Mason, Lowell. Mason's Normal Singer: A Collection of Vocal Music for Singing Classes, Schools, and Social Circles. Arranged in Four Parts. To which are prefixed the Elements of Vocal Music, with Practical Exercises. New York: Mason Brothers, 1856. [12202]
Black cloth spine with printed paper over card (hardcover), oblong 5 x 7 1/2 inches, binding is scuffed and soiled. 192 pages, foxing, dark in some places. Fair. Hardcover.
The music is in four parts with round notes.
Lowell Mason (1792-1872), Massachusetts-born hymn composer, music publisher, one of the founders of public school music education in the United States. He is credited with composing over 1600 hymn tunes.
"To him we owe some of our best ideas in religious church music, elementary musical education, music in schools, the popularization of classical chorus singing, and the art of teaching music upon the Inductive or Pestalozzian plan. More than that, we owe him no small share of respect which the profession of music enjoys at the present time as contrasted with the contempt in which it was held a century or more ago. In fact, the entire art of music, as now understood and practiced in America, had derived advantage from the work of this great man." - Hall, Biographies of Gospel Song and Hymn Writers (1914).
