Got a voice like a million concentrated discords?
Sounds like one of these grating auto horns jitney drivers use to scare lazy chickens out of the road with? ‘Salright!
That’s the very voice wanted. You can be “prima donna” at the Community Choral concert.
Music Director Roy L. Hoffmeister said you could. He told the writer to go out into the frazzled edges of harmony and bring in the most rasping and unmusical voices that could be found. A dozen, or even more if they could be found.
“Bring them to the rehearsals tonight at the Presbyterian hut.
“Let them pitch their sleazy voices into the air, and watch them come out pure harmony, so mixed and interwoven with the other voices that it will sound like real music.”
Mr. Hoffmeister is in dead earnest. He wants the public to know that this community chorus is no elite affair. A man doesn’t have to know “do” from “ray”, or a tingling little cadenza from a grand finale to be a member of this group of songsters.
“Come over and mix your voice with the chorus. No matter how bad you sing. We challenge you to hurt the music, but we dare you to go away and say that you have not been helped wonderfully.
“Music is pleasant to listen to, but listing doesn’t let down tense nerves like adding our warbles to the aggregate. It doesn’t loosen you up like getting in the swing with your own little syncopation. We don’t want any grand opera. We are not going to have anything high-browed. It’s pitched on a level with the masses. It’s not too high for the poorest voice to reach, or for the best to bend to.
“Come on out, to-night fellows, and sing. If you can’t sing, sing anyhow, and tonight you’ll dream wonderful dreams of the ol’ swimmin’ hole’.
“You’ll be wonderfully helped.”
From the front page of the Statesville Sentinel, Wednesday, January 11, 1922.
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