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THE
REVIEW
MUJIC TIRADE
VOL. LXIV. No. 21 Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bill, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York. May 26, 1917
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Community Music As a Trade Factor
W
HEN the National Bureau for the Advancement of Music was started, as the "beginning of
systematized effort to "advertise music" to the American people, all its well-wishers hoped much
of and for it. The hopes are not, happily, without foundation. The Bureau is doing its bit
energetically.
But suggestion and help of a practical sort can often come from the detached observer. One such
observer, Mr. Otto Schulz, of Chicago, prominent as a piano manufacturer and as a thinker on civic matters,
has suggested the cultivation of a field hitherto untouched almost, which ought to be among the most fertile
and potent of all.
Mr. Schulz tells us that the most fertile ground in which to sow the seed of that music-love which we
want the American people more largely to possess, if they are to express themselves completely, is to be found
in the natural musical instinct of each individual. In a word, teach the individual to express himself in
music.
But how? In the simplest manner! By encouraging the formation in each community of singing
societies, choruses, choral societies, call them what you will.
Here's the idea. One man does not perhaps believe that he cares for music. But, get ten more like him
and get them to sing together and he will find that he does like it. Take a thousand school children. Nine
hundred of them will hate the drudgery of music practice. But the whole thousand will sing together any
and every time, and like it, and soon want it regularly.
Merely telling people to sing and play is not_enough. They must be started at it. The best way of
starting them is the simplest; by encouraging choral singing. Anybody can make one of a chorus, even if
his or her voice sounds like sandpaper on a wooden plank. A thousand voices, even if each one is pretty
bad and wholly uncultivated, can, nevertheless, in six months, emit a volume and color of tone impressive
and noble.
Do you want to cultivate in your community a love for music? Of course you do! Music-lovers buy
pianos. They buy them because they want to use them; not to look at them or strum on them or dance to
them: but to play them, sing to them, use them as they should be used.
The sort of piano business that is founded on a demand of that kind is the sort of piano business you
want.
Therefore, cultivate music in your community. Bring yourself to realize the great, simple truth that
piano selling varies in direct proportion with the community's desire for music. Simple enough; yet how
few apply it!
But how should one begin? Start in where the starting is easiest. Start in where you have the best
chance of getting a hearing and an opportunity to put your ideas across. Start with the Board of Education
in your city. If there is no organized singing in the schools, propose that there should be some. Offer, if
necessary, to start it yourself, and to take the baton if you have to. Others have done it. It is mainly
a matter of a little—usually a very little—musical knowledge, plus a wealth of enthusiasm.
Anyway, the start can always be made. When it has been made in one community through the schools,
it can be made with the adults too. There is usually a ladies' musical club. That club will co-operate in
bringing the idea of community music before the people at large. Start a real community chorus and you
will soon have reason to bless the inspiration that came to you to do it.
Merely as advertising, it is worth any amount of labor, for it makes you a name in ways wholly
legitimate, wholly excellent, wholly beneficial.
(Continued on page 5)