Who would you want in your choir?

[cloughie]

Numbers in Male Voice Choirs are dwindling nationally and I suspect internationally. Which singers would you recruit to boost the numbers and improve the sound.

Please list 1st Tenors, 2nd Tenors, Baritones, Basses.

Feel free to invite from any genre.

[Despina dello Stagno]

Please list 1st Tenors, 2nd Tenors, Baritones, Basses.

Have you already co-opted Marcel Marceau for the countertenor parts?

[cloughie]

Have you already co-opted Marcel Marceau for the countertenor parts?

Once he's recovered from his laryngitis!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

My solution would be completely different - revitalising singing in secondary school to stop the rot.

[DracoM]

The real dearth is tenors, surely

Many high baritones think they do not have the notes to move up, but one suspects it may be rather more a question of nerve and ambition that restricts activity rather than ability?

And EA is surely right that the lack of singing in CHOIRS as opposed to singing solos with rock bands etc in schools is at the root of this famine?

[jean]

I would like my choir to have me in it, but I see that's not going to be possible.

[mangerton]

I would like my choir to have me in it, but I see that's not going to be possible.

Oh, I'd have you in it, jean. And me, as a first bass. Draco is right about tenors, btw, esp in Scotland, where they are very thin on the ground. Something to do with the climate, apparently. I once sang tenor in our church choir for a year, partly because we were v short of tenors, and partly to prove to our then choirmaster (yorkshireman, ex-huddersfield choral soc) that I could. He called first basses "lazy tenors".
Didn't enjoy it, though.

[Mary Chambers]

Some choirs now have 'lady tenors'. I think that's the term they use.

[jean]

Did you know the Phil has succumbed, Mary? I think they now have two.

[jean]

Oh, I'd have you in it, jean. And me, as a first bass.

Actually if you sing early music, there's often no real distinction between what gets assigned to altos, and what to tenors.

But the OP clearly says Male Voice Choirs.

Draco is right about tenors, btw, esp in Scotland, where they are very thin on the ground. Something to do with the climate, apparently...

How do the Welsh manage it, I wonder?

[Mary Chambers]

Did you know the Phil has succumbed, Mary? I think they now have two.

Yes, I knew. Not sure how many. I think the Welsh Choral did it first in Liverpool.

[ardcarp]

How do the Welsh manage it, I wonder?

...the possibilities are mind-boggling.

[jean]

We're only talking tenors, not sopranos!

[Historian]

The real dearth is tenors, surely. Many high baritones think they do not have the notes to move up, but one suspects it may be rather more a question of nerve and ambition that restricts activity rather than ability?

Speaking for myself only, I would rather be a good first bass than an adequate second tenor. 'Helping out' the tenors occasionally I never felt that I was singing as well as I normally do. I don't think that's necessarily the same as 'a question of nerve and ambition'.