The Choir - now shorter

[DracoM]

And you can see why a number of posters on The Choir threads can sometimes be overly concerned about the choral mix we hear in CE.
The old battle is 'hey, you sexist lot, girls have every right to be part of cathedral etc etc choirs, so back off and stop whingeing....' Etc contd p.94.
Yes, yes, get all that, but..............

It is undeniable that girls are a much steadier bet for Informatores choristarum in cathedral / church choirs in that their voices reliably and always, once selected and trained, sing beautifully through from 10 or so up to and beyond. Boys manifestly do not. Drop out rate for boys continuing to sing seriously through or after the change must be prodigious, hence the incremental loss of cadres of masculine voices.

So, where do you get the next generation? And I do NOT mean the top elect, but the basic kit for running any kind of mixed voice choir amateur, professional etc. Women are wonderfully keen to give it a go, men in their twenties onwards rarely so in singing terms. They have other priorities - seemingly. And unless they have been so excited by the business of singing from sometime back, it is the devil's own job enticing good young voices into group singing. The soloists mostly come from an ever diminishing number of schools - many but by no means all fee-paying - and a trickle from groundwork in church / cathedral choirs. But compared to the numbers of women in choirs / choral societies...............??? Erm......?

DoMs need choirs to enrich services, keep their jobs, keep music alive in communities, pass on the torch. Girls are easier to come by and sustain in the job than boys for that, so guess what.........you use girls. Of course, if survival and development are the criteria for keeping sung worship etcetc going.

So, the girls / women are then seen a lot in public singing, doing it brilliantly, and what does that tell boys? This kind of singing is not for you, mate...............it is a worrying vicious circle, and almost every DoM I have spoken to attests to it. Tenors? Phew........show me where.........!!

If schools try and establish a big mixed gender tradition, fine, and the kids can go out and expect to sing, but if in that critical 13-15/16 age span for boys, DoMs tell them to sit it out, and unless you don't find ways of encouraging them, then quietly telling them to 'sit it out' is pretty well anathema - they will stand back and let the girls do it and not come back. Seen it time and time again.

So, I am serious: give us a plan, give us blueprints that have worked in schools etc etc that YOU know to keep boys singing to a good level.

[jean]

There have never been enough tenors to go round, and most of the adult men I've sung in choirs with never were choristers.

You may be correct that boys won't do something they see as 'girly', and similar feelings seemed to motivate the men we heard on the programme, some of whom had sung in mixed choirs before retreating to their all-male groups.

I don't see an anwer to that.

[ardcarp]

Jean. I would just like to mention that nearly all of the Ts and Bs (and some As) I have sung with did had their love of music and singing ignited as choristers, most in church or cathedral choirs...some in school choirs.

[DracoM]

I endorse that totally.
There was no singing at home to speak of and it was school etc that helped me realise I could.
BUT
that was all started in class singing, on the basis of which I was asked if I wanted to move on to 'the big choir'.
AFAICS, singing in classes is far less usual now in schools at any stage, primary, prep and certainly not secondary.

[jean]

Jean. I would just like to mention that nearly all of the Ts and Bs (and some As) I have sung with did had their love of music and singing ignited as choristers, most in church or cathedral choirs...

I think your experience is probably not entirely typical of the amateur choral music world.

I have certainly sung with ATB men who've travelled that route, and as I think I've said before, what they brought to the group was a formidable level of sight-reading which everyone else had to match. If girls are now getting the same sort of training, that'll be a bonus.

But the fact remains that lots of male choral singers have never been near a cathedral or college choir.

And I know a number of men who've sung as boys, but never since that time.

Exact numbers would be hard to come by, but I do not think the evidence is there to support the view that the dearth of adult male choral singers (not a new phenomenon!) is attributable to a decline in the number of boy choristers, or that that is attributable to an increase in the number of girls singing in cathedrals.

[Gabriel Jackson]

I think your experience is probably not entirely typical of the amateur choral music world.

I have certainly sung with ATB men who've travelled that route, and as I think I've said before, what they brought to the group was a formidable level of sight-reading which everyone else had to match. If girls are now getting the same sort of training, that'll be a bonus.

But the fact remains that lots of male choral singers have never been near a cathedral or college choir.

And I know a number of men who've sung as boys, but never since that time.

Indeed. And as has been discussed on previous threads, there are many countries where more people sing in amateur choirs than they do in the UK, countries which do not have any tradition of children singing in cathedral and college choirs.

Exact numbers would be hard to come by, but I do not think the evidence is there to support the view that the dearth of adult male choral singers (not a new phenomenon!) is attributable to a decline in the number of boy choristers, or that that is attributable to an increase in the number of girls singing in cathedrals.

The decline in numbers of boy choristers has undoubtedly got nothing to with the number of girls singing in cathedrals, not least because several establishments that are experiencing problems recruiting boy choristers don't have girls.

[terratogen]

So, the girls / women are then seen a lot in public singing, doing it brilliantly, and what does that tell boys? This kind of singing is not for you, mate...............it is a worrying vicious circle

Symptom of much wider and deeper lessons on gender and worth that we both intentionally and inadvertently pass on to children— perhaps with particular orthopedic force to boys. "Preserving tradition" without actively disrupting these lessons is Titanic deck chair rearranging.

[Oldcrofter]

Yes, Gabriel (msg 36) as we've said on previous occasions, there are singing traditions that get boys singing with great enthusiasm, the joy of belonging to a group which can enthuse audiences - both of adults and school mates, and my guess is that they have a love of singing for life.

