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"Lady around the lady and the gent around the gent."

Repeat, as above, at third station.

"Gent around the lady and the lady around the gent."

Repeat, as above, at third station.

"Circle four, right and left and on to the next and swing in the rear."

Repeat, as above, at third station then go to fourth station.

"Up in front and swing the dear. Lady 'round lady, gent around the gent."

Both of these calls are repeated at station number four.

"Gent 'round lady, lady 'round gent. Circle four, right and left back home."

Repeat these calls as above and the first couple are back home.

"Corner left, partner right, grand change eight the whole way 'round."

This call is described above.

Second couple now takes the lead and visits all other stations, followed by couple number three and four.

"The Double Grapevine Twist"

Music, 2-4 tempo

"Jump in the air and then come down. Swing your honey 'round and 'round."

See description under "Andy Gump." "Corner left, partner right, grand change eight the whole way 'round."

See description under "Andy Gump." "First couple out to the right and circle four." First couple lead out to the second couple and circle once around.

"Open up and take two more."

As first four progress to third couple, the head gentleman and second lady drop hands and admit the third two to the circle.

"Hurry up and don't be late, open up and run away eight."

Continue to circle to the left, then open up and admit the fourth couple to the circle between the first gentleman and second lady.

"Head couple free their wrists and start that double grapevine twist.”

Head couple release their inside hands. The gentleman walks forward and to the left, passing under an arch made by the fourth couple. He continues around to the left and back to place. The fourth lady turns under her own left arm and stands in place. On the other side of the circle,

the head lady is doing the exact opposite of the head gentleman, going to her right and under an arch made by the second couple and back to place, as the second gentleman turns under his own right arm and stands in place. Without stopping the head couple repeat the above figure each advancing one position toward the foot of the set, the head gentleman passing under the arch of the fourth gentleman and third lady and leading the second lady through behind him back to place. The head lady passes under an arch made by the second lady and third gentleman and back to place. The second lady turns under her own right arm and stands in place while the fourth gentleman turns under his own left arm and stands in place. Continuing the "twist," the head couple pass together under an arch made by the third couple. The head gentleman leads all those on his side of the circle to the left and back to place while the head lady leads her group to the right and back home. The third couple turn toward each other to unwind themselves, and stand in place.

The important point to remember in executing this figure is that all except the head couple remain holding hands while this figure is being danced. The only break being between the head two.

X

VILLAGE in North Carolina is a little town five miles from the county seat. The main industry is textile. There are other small businesses in the town, but there is a marked distinction between the "uptown" people and the mill workers, and the mill people are woefully lacking in recreational opportunities.

Into this community there went, last January, a recreation supervisor from WPA. The program began in an ice house transformed into a community center. Ice house pipes were taken out and sawed apart. Welded back together, they became see-saw and swing frames. That was the beginning of the playground.

Inside the center, games, crafts and social recreation were conducted. A small library had its beginning in the center when fifty books were borrowed from the State Library Commission and County Library. Now the library owns two hundred books and has a rental shelf with new books which pay for themselves and also for repairing older volumes.

The ice house has been outgrown and the local Recreation Council is buying additional equipment for the playground.

Xville, in the same county, has the distinction of being the oldest mill village in the district. It is a small village made up entirely of mill workers. During the past year the mill has been closed and most of the people are jobless. Into this community, too, there went a WPA recreation worker.

The only location available for a recreation center was one room of an old store building, but here the dauntless WPA worker initiated her program.

There was a library in the community, one of the best in the county, built in honor of the founder of the mill by his son. The library had been endowed, but years later, on the failure of the bank in charge of the trust fund, the library was closed. Many times the recreation worker tried to gain an entrance to the building. Finally her efforts were successful, and to her surprise, upon entering she was confronted with a bronze plaque inside the door reading: "I, give

this building, a place of recreation, a library, in memory of my father, for the people of Xville."

In the library were rows and rows of good books-fiction, travel, biography, and magazines dating from 1906. The card catalog, tables, chairs and lights were in good condition. The large hall upstairs was in need of repair, but it was suitable for social gatherings.

The recreation worker saw the possibility of the library as a recreation center. She redoubled her efforts to secure the use of the building, and finally it was opened as a "place of recreation for the people of Xville."

In two small villages a recreation program has been operating for fourteen months. In one of these villages, a canvass for equipment disclosed swings and see-saws packed away for fourteen year and never used. In four other towns in the county, self-supporting recreation programs are being carried on. Not all of the programs are adequate, says the supervisor, but the project is helping, and there are ten recreation workers employed now where formerly there was none.

