CE St Mary's Collegiate Church, Warwick Wed, 7th June 2017

[cloughie]

Possibly too mature a sound for my tastes, it sounded a bit much like ladies of a choral society at times.

Not wobbly sopranos I hope!

[jean]

No, strong and stable ones.

But I think we should stop repeating without question the myth that all women on reaching a certain age, or who sing in entities called 'choral societies' rather than 'singers' or something, are overcome with unlistenable-to vibrato.

[BasilHarwood]

For me, most - not all - younger girls' choirs can be easily distinguished by the sound of the vowels. Sometimes that "give-away" characteristic is trained out of them. But if it's there, and you mix it with the boys' sound, it dominates.

Genuinely intrigued to know what you mean by the vowel point. Can you say more?

[jean]

I was going to ask about

...the 'singleness' of the boy-tone...

but thought I had better not.

[terratogen]

Genuinely intrigued to know what you mean by the vowel point. Can you say more?

I've noted this, too. There are some places where the younger girls consistently seem to be allowed to get away with shocking vowel placement. This isn't down to vocal morphology, to hormones, or whatever biological source have you—are female children genetically predisposed to rendering 'O!' as 'Ehw!'?—so I'd have to imagine that it's to do with training. Perhaps this is a matter of imitation not among choristers but among choirmasters: perhaps a 'girl treble sound,' established early and conceptually kept at a remove from 'the boy treble sound', was, consciously or not, taken up as the model for what young girl choristers 'should' sound like.

[ardcarp]

I would like to say that girls' voices can be 'trained' to sing with exactly the same vowel-sounds (e.g. the 'oo') as boys'. Provided they can keep the awful mangling of pop-idols in a different compartment (same applies to boys too) there need be no problem. Time was when girls were not allowed anywhere near a church choir...even the meagrest village church choir....to the future Mrs A's chagrin. When in the 1960s 'straight' women's voices became acceptable, Mrs A and her contemporaries were in the forefront of straight consort singing, a tradition that followed through to our children and grandchildren.

So I do not accept that girls' voices need to sound different, at least in the method of production and the vowel sounds. There is maybe just one aspect that boys' voices have, especially in the years immediately before the change. That is a natural 'crescendo' as they go up the scale. This is sometimes though not always absent from girls of the same age.

I have heard many examples of boy and girl choristers singing together with glorious effect. I recall with great pleasure Malcolm Archer's last carol service from Wells.

[DracoM]

Totally agree about Malcolm Archer and Wells - a fine mixing / training / finished article.

I agree too that the girls and boys NEED not sound different: my question was whether DoMs found that will they, nill they, boys are more likely to imitate older girls singing alongside them in mixed ensembles?

For example, it always surprised me how fast a boy's voice could / would, whatever his background beforehand, come to sound like, even indistinguishable from, voices around him in a choir he had only just entered. I have sung behind treble lines in which the DoM has actually picked out a model treb he / she wanted that newbie to imitate. Is that a common method? or it is just osmosis? And common to either gender?

[ardcarp]

Osmosis, definitely.

[Keraulophone]

I agree too that the girls and boys NEED not sound different: my question was whether DoMs found that will they, nill they, boys are more likely to imitate older girls singing alongside them in mixed ensembles?

If trained by the same person and/or their 'directed' staff (assistant DoM or singing teacher), boys' and girls' top lines of the same age can sound remarkably alike, as in the current York set-up. It is really hard to distinguish between them on their latest CD, where the different top lines are not identified in the booklet, as similarly they are not disclosed on their music lists. Addressing Draco's question in this context, it's not that the boys are imitating the girls when the top lies are combined for concerts or special services, but they are simply singing as similarly trained to do so by the music staff who have a unified style, rehearsal technique and approach to sound in their building in mind.

When the boys and girls are of different age ranges, their sound can be very different, despite having choral trainers in common. Indeed, in deciding to form a choir of 13-18-year-old girls, a DoM has probably already decided that he/she wishes them to have a sound, personality and repertoire distinctly different from that which the boys have developed over very many, if not hundreds, of years. The Truro boys and (older) girls normally sing separately with the back row, with their own distinctive repertoire (eg their broadcast CE of music solely by female composers earlier in the year). When occasionally the top rows of different age groups are combined, I would agree with mw963 when commenting above 'it tends to be the "sound" of the girls that dominates when normally separated choirs [of different age groups] sing together', qualified by my square brackets, though this doesn't mean that they don't combine successfully. Going back to Draco's point, our trebles do not attempt to emulate the more rounded, fuller and more powerful sound of our girls; even if they did try, they would most likely be told not to by th DoM. The boys' sound in our lovely acoustic has an unforced clarity and directness which is lower in dB levels than the girls' output, but both are distinctive and equally admired.

[mw963]

Genuinely intrigued to know what you mean by the vowel point. Can you say more?

Terribly difficult to describe in words, but many younger girls' choirs seem to me to produce a somewhat different vowel sound, most obviously on the sound of "a" as in cat. It's after hearing a few "a" sounds that I can often make a decision as to whether I'm listening to young girls or boys.

And I don't really agree with keraulophone on his (?) point about the mixing of choirs of *different* age groups, I was quite specifically meaning that a mixed choir of boys and younger girls tends to lead to that harsher "a" sound, if it's present in the girls' voices, dominating the whole sound.

But that's only my experience - and mainly from a few years ago.

It just shows how differently (in a scientific way) we all hear sound....

[ardcarp]

Do you remember hearing the first ever cathedral CE with a girls' front row...from Salisbury?

[mw963]

It's just - JUST - possible I've got it (a recording) somewhere. Would be interesting to listen if I can find it.....

What year was it - 1991 ish?

[mw963]

Been into the archives, and I have found a March 1993 broadcast from Salisbury billed as "sung by the girls and layclerks of the Cathedral Choir".

Is that the first one?

Would anyone like it on Dropbox - we have an incredibly slow ADSL connection but I could probably get it up by next Friday-ish(!) if anyone is interested.....

Just listening to it now, solo trebles' verse in office hymn, I defy anybody NOT to be able to say with confidence "those are girls singing".

live from Salisbury
Cathedral, sung by the girls and layclerks of the Cathedral Choir.
Introit: The Angel Gabriel (Traditional); Responses
(Smith); Psalm 119, vv 1-32 (Martin, Buck, Hopkins, Barnby); First Lesson:
Isaiah 52, vv 7-15; Office Hymn: The Lord whom earth and sea and sky (Veni redemptor);
Canticles: The Second
Service (Byrd); Second
Lesson: Luke I,vv26-38a; Anthem: A Hymn to the Virgin (Britten); Hymn: Sing we of the Blessed Mother (Abbot's Leigh): Litany with Ave Maria (Lindley); Organ
Voluntary: Fantasia (Gibbons).
Director Richard Seal.
Organist David Halls.

[mw963]

The whole recording of Salisbury 1993 is now on Dropbox.

Rather than making the link public (which I suspect is poor netiquette) I suggest that if anyone does want to hear it they drop me a PM and I'll supply the details.

Although from the lack of response to my previous I'm not sure there's much of an appetite.

I've also located the early 90's recording of St Mary's Warwick.

[ardcarp]

I shall look forward to hearing it, mw, once I have sussed Dropbox! Great that you have put it there. Thanks.