ch
music as is composed, or selected, for popular consumption is frankly
written for this purpose of pot-boiling, and as such it settles its own
fate. We need waste no tears upon it. Nor need we devote much
consideration to the sentimental ballads issued by the hundred, for "if
music has no further function than to appeal to the emotions, then it is
nothing better than melodious nonsense."[15] Of the dance and other
miscellaneous music issued broadcast some, no doubt, is genuine music,
but the greater part of it is avowedly commercial in tone and intention:
in any spiritual scale its weight is of the lightest.

[Note 13: Leigh Henry. "Music."]

[Note 14: Sir Henry Hadow.]

[Note 15: Sir Henry Hadow.]

The interpreter who works in collaboration with others, the choral
singer or the orchestral performer, should be bound by the same canons
of Art as the soloist. A chorus does not merely consist of a certain
number of voices, any more than eleven football players constitute a
team. Even the footballers must have their technique and must play with
their heads as well as their feet: but to ensure success they must
individually have subordinated their personal interests to that of the
team, they must play in the spirit of the game. Equally so a choral
singer must first have the vocal ability, then the intelligence, and
furthermore the spiritual vision. His individual aims must also be
subordinated in "team play," so that collectively, as individually in
the case of the soloist, the purport of the music may find its due
expression.

The one point to be emphasised is that, in whatever capacity the
exponent and interpreter of Art be concerned, the paramount
consideration must be the transmission of the artistic impulse. People
do not send telegrams flying about the country except for the purpose
of conveying a message: in the absence of a message there is, naturally,
no telegram. It would be a step in the right direction if it were
generally recognised that Art-work should be based upon somewhat the
same substantial and bed-rock foundation.

CHAPTER VII

THE TEACHER

"The teachers of this country have its future in their hands"

_William James_

Ideas on the subject of the teaching of Music are changing at such a
rapid rate to-day that the position of the teacher as an interpreter may
well receive some consideration. The study of psychology and the many
new discoveries in the realm of mind bid fair to revolu