Three examples from South Africa:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpTYw5UWuzo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVxZIxQI4DI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXEHu6_-yDM

I realise that these styles of singing - especially the movement and actions - will not appeal to several contributors to these boards, and yes, we have maintained a very different tradition in our schools, cathedrals and colleges.

But there must be alternative ways of engaging boys in singing, giving them involvement, friendship, giving them a gift and an interest for life. I'm not a music teacher or choral director but can someone with far more professional expertise come up with ideas which could show boys that yes, singing is for boys ?

[ardcarp]

countries which do not have any tradition of children singing in cathedral and college choirs.

No, but they probably do have singing in school as part of the regular curriculum...as it should be.

[DracoM]

And actually I pleaded for constructive plans / suggestions / descriptions from people's travels and experiences in other cultures as part of the discussion, not polemic.

[jean]

As you gave us not a little polemic yourself, I don't think you can really complain.

[ardcarp]

There is a school near me where boys and girls are brought up to sing from the year dot, and they all do, right through the school. But guess what? It's a prep school. There seems neither the time, the inclination nor the expertise in most state primary schools. There are exceptions...some of which find their way onto BBC S of P school choir of the year.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Don't get me going on this. When I was a secondary head of music, I made sure that singing was at the top of the tree, and had considerable support from primary schools.

The worst thing that ever happened to music in primary schools was Wider Opportunies, a crackpot scheme to pretend all children were learning musical instruments. SingUp was nearly as bad. It did next to nothing for group singing. The only dynamic was amplified loud. Accompaniment with a piano was deemed as reactionary. Crass backing tracks were the way forward. Never mind that the misguided policy didn't work.

[Gabriel Jackson]

No, but they probably do have singing in school as part of the regular curriculum...as it should be.

Indeed. The country whose singing culture I have most experience of - Latvia - has (or had...) more music in schools than we do, as far as I can tell. There are also several specialist music schools around the country. How much boys' singing, or girls' singing there is in schools I don't know, but the most high-powered music school, the Riga Dom Choir School is the home of the famous Riga Dom Boys Choir, and now the very good Riga Dom Girls Choir. (A few years ago I heard a concert in Tukums, a very small town, by a choir of teenaged boys and girls. As they shuffled on stage in gawky teenage fashion I thought they would be awful. Of course they were very good.) But the main thing is that, effectively, the country decided - somehow, somewhen - that singing was good, and singing is what Latvians do. So it's not weird to be in a choir, or naff, or uncool. And lots of people do it. (They still have the tenors and basses problem that every country has, and the girls are usually better than the guys, like in every country...)

[Cockney Sparrow]

Is it correct that in Latvia, Estonia, maybe Lithuania, singing -although it had its undoubted merits in itself - became an area of cultural resistance to the Soviet Union? Where language and culture could be enthusiastically celebrated and excluding their Soviet masters? In any case, its great that they have a strong culture.

Mrs CS is a dedicated primary music teacher. I stand in awe of her dedication and determination. All children sing in the Juniors and she is at last getting access to the infant classes to introduce them to group singing instead of whatever their teachers previously used to tick the box of music. (And BTW she used wider opportunities and still does, to launch instrumental (class only) learning to Year 4 with 70% of children continuing with their own/rented instruments thereafter). A group of boys who landed in a state secondary school thought it the most natural thing to join the choir, to the astonishment of the music teacher there (not sure if they are still singing, though).

The children are very enthusiastic about singing. When pop cantata fare is imposed, they say quite clearly its not as good as the carols they sang the year before.... But its entirely dependant on the teacher and the Head's consent (I'd be surprised if any set of governors were pro-active enough to demand better music provision in a primary school; parents in state schools - well, they don't quite have the influence that paying fees gives those in the independent schools so their influence is weak as well).

But all of Mrs CS's efforts are dependant on the head teacher. They come and go, often they are not up to much and each one needs to be convinced that music, and school concerts and the other disruptions to the timetable, are worthwhile. The best she hopes for is that the Head leaves her to get on with the music but often their first instinct is not to support her efforts (they have no feeling for non pop/rock music; "its elitist", no doubt other reasons). Ofsted inspectors can't be persuaded to look at musical activities, and they are not interested in music (however, as they are not fit to judge, that is a plus). If your worth as a Head, and teacher, are dependant on children relentlessly and demonstrably week by week learning and improving in the core subjects (maths, english, etc) then everything else is a distraction. And I mean it - if children do not improve and perform to the latest ministerial edicts, regardless of their abilities, you are not a good enough teacher (BTW I'm waiting to see Gove's legacy in the prison system, after the crazy grammar tests in the current SATs - prison Governors judged on the teaching of the Eng Lit Classics to prisoners?) (Sorry I'm being flippant there - staff resources in prisons are insufficient to ensure basic personal safety for prisoners, let alone education for all of them).

Our own children went through an excellent youth choir where the (lesser number of) boys were encouraged to keep singing up to the time they left to go to college,University etc. There have been some other initiatives I've noticed to try to achieve the same thing, including for former treble choristers. As a singer in a larger choir, I wonder whether good male singers - those who went through collegiate or other settings for example, look askance at joining such a choir, and others in their twenties/thirties etc, in the Home Counties at least, with commuting, on the whole do not arrive home in time to make the rehearsal - unless they leave work early. No doubt there are yet other factors in the problem of supply of tenors and basses.......