possessors of suitable voices (generally high) to fill up the weak parts. (At this first meeting

twenty-three wards were represented; 32 upper, 47 lower, and 73 middle voices were found; some of the representatives had traveled twentythree miles to be present, and would return the same distance.) The hymn "Redeemer of Israel" was then taken up for study. No books being used, the director gave it out line by line, the choir thus in a few minutes committing it to memory. The melody was then sung over and over by all until it was sung firmly and with good expression. Then a second part (called second tenor) was sung over a number of times by the director, and all the choir joining in as they became familiar enough to follow his lead. When this part was sung by all as readily as the melody had been, the first tenors, or high-voiced group on the west, were asked to sing the tune, or melody, while all the rest, with the director, sang the second tenor, the majority singing it, and, aided by the director, the inexperienced ones soon were able to keep their part and not be lured over to sing the melody. Next a bass was learned the same way, all