The recreation supervisor in another county of North Carolina tells of a community where highly emotional revivals were the only outlet for pentup emotions. A WPA recreational program was introduced. The response was slow at first. The children lived in such widely scattered sections that opportunities for social gatherings were rare. They were bashful and self-conscious about playing. They had to be provided with an opportunity to do the things in which they seemed most interested. Following a study of community needs, a Community Club was organized. A thoroughly competent woman was secured to teach the Sunday School lesson at each meeting. This was followed by club singing, games and stories. Families came several miles to attend the meetings. After the

regular program and social hour, many of the members lingered to exchange quilt fashions and recipes, and some of the magazines friends had sent were passed among the members of the club.

(Continued on page 394)

That was the classic response of a West Virginia mountain boy to a question addressed to him by a visiting sportsman.

It seems a strange way to introduce a story of a community music survey and the things which developed from that survey, but it does have an application to that apparently irrelevant field. The music survey enabled people of the general area of Wheeling, West Virginia, to verify their suspicions that there are musical resources "aroun' yere." Then, too, they go a step further than the mountain boy and are ready and willing to tell "how to git it."

Their plan is so simple, so flexible and useful that it might well be employed in any community or any region where the people want to ascertain their musical resources and put them to work.

A bit of background knowledge seems necessary for a proper understanding of the Wheeling music survey.

Wheeling is a city of 60,000. The city is, however, the geographic, economic and social center for an industrial and rural population of about 300,000 people who live in twelve counties in the upper Ohio valley and represent the states of Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Just beyond the municipal boundary of Wheeling is the city-owned Oglebay Park, a natural recreation area of 750 acres. At Oglebay Park is the headquarters of Oglebay Institute, an incorporated organization devoted primarily to adult educa

tion. The Institute derives its financial support from four separate sources. These are membership dues voluntarily paid annually by private citizens; proceeds of an endownment fund; private gifts, and State and Federal funds secured through the Agricultural Extension Division of West Virginia University. The Institute is, accordingly, under little moral or political compulsion to restrict its program to a city, to a county, or to a state. Operating many of its programs directly at Oglebay Park, it also sends its staff of specialists into the outlying cities, towns and rural communities of the entire Wheeling area.

The story of Oglebay Park and of Oglebay Institute is interesting enough, but is long-and this is the story of the Institute's music survey and some of the results of that survey!

Music Always a Part of the Program From the inception, in 1927, of what was to become the Oglebay Institute program, music had played a part in its work. Opportunity was given to individual choral or instrumental groups of amateurs to present public programs at the park. The Institute had worked closely with the Wheeling Symphony Society toward the development of a creditable Symphony Orchestra under professional leadership and composed, about half, of professional players. Song leadership courses had been held. A course in music appreciation was engineered one summer.

Starting in 1934, the Institute, through West Virginia University, placed a rural recreation

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worker in the field in five West Virginia counties. Part of his work resulted in the organization of men's, women's and mixed choral groups in these five counties. But by 1936, with the exception of the rural field of those five West Virginia counties and a well-established symphony program, the area's community music set-up was nothing if not hodge-podge and uncorrelated. Then in 1936 Oglebay Institute employed a director of music, Edwin M. Steckel.

Mr. Steckel came to the Institute with a background of excellent musical training, accomplishment as an organist, pianist and song leader, familiarity with school music from personal experience, and, best of all, organization ability. Into the lap of this man was tossed the problem of correlating the Wheeling area's musical activities.

Mr. Steckel met Mrs. Gibson Caldwell, president of the Wheeling Symphony Society, chairman of the Oglebay Institute Music Committee, herself a splendid amateur cellist, and ardently interested in any thing pertaining to music. Mrs. Caldwell invited to an informal supper at her Wheeling residence leaders of various choral and instrumental groups, the head of the musician's union, school music authorities from both sides of the Ohio River.

The Survey Is Initiated

A music survey was suggested to the group, which at once became interested and active when its possibilities were outlined by Mr. Steckel. On the spot, committees were formed to survey such separate fields as professional music, church music, school music, solo talent, meeting and rehearsal facilities and every other item remotely associated with the community music picture.

Mechanics of the survey were simple. The chairman for school music, for example, enlisted the aid of music educators on both sides of the river. Soon he had available a card index which listed such items as the names and addresses of all music educators in the Wheeling area, the number of musical organizations in each school system, their enrollments and other details. Similar listings of mu

sical resources went on in the other separate fields.

In the meantime Mr. Steckel kept in daily touch with the surveyors, helped personally where help was needed and gradually

accumulated the combined file of the separate surveys. At the end of about three weeks reports began to come in. Some astonishing things were revealed even to people who thought themselves familiar with the Wheeling area and its music.

The survey determined, for example, that eighty-five churches in the area had established choirs and that fifty-seven of these churches employed professional choir leaders, or organists, or organist-leaders. Only eight churches paid their singers. It was found that in twenty-two separate public and five parochial school systems of the region, there were employed a total of fifty-three music educators. Such other items were uncovered as the presence of eighteen established amateur vocal organizations and nine amateur instrumental groups. It was found that in the area there were sixteen professional instrumental organizations, five professional concert series, sixtyone vocal soloists, thirty-two instrumental soloists, ninety-one private teachers of music. Twelve suitable and available concert halls were listed.

