COMMUNITY MUSIC, a term recently brought into wide currency through the char acteristic interests of the day along lines of social administration; and, in general, some what loosely embracing both old and new forms of organized musical practice. More strictly, however, it describes the newer, popu lar expressions of the love of music by way of recreational, ameliorative and educational settlements, as well as through countless neigh borhood and municipal centres, both rural and urban, that have had their origin in the peculiar industrial, social and political conditions of re cent times; many of these organizations corre sponding to the more spontaneous outgrowths of merrymaking in olden days, See FESTIVALS.
In the social consciousness of our day music has come to he regarded as a tremendous force in the well-being of the community,— recreational, educational, moral and spiritual,— whether the people be viewed in their cabacity of listeners or performers. Loving the songs and simple melodies they know well, the people are also moved intensely by even the difficult and unfamiliar classics, provided they are played with feeling and intelligence. they music greatly performed,D says Professor Dykema, "is able to overleap seemingly im possible barriers of lack of culture; the majes tic strains of a Beethoven symphony played by a fine orchestra tarrying every listener before them." Then, much more intense is the influ ence of music in the case of the active per former, however humble. "In concerted music the social side is carried to its highest point. There are few social forces comparable to the power of a large group of people singing a grand chorus.° The continually rising standards of municipal concerts, the organization of com munity choruses, Christmas Tree celebrations, pageants and masques with music, school and community orchestras and popular symphony concerts all over the Western World, point to the general hunger for musical expression, more especially in the community sense.
This community movement, many-sided by its inherent nature and unfailingly democratic, sweeping over the greater part of the world, has had a most remarkable success in the United States. Its main sources of influence,
both old and new, amateur and professional, are in (1) domestic and industrial circles; (2) schools and colleges; (3) churches; (4) specific musical organizations; (5) places of amusement; and (6) various musical activities; the notes of special interest being gathered under these headings, as follows: Domestic and Industrial No one can fail to make observation of the almost universal distribution of various modern me chanical inventions for the rendering of both instrumental and vocal music; the pianolas, phonographs, etc.—which, while retarding in dividual technical development in some circles, have in others encouraged group singing and playing to a point of enthusiasm and excellence in districts where the greatest performers of the day would otherwise, in all probability, have remained unheard. This applies most pointedly to a legion of large and small com munities of factory, shop, studio, agricultural and other workers, who, till the advent of these new mechanisms, were often musically stranded, both in town and in country, to an extent that is only now being realized. In numerable industrial groups have from such beginnings organized themselves until their trained bands, choirs, etc., have become of wide importance in musical affairs. Nevertheless it is regrettable that the antique custom of both solo and concerted singing at actual labor has well-nigh passed into oblivion in the greater part of both hemispheres. In America our own aboriginal people, the Indians, to whom song is the very consecration of the spirit of life, rarely undertake even the most menial tasks without an appropriate song. Like all real folk music, the music of the Indian is the spontaneous and most earnest expression of the soul of a people, and of all music the most distinctively Ameri can. Old tradition, tribal history, the counsels and warnings of every day, the mighty deeds and sayings of wise and the brave, the unchallengeable verities, the call to worship and to the feast, all are expressed in the ritual of song and poetry.