CE St Edmundsbury Cathedral 1st April 2015

[Magnificat]

Incidentally, as a sign of the extent to which we in Ely don't have a clue about recruitment, we have two new probationers starting after the Easter holiday, bringing the number of boys back up to eighteen. We'll be losing our three remaining Year 8s at (or possibly before, but I hope not) the end of the school year, of course, so that will soften the blow slightly. And I'm sure we'll have some lined up for September. At official capacity there would be twenty-two but that very rarely happens, and some places have recently proved that they can cope very well with as few as nine. Sometimes a smaller number is better. Ours do excellently when there are fourteen or fewer singing.

Q.

Yes, a choir doesn't need a lot of boys if they are well trained but with voices breaking as young as 11/12 these days a DoM has to have adequate back up across the age range to sustain things as I'm sure Paul Trepte knows and caters for if possible.

I'm not saying that Ely should get rid of the choir school but apropos Draco it does handicap you a bit if you have to lose boys who still have voice at 13. Choirs with boys not linked to an associated school do have quite a big advantage in this respect. I know some choir schools do have senior school but are choristers always able to stay on after age 13 even in these circumstances?

VCC

[Magnificat]

. You're usually a prolific reviewer of the content of broadcasts as well (not least when it comes to what you perceive as bad training and direction and management and nurturing of any given choir), so maybe you would like to say something instead about the content of some of the many choral broadcasts there have been over these past few days? We're bracing ourselves for particularly unflattering comments about our two broadcasts if you so wish... .

Q.

But you said further back in this thread that reviewing these broadcasts does nobody any favours. So I've stopped ( don't know how to do these smiley faces things so I'll just say wink wink )!!

VCC

VCC

[Gabriel Jackson]

Caussade,

I bet not one DoM with a choir school has gone anywhere near a state school ( or another independent school for that matter ) to attempt to recruit.

VCC

Then you are wrong.

[Quilisma]

Yes, Gabriel, he is wrong.

Magnificat/VCC, what I meant was that it does nobody any favours to treat the broadcast soundtrack of one service as a comprehensive and definitive picture of exactly what a particular choir can and cannot do at a particular time, complete with often false assumptions about the personnel based on the presumed expertise of one's hearing, and to extrapolate generalisations and pet theories on the basis of that assumption and expound on them at great length all the time all over these boards and/or elsewhere. If people offer their comments on and feelings about on the music and delivery of the liturgy in a particular broadcast, and about what they thought was good and what they thought was less good, that CAN indeed be interesting. But given that you seem to have absolute certainty that you have an unparallelled grasp of the truth on this particular topic, and given that your roll call of people who are at fault and "should be shot" would certainly include many if not most of us in Cathedral music and a good many contributors to these message boards, I can only calmly prepare for the Magnificat Massacre and hope my own demise will be quick and relatively swift. Peace be with you, and don't stop writing reviews of the content of broadcasts: they're a good deal less toxic than all the untrammelled wild speculation about what attitudes DoMs in general or in specific might have and what the consequences ought to be for them as a result.

[Miles Coverdale]

Q.

What did Oscar Wilde say about anonymity - " give a man a mask and he'll tell you the truth".

VCC.

That does rather assume that you’re speaking the truth, but as others have shown, your assumptions are often incorrect.

In any case, I have a sneaking suspicion that your initials are the same as those of my screen name, no?

[DracoM]

The sense one gets is that all parties in this delicate issue are puzzled as to the most sure-fire way of going about it all.

On the one hand the urgent imperative is to replenish the supply of new singers at the most junior end, without which the production of good voices to carry on much in the classical field at the mature end is iffy to say the least. At the other end, how to go about targeting, encouraging, nurturing and then releasing into the wondering world the voices found and made is also fraught with difficulties and anomalies.

Some DoMs do go into state sector, but as Quilisma hints, some HMs therein are edgy or even hostile to such initiatives. They might see it as snobby privilege intrusion into their already difficult mix and be deeply suspicious, or even robbing their places of likely potential. The kids themselves see X-Factor or The Voice, and think that's the way forward; they see the hundreds of local bands etc that have all manner of voices fronting them and think that's the singing they want - and like prowess in footie et al pretty well instantly respected by most of their peers, by the way. The sheer disciplined hard work, full-on ceremonial, and in everything a spiritual overlay/foundation are very, very daunting to a 9 yr old, and can be a serious deterrent to 12-14 yr olds.

Of course, the same conditions can also be very exciting, particularly if these lads are given huge support by parents, or they go into a residential school where to be a choir singer is top line achievement and lauded by aspiring peers in its own right, or into a school where music is already a high prestige activity supported by the HM etc. But at every stage of that process, there are hairpin bends and mudslides. If you then add to that the inevitability of the voice change - unlike girls on anything like the same level - you can see that many boys, and / or their parents, and / or teachers may come to think the game's not worth the candle.

Kids go for highs, thrills, and unless a DoM can communicate his / her sense of what kinds of ongoing thrill in what they are doing, and enthuse the incomer with the sense of communal fun, work and thrill, the BACFAD initiatives become just a weirdly fascinating day out their weird parents have lumped them into, and that's it. How you wean boys particularly from the challenge of THE day to the commitment of giving it a go for several years is delicate. For a 9 or 10 year old, you are asking him to commit to three, maybe four years - that's very nearly half its life to date. It's a massive ask. For me, it all comes down to the thrill factor.

