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with the crescendo and diminuendo of the whirling spokes; of the crooning "By-ee . . . By-ee . . ." that lulls little children to sleep; of the laugh and leap of dancers bounding through "Cripple Creek" at the bidding of a man told off to call the figures; of red firelight flickering over an impromptu play party—neighbor lads and girls singing and romping through all the evolutions of those intricate games of courtship, in which the couples are never finally mated, saluting and pirouetting, and following and flouting; of wilder nights at "protracted meeting," when, an awed and fascinated child, I clung to the wall or clambered on the benches to be out of harm's way; of the ripple of water and the drone of bees___
Had I but words to say how these tunes are bound with the life of the singer, knit with his earliest impressions, and therefore dearer than any other music could ever be—impossible to forget as the sound of his mother's voice!
Crude with a tang of the Indian wilderness, strong with the strength of the mountains, yet, in a way, mellowed by the English of Chaucer's time—surely this is folk-song of a high order. May it not one day give birth to a music that shall take a high place among the world's great schools of expression?
NOTE: For assistance in writing the score of these melodies, I am indebted to Professor Roy L. Smith and to Mrs. Arnold, of Chattanooga. |
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