Developments Follow the Survey

That gives a fair idea of the material uncovered by the survey. With the findings of the survey in Mr. Steckel's hands developments came rapidly.

An Oratorio. No individual or agency ever had brought the best singers of those eighty-five church choirs together for a single event. The local ministerial association eagerly accepted the proposal that these vocalists should combine in a regional effort. Thirty choir leaders met with Mr. Steckel and agreed to enlist all forces in the presentation of the Oratorio "Elijah," by Mendelssohn. The oratorio was sung at Wheeling in midMarch by a selected group from the singers of those choirs-370 voices. Dr. Hollis Dann, eminent choral conductor, was engaged to lead the production. He met with the various leaders at the outset and outlined his plan, following up this initial contact with a series of bulletins. Local leaders worked with their own groups between massed rehearsals, four of which were held. The

choice of four professional soloists from New York obviated the possibility of arousing local jealousies.

Local newspapers called the oratorio the finest cooperative event in the area's musical history.

The Ohio Valley Festival Chorus. The performance over, the singers asked, almost unanimously, "What do we do next?" Result-the organization of the Ohio Valley Festival Chorus with a program of one outstanding event each winter and each summer.

A Music Educators' Association. Another example of what the survey did: Music educators on one side of the Ohio River scarcely knew their coworkers across that stream. The Ohio Valley schools are proud of their high school bands. These seemingly irrelevant facts became meaningful with the formation of the Ohio Valley Music Educators' Association with a membership of forty-eight of the area's fifty-three educators. The Association's first official act was the sponsorship of the first Ohio Valley Band Clinic.

Band leaders recommended players from their organization. Each player was given an audition which included scale playing, sight reading and a prepared number. A committee then assigned the successful candidates to places in the band of one hundred and fifteen pieces representing eighteen Ohio Valley high schools. Ernest Williams of New York was brought in as clinic director and a two-day clinic was held. A public concert climaxed it, and then the big band played in four separate centers of the area in the next two weeks.

A Community Music Association. The vexatious matter of conflicting dates for musical events long had been a thorn in the flesh of the local music leaders. From the survey came the Community Music Association, whose functions are to serve as a clearing house for concert dates, as a contact agency for local groups, and to act as official sponsoring body for combined musical activities. within the area. As a start the Association sponsored two weeks of carol singing, twice daily, at Wheeling's first community Christmas tree in December of 1936.

Edwin M. Steckel serves as full-time secretary for these various groups, as well as other agencies and organizations in the music panorama of the Wheeling area.

Other Accomplishments

What are some of the other accomplishments which may be traced to the music survey? Here are a few of them:

A Junior High School choral festival at Wheeling with a massed chorus of 400 youngsters in public performance; a senior high school music festival in connection with the Arbor Day pro

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gram at Oglebay Park, with 600 high school singers involved; a "Music Week Observance" which brought Geoffrey O'Hara to Wheeling to appear before a dozen civic clubs of the area and more than 12,000 public school children in a single week.

There is scheduled for Oglebay Park late in August (this is written in July) a two week camp of the famous "Singing Boys of America" from Steubenville, Ohio. In addition to the fifty boys of this famous group, churches of the area are sending a hundred local boys to play and sing with this talented band of youngsters under their own director. A sacred concert will be offered the public at the end of the two week period of training, and the nucleus of the "Singing Boys" will present other public programs during their stay at the park.

At Oglebay Park this summer a comprehensive concert program is catering to thousands of people. On every Sunday afternoon and on alternate Thursday evenings the Wheeling Symphony is scheduled to play. The Symphony is under the leadership of Antonio Modarelli, late of the Pittsburgh Symphony, and is rapidly striding ahead.

On the unscheduled Thursdays, amateur instrumental and vocal organizations of the area are scheduled for evening concerts, and in September, upon the close of the Symphony concerts, each Sunday afternoon and each Thursday evening will be filled by a concert of organizations of this type.

On every Sunday evening in July and August public vesper programs are held. These are preceded by a fifteen minute organ recital by guest organists, and each vesper program includes special music and congregational singing.

Such special and outstanding events are in the offing, as an August first presentation of choruses from "Elijah," by the Ohio Valley Festival Chorus accompanied by the Wheeling Symphony. On September 19th an Ohio Valley band festival again will draw high school bandsmen togetherthis time in connection with the appearance at the park of the United States Marine Band. The school bandsmen will mass with the Marine Band for one number under its director, Captain Taylor Branson. This will take place in the afternoon. In the evening the Marine Band will play a public concert.

Most of these events are free, but the Music Festival and Marine Band program will be preceded by ticket sales by the high schools concerned, with part of the proceeds going to defray the (Continued on page 394)