Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1884 — A Country Singing-School. [ARTICLE]

A Country Singing-School.

Did you ever attend a country sing-ing-school in the days of “auld lang syne?” If you never did, you have missed a rare treat. I remember when I used to walk a mile to where my girl lived, and then go two miles further to singing-school, full well. There was the teacher (professors were scarce in those days), with two or three charts on which were the full notes, looking like boldly outlined goose-eggs, and the halves the same % excepting that the ladles with which they were being lilted from tho pot were visible and the quarters were great, black balls, just colliding with long, frail bats. The teacher owned a tuning fork, and when he wished to find out the starting point for a song, he would tap it on the dusty, scarred desk in the old frame meeting-house (churches were as scarce as professors then), and say “do, mi, sol, 'do, do-o-o," then gradually went up to “mi” again, and said “do” in the same key, and then we all tried to repeat it in the same way, and ranged all the way from an octave, to above half an octave below. After harder work than it takes to saw a cord of wood, we all agreed on the right kind of “do,” and then the teacher kept us “do”ing until he led us up to the note on which the song in hand began, and then we “fa”ed awhile, and then he began counting “one, two; one, two;” until we got to bobbing our heads up and down, and stamping with our feet, when he suddenly broke the monotonous style of counting and said “one, two; one, ready; sing,” and half of us started out all right, a quarter wrong, and the remainder not at all. Then we had to begin again, and in due time we all were singing. To be sure, some of the tenors would hum bass, and it was difficult to keep the contraltos off - the soprano cleft - , but we got there, all the same, even if there were two young fellows, one of whom is writing about it at this moment, who never could keep their voices in line, and were usually singing “air,” as they called it, although assigned to the group of tenors. In about three weeks, we began to sing “round” songs, when one-fourth of the class sang one-fourth of the song, and began on the first, and took to their heels on the third quarter, when the third fourth started in on the first, and were coming down the home stretch like a greased organette by the time the last installment became due, and then started in again with all the rest hard after them in regular order. In due time, of course, we began to pull up on the leaders, and before we let up, we would all be coming in onj the home stretch together. When we had conquered this difficult branch of the art, we regard ourselves as perfect, and were ready to challenge any other school in the universe. Oh, yesl Those were grand, good old days, ij tell you! —Through Mail.