If you can help a 9 / 10 yr old get highs out of the hard work to fuel him to reach for the next thrill, AND that in the close company of others, both of his own age and much older, all similarly committed and similarly thrilled i.e. a TEAM, then you have a chance. So many maybes and ifs and perhapses in that. Boys are by nature more gamblers than girls IME, and DoMs have to find ways of making singing seem like a winning throw. I've said boys are gamblers, but they are paradoxically cautious and conservative as well, and singing in choirs does mean at first being moved out of comfort zones. But the key thing is for the DoM to highlight the kid's INNATE skill, to react positively to that skill / potential. A ready enthusiasm by the DoM to appreciate and relate that to the boy individually, not collectively, is for me critical. The boy has to feel that his skills are being daily reinforced and recognised. I know this all sounds very prima donna-ish, an encouragement to see oneself as a sleb, but to be honest, good singing boys are a precious breed to be carefully nurtured. All kinds of ways of doing that need to be evaluated. Tough cocktail.

Uttering simplistic bromides from the sidelines is a bit like those bizarre parents at junior football matches yelling vicious contempt and blazing insults, leaving their sons fizzing and simmering with rage and a sense of their own uselessness. Not good.

[Quintessentially]

Being a new member to this forum I’m more than a little disappointed in the trite and unpleasant direction some aspects of this thread have taken. Is it always like this! Perhaps this whole topic should have/be moved to a NEW thread elsewhere in the forum…

BTW does any one know why my profile picture is not appearing against my comments??

[Quilisma]

Quintessentially, I'm afraid I agree with you. I can only apologise profusely and unreservedly for my part in exacerbating it. Silence is sometimes the only sensible option.

[Quilisma]

What you probably don't know is that this particular strand of "discourse" has been continuing on here for several years, always with the same dramatis personae. The rest of us find our patience tends to wear a bit thin at times. I'm sorry if that appears petulant and provocative. Ours is a happy line of work, and while some might surmise that we are an establishment clique closing ranks at the first sign of criticism, the constant accusations of complacency and incompetence from people who purport to be champions of Cathedral music tend to get rather exasperating...

[DracoM]

To try to be fair, there are pretty few who do NOT appreciate the enormous amount of work and dedication that goes into a very demanding job, and by that I mean DoMs, choristers, lay-clerks, organists etc, and those results are widely celebrated here. BUT, yes, there are a handful [ that many?] who can be a bit free with advice as to how to proceed. In their defence, one might add that much of the advice is offered because the writers passionately love and believe in the genre they have chosen to write about. Love can be wearing from time to time!!

Most of the time, I do need to stress, this thread is far and away about posters' LIKES and OPINIONS, and I hope everyone would defend the right to utter those.

[Quintessentially]

Thank you Quilisma and DracoM for your enlightenment.

I totally support everyone's right to be passionate about such a privileged heritage but when a particular thread is usurped by those who merely want to make mischief - well!! Goodness knows how the chaps up there at St Edmundsbury must be interpreting it! I think I've made my point and indeed Quilisma - my silence in this dialogue is now the only sensible option... BTW I did enjoy your broadcast on Sunday.

[Magnificat]

Then you are wrong.

Gabriel,

Then I would be interested to know if they let any boys recruited sing in their cathedral choirs without insisting that they attend the choir school.

VCC

[Vox Humana]

BTW does any one know why my profile picture is not appearing against my comments??

What you need is an avatar, which is different from your profile picture. Go to the top right of the page and click "Settings". Then, under "My Settings" in the left-hand column, click "Edit Avatar". (Note the size limit.)

[Magnificat]

I totally support everyone's right to be passionate about such a privileged heritage but when a particular thread is usurped by those who merely want to make mischief - well!!

Quintessentially,

I don't want to make mischief. I just want cathedral DoMs to be successful in recruiting boys for their choirs, finding new and imaginative ways of doing so and stop moaning all the time about how difficult it is.

Unfortunately this situation highlights just how different the mindset is in the rarefied world of the church and cathedrals compared to the secular world.

In any normal commercial organisation if an employee has an objective ( say, the need to recruit in difficult circumstances ) and went to his/her line manager and said "I have found that there are all these insurmountable barriers." they would be told in no uncertain terms " don't bring me problems bring me solutions to the problems"

I wonder how many cathedral deans would insist on taking a line like this with their DoM.

Very few if any I bet. They will eventually give up expecting the DoM to recruit boys and let him/her use girls only or if they can afford it pay for professional/semi - pro singers.

VCC

As far as I am concerned this will be a tragedy.

[Magnificat]

Some DoMs do go into state sector, but as Quilisma hints, some HMs therein are edgy or even hostile to such initiatives.

Draco,

Interesting item in today's paper.

Evidently children are allowed to be auditioned in schools for Britain's Got Talent TV show.

Hardly any educational aspects to this as far as I can see except that it stops the kids from truanting on audition day.

I should have thought that this is something Heads should be edgy about or hostile to.

VCC