Concerning the type of choir music that should be used, there is great difference of opinion. Some advocate the strict style of the classical, to the exclusion of everything else. Others wish to use simple gospel songs. Still others lean to the octavo type written mostly by modern composers—a medium between the first and second named classes.
There is much that can be used from all three types, and no one class of music should be used to the exclusion of the others. Some choirs, because of their inability to sing the difficult classics, are automatically forbidden to touch this type of music. Where the choir personnel is such as to permit the use of highly artistic music, there is a tendency to cling to more difficult music, and to find no satisfaction in singing the simpler forms. The whole question of selection should hinge upon the spiritual uplift that the congregation derives from the music rendered. How could there be any other rightful gauge? Surely the choir is not there to make a stage appearance, feeling satisfied only when a high artistic standard has been reached. What would happen to our churches if the ministry sought merely oratory and rhetorical display?
You will discover that more people enjoy the simpler forms of music than enjoy the classical. Great truths are usually simply stated. They are so worded that anyone with average intelligence can understand them. Great truths would not be great if they were not meant for all people. Where will you find such great truths as those that fell from the Saviour's lips? And yet they were dressed in home spun. Simplicity has always marked the greatest gospel achievements, while display and ostentation have been absent. God works marvelously with simple things, and in quiet ways. It was the short, simple prayer of Elijah that won the victory, not the noisy demonstrations of the prophets of Baal; it was Gideon's three hundred men, not the thirty-two thousand warriors. All this lest men "vaunt themselves against Me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me."
It would be enlightening to know the results of a vote from the church membership as to the type of music from which they receive the most spiritual help. Claudia Muzio once stood on a country road in the South and listened to two little pickaninnies sing "Count Your Blessings." She had heard the greatest singers sing the greatest songs, but she had never been so impressed by any song she had heard as she was by that simple gospel song, and, said she, "I have been counting my many blessings ever since."
Who calls for a Brahms or a Beethoven symphony when on a deathbed? It is always a simple gospel song that serves such occasions. This is no plea for the enthronement of the hymn and gospel song in our choirs, and the banishment of all other types of music. But it is a call for a more serious consideration for spirit-filled music of the simpler type.
Test of Conducting
As a conductor, your skill will be manifest in what you find yourself able to do with a simple song. This type of music will reveal points of interpretation to the choir members that will be surprising. Their insight into the holy of holies of musical expression will be marked. Draw out the beauties and glories of hymns. These shades of loveliness are missed in mass singing. Let your congregation listen to something they all know; present it so charmingly that the memory of it will hallow their days. If you wish to be thrown upon your own, you will find a great field in the hymn and gospel song forms that will challenge all your musical powers. Alternate with the simple form, and the larger type. Let the choir walk among men in songs that the common worshiper can grasp and understand. Just as a prayer in Latin leaves a congregation blindly behind, so will most of the artistic sacred musical productions.
You must speak the language of the people, if you wish them to take something home with them. This is absolutely essential to successful choir service. We must reach out from the choir loft, as well as from the pulpit. Not how artistic or how beautiful a rendition, but how close you come to your congregation is what counts.
Jacob's ladder not only touched heaven, but it also rested upon the earth right at the travel-worn pilgrim's head. This dream may well represent the choir service, where the angels of noble purpose, lofty ideals, and heaven-born determination are ascending, while the winged messengers of peace, mercy and love are descending.
Three fine choir magazines are issued monthly by the Lorenz Publishing Company, Dayton, Ohio, in which three grades of choir music are presented. The Volunteer Choir contains music of least difficulty ; The Choir Herald has anthems of medium crrade; and The Choir Leader contains selections of greater difficulty. By using a solo, duet, trio, or quartet occasionally, the choir will have plenty of time to prepare their numbers, which might be given every other week, or oftener if desired. A year's subscription to these magazines will supply enough music for almost every occasion for several years, where this plan is followed of using specials from adapted to choir use than others. But there time to time. Two members can sing from are many that, when properly rendered, would one magazine, thus considerably reducing the arouse a spirit of worship in all who enter the expense. Naturally some songs are better church door,
