There are many small communities where choral concerts on a large scale are occasionally given. Great effort and great expense are not spared. Several hundred voices, a hired orchestra, and hired soloists make the event notable. But the music performed is of such a character that no one wants to hear it again; neither the singers who practice it nor the audience who listen to it are moved or uplifted. There have even been systematic efforts in some middle western states to establish community singing. The effect of such efforts depends there, as here, on the kind of music which people are asked to sing, for this is the heart of the whole matter. No advance in music, or in anything else, can be expected without constant striving for the very best. And it is quite within bounds to say that most of these efforts are nullified by lack of a really high standard. Finally, let me say that a concert of good music by a local choral society is, to the people of any community, immensely more valuable than a paid musical demonstration by performers from abroad which costs five times as much money.
Leaving this actual experience and its effects on the community, let us ask ourselves what this singing means to the individuals who do it. In the first place, it makes articulate something within them which never finds expression in words or acts. In the second place, it permits them to create beauty instead of standing outside it. Or, to speak still more definitely, it not only gives them an intimate familiarity with some great compositions, but it accustoms them to the technique by means of which music expresses itself. They learn to make melodic lines, to add a tone which changes the whole character of a chord; they learn how themes are disposed in relation to one another; they come into intimate contact with the actual materials of the art by handling them. This, we do not need to say, is the key to the knowledge and understanding of anything. You cannot understand life, or love, or hate, or objects, or ideas, until you have dealt in them yourself. Singing has the profound psychological advantage of giving active issue to that love of beauty which is usually entirely passive.
The artist has two functions: he draws, or paints, or models; he uses language or sounds. This comprises his technique. But he also possesses imaginative perception. Now, nothing is more certain than that our understanding of what he does must be in kind. We learn to understand his technique by actual experience of it. So, also, we learn to enter into the higher qualities of his art by the exercise of the same faculties which he uses. Our feelings, our minds, and our imaginations must take a reflection from him as in a mirror. If the glass is blurred or the angle of reflection distorted we cannot see the image in its perfection. The light comes from we know not where.