Boy and Girl Choristers R4 Today

[jonfan]

Just caught up with this after hearing the totally inadequate piece on Today. Reading BBC Music Mag's excellent feature on SC and King's in the December issue it seems likely that the new DOM will be encouraged very strongly to set up a girls' choir at King's on a par with the boys' in the near future, with no hint of it being second best. Such places as King's, St John's, Westminster Abbey and St Paul's are way behind in giving equal opportunity to girls. Truro and Salisbury are proof that equal opportunities work without detriment to the recruitment of boys to the choir schools.
I'm all for being politically correct as the opposite means someone's at a disadvantage as a result of unfair bias.

[ardcarp]

...and I remember well Salisbury's first broadcast CE with girl choristers, directed by the splendid Richard Seal.

[MrGongGong]

Just caught up with this after hearing the totally inadequate piece on Today. Reading BBC Music Mag's excellent feature on SC and King's in the December issue it seems likely that the new DOM will be encouraged very strongly to set up a girls' choir at King's on a par with the boys' in the near future, with no hint of it being second best. Such places as King's, St John's, Westminster Abbey and St Paul's are way behind in giving equal opportunity to girls. Truro and Salisbury are proof that equal opportunities work without detriment to the recruitment of boys to the choir schools.
I'm all for being politically correct as the opposite means someone's at a disadvantage as a result of unfair bias.

I don't think it's got anything to do with being "politically correct" (which means completely different things to different people) but to do with equity and visibility.


Where will it end though? We might even allow women to actually COMPOSE music ? ....

[jonfan]

...and I remember well Salisbury's first broadcast CE with girl choristers, directed by the splendid Richard Seal.

Yes I have a copy. They started with Gabriel’s Message and ended with Ave Maria of Lindley. Magnificent
I turned down an interview with RS in the sixties deciding to stay in Yorkshire. Ah well.

[ardcarp]

Where will it end though? We might even allow women to actually COMPOSE music ?

Unnecessary sarcasm there, Gongers. Composition is an area where women have had a level playing field for some time now. I hardly need enumerate the 20th and 21st century women composers.

[Keraulophone]

Judith Weir - Master of the Queen's Music.

[MrGongGong]

Unnecessary sarcasm there, Gongers. Composition is an area where women have had a level playing field for some time now. I hardly need enumerate the 20th and 21st century women composers.

We certainly have made some advances but I wouldn't go as far as to say "level"

[Serial_Apologist]

I would think the problem of transitioning from pre- to post-voice break can be managed without social and psychological detriment to boy choristers, or boys in general, as they undergo the change. Against my father's insistence that his own voice had been "wrecked" by having to remain in the school choir as his voice was breaking, and that I should not have to undergo a similar experience, I was moved successively through the alto and tenor ranks until at age 16 I arrived as a bass, thus allowing myself the opportunity to become conversant both theoretically and at an invaluable level with the intricacies of intermediary lines in music in general composed in four lines, occasionally more where we were further subdivided, and although I was in general a much shyer personality than I now am, I don't remember experiencing embarrassments or humiliations from my peers. I had been regarded as the finest boy treble the school had had by our rather ancient assistent choirmaster since the 1930s, and while my young adult voice may not have merited the same positive quality assessment, my experience "at all levels" proved useful enough for me to be made leader of the choir, and this in turn was of inestimable importance in building my self-confidence, in and outside of music.

[ardcarp]

Against my father's insistence that his own voice had been "wrecked" by having to remain in the school choir as his voice was breaking, and that I should not have to undergo a similar experience,

That was (maybe still is) a widely held view. I think possibly if a breaking voice is 'forced' e.g. by bellowing out a tenor line before its time, this could happen. But in your case SA, as in mine, I went gently through alto into my 'adult' voice which turned out as a tenor.

It is something of a biological lottery as to whether one's adult voice turns out as good as (or maybe even better than?) one's pre-adolescent voice. Going on probability alone, if you were a stunning treble the chances are against you becoming an equally stunning A, T or B. which maybe what gave rise to your father's and others' 'advice'.

Incidentally, the 'change-in-voice' thing does not apply just to males. Whilst girls' voices don't 'break' in the same way, they often change at adolescence and early adulthood. It's possible for a girl with a high treble head-voice register to turn into a warm, rich mezzo. And even those whose 'register' doesn't change will almost always develop more power and depth of tone.

Since the thread-title is about girls' and boys' voices, I'd just say that the main difference between them (though this is not always the case) is that a typical boy's voice in the year or two approaching the 'break' will do a natural crescendo as it ascends the scale and is capable of some awesome high notes. Pre-adolescent girls OTOH don't necessarily do this...though they may do after their maturity. Female choral scholars (18 - 21) therefore can produce a pretty fair simulacrum of a traditional treble line, provided they don't wobble, and will bring their wider experience to bear.

As you probably gathered I have taught singing, and the above is necessarily something of a generalisation. I had a terrific time as a boy treble, and I'd hate to think that the opportunities I had should in anyway be missing for a future generation.

[french frank]

I wonder whether more work is being done on this outside the religious foundations, where the simple wish to maintain the tradition of boy choristers is enough to discourage any attempt to change? People treasure the tradition which they want to see continue, in spite of the many others changes that take place over time.

I found this video interesting - not at all the repertoire of the Anglican cathedral, but there was one young boy who said he sang in Southwark cathedral which he enjoyed 'immensely', and he would never have had the confidence to be a chorister there without this training. Boys are gently encouraged through their voice change which I felt was thought of as a very positive experience, rather than a problem. Yes, the boys sing apart from the girls at times when this is seen to be preferable, but the aim is not to keep them apart but to "Keep boys singing" - confidently.

I'm sure for some the sole aim is to preserve an ancient tradition, unchanged; as I see it what is also being preserved is centuries-old discrimination. Stalemate?

[ardcarp]

On a matter of fairly recent history, it was considered desirable that young ladies should sing with an oh-so-feminine warble. I know this because my grandmother and my mother said that this was how they were taught (c1890s and 1920s respectively) and were expected to sing. It was only in the 1960s and 70s that young women using a 'straight' voice became abundant, at first in Renaissance polyphony groups such as The Clerkes of Oxenford and then generally in the HIPP movement. This may have gone hand-in-hand with the closing down of many boys' choirs in the Oxbridge colleges (think Exeter College, Oxford or Gonville & Caius, Cambridge). All (well, nearly all) church music from the so-called Golden Age was written with boys' voices in mind, but many modern mixed voice ensembles nowadays sing this repertory so well that there is nothing un-HIPP about it in my opinion. However one must admire places such as NCO (Higginbottom) and CCCO (Darlington) where they have recorded repertoire that would probably be too extensive (think Eton Choirbook) for most cathedral choirs to spend time on.

[french frank]

I remember an article written by Emma Kirkby on the subject, where her 'white' voice was considered a peculiarity.

It was only in the 1960s and 70s that young women using a 'straight' voice became abundant, at first in Renaissance polyphony groups such as The Clerkes of Oxenford and then generally in the HIPP movement.

[Old Grumpy]

Way back when, 'twas the voice of Emma Kirkby (on CFM, I'm afraid) that sparked my interest in Early and Renaissance music. I thought all professional women singers used a warble and found her voice most refreshing.

OG

[Miles Coverdale]