Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/307

 Rh and began to take the tune and join in. One chimed in now with the octave, now the sixth, the other in thirds, and it went admirably. Then the other boys joined in, and they began to singand to yell, and there was a great noise, but disagreeable.

From this evening the singing began; now after eight months we sing Angel Vopiyashe and two cherubim songs, Numbers Four and Seven, the whole of the ordinary mass, and little choral songs. The best—pupils only two of them—write down the melodies of the songs which they know, and almost read the notes. But, so far, whatever they sing is far from being so good as that song of theirs was which they sang returning from the bath. I say all this without any arrière pensée, not to prove anything, but I simply state a fact.

Now I will tell about the process of instruction, with which I was comparatively well satisfied. At the first lesson I divided all the words into three parts, and we sang the following chords:—

We succeeded in this very rapidly. And each one sang what he wished, tried the discant and went to the tenor, and from the tenor to the alto, so that the best knew the whole chord—do-mi-sol; some all the three parts. They pronounced the names of the notes in the French. One sang mi-fa-fa-mi; another do-do-re-do, and so on.