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Show NEW tricts are like our Tabernacle choir Choral society, and other choral organizations a fair index to the rich, undeveloped materials .surrounding, us. What is needed and what might be done to more fully develop our mineral resources and turn them into boundless wealth and financial prosperity to our growing community, I shall leave to those in a better position than myself to suggest, and will only take up the more familiar to me musical side of the question. How may we develop our rich musical resources? What better conditions than we now enjoy are we capable of? The first question I will try to answer. We must have more trained, intelligent leaders to direct the work of development. We have been making shift long enough. Musically talented young men and women (young men especially, as they are generally called upon to take charge of choirs, etc.) should be given the time and the opportunities to fully master the principles underlying the successful guiding of musical growth in a community. We are perishing, musically, for the need of such. The natural bright talents of many a young musician in Utah are being warped into mediocrity for the want of proper training, while the masses who show some devotion to the divine art are left in a still lower state of progress for the want of intelligent guiding. Do not understand me to mean to say that we are behind the world generally in these things, for we are quite abreast of it in some respects, that of choir singing especially. But in a comparative sense, when our possibilities are considered, I know of no people on the face ol the earth who show more indifference to making the most of their possibilities than do we as a community. We have our schools where most other branches are well looked after, and a small sprinkling of music thrown in once or twice a week. In nearly every 'ward throughout our fair land one, two or more young men are found who are passionately fond of music, and they generally get a smattering of how to read a little. This they manage in odd moments between hours of manual labor and the innumerable little duties to be attended to in the ward capacity (for such young men are generally very steady and useful). They then are called upon to direct the musical efforts of others, with their own but sadly developed, and too often the new charge releases them from none of the other duties, and they have less time than ever for in the art which they are now to direct others in. Is the mastery of music so lightly and easily won, and its perfection of so trifling an importance that such should be the case in a community like ours? Solomon realized its importance in olden times YEARS, sufficiently to set apart the musicians for the temple. Now if these young men, when their talent and devotion for music was proven by their own labors, instead of being pushed into a service they were unripe for, were taken (and if necessary helped financially by means of a couple of con- certs thoroughly patronized) and released from other duties, then sent to some branch of a special training school organized for the purpose of thoroughly equipping students to teach and conduct music kept there for two or three years as necessity required they could then set to work to develop the musical talent of their native towns with as fair an opportunity of earning a livelihood as school teachers have. Let them take charge of the religious work of choir duties in re Evan Stephen5:. But turn lor aid given at the- - beginning. let all other work such as class teaching, private lessons, etc., bring them a fair remuneration. And if there was not enough to do at first, the work on the farm would be at their disposal still, none the less because they were now master of music. Then we might look for real, intellectual, soulful advancement in our music. 7 1893. ing together and planning out a course which would thoroughly fit the students for practical work, and after some general plan so that unity would strengthen the result of their labors! It is certainly needed, and needs but the command and backing of the community to establish, and by so doing lift us out of the danger of letting the blind lead the But it will need an awakening blind. The toilers who up of the community. have brought music to its present state have done so at the cost of so much thankless labor, with so little of the obstacles removed for them, so little of the sunshine of appreciation and enthusiastic encouragement brought to their aid, that they are weary almost to discouragement. Still, music teaching is fast becoming a profitable employment for thosewho are really competent and prepared for this calling. But to effect the great strides that are within needs our possibilities more than mere profitable returns financially. The real musician must' have more than bread alone to enable him to bring his services to bear on the masses and fire them with the harmony of his own soul, and anything short of this gradu The ally disgusts him. material is awaiting the skillful master in every nook of our Territory. The choir is there, the brass band, innumerable home instruments, the thousands of young voices in the Sabbath and day schools, all awaiting the man who understands to step his business forward and lead them on to higher degrees ol perfection, and I earnestly believe that that man is in every little town in Utah, awaiting the summons to prepare himself for this high calling. Prepared for his labors, what has he to do? First to take steps for building a choir that will make the music of the Sabbath meetings not only enjoyable but devotional, in keeping with the spirit of our religion. This will require at least his entire attention one night a week for practice and many hours in the week for preparation. In connection with the choir should be built up congregational singing, real sort singing, not the we too often indulge in. This will require a singing session, perhaps best held at the close of the night meetings, which could generally be shortened fifteeri or twenty minutes with profit, in order that Why can not such a union of effort be entered into by our choirs that such a school could be established, with our Tabernacle choir as a central body, and branches organized in suitable places, such as Logan, Ogden, Provo, Manti, St. George, Paris (Bear Lake), wherever locations would enable students to attend with least inconvenience and expense, and suitable and efficient talent be found to take charge? those in charge meet congregation and choir might join to- - |