on the side next to the alto section and the others on the
side next to the soprano section. If there are any boys with
unchanged voices who are _mezzo_ in range, they may be
seated directly back of the bass section, thus keeping them
in the boys' division and yet giving them an opportunity of
singing with those who have the same range as themselves.

[Footnote 23: The essentials of this same plan of seating are
recommended to adult choruses for a like reason; _viz._, in order to
enable a smaller number of men's voices to balance a larger number of
sopranos and altos by placing the men in the most prominent position,
instead of seating them back of the women, as is so frequently done.]

As will be noted in the plan, the conductor stands directly in front
of the basses, the piano being placed on either side as may be most
convenient, the pianist, of course, facing the conductor. In directing
a large chorus, it is a great advantage to have two pianos, one on
either side.

CHAPTER IX

THE COMMUNITY CHORUS CONDUCTOR

[Sidenote: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF COMMUNITY MUSIC]

The recent rise of community music has evoked no little controversy as
to whether art can be made "free as air" and its satisfactions thrown
open to all, poor as well as rich; or whether it is by its very nature
exclusive and aristocratic and therefore necessarily to be confined
largely to the few. We are inclined to the former belief, and would
therefore express the opinion that in our efforts to bring beauty into
the lives of all the people, we are engaged in one of the most
significant musico-sociological enterprises ever inaugurated. For this
reason we shall discuss at this point ways and means of securing
satisfactory results in one of the most interesting phases of
community music, _viz._, the community chorus. The development of the
community chorus (and indeed to a certain extent, the whole movement
to bring music and the other arts into the lives of the proletariat)
is due to a combination of artistic and sociological impulses; and it
undoubtedly owes its origin and success as much to the interest in the
living and social problems of the middle and lower classes, which the
recently developed science of sociology has aroused, as it does to
purely musical impulses.

Because of the fact that community music is a sociological phenomenon
as well as an artistic one, the director of a community chorus must
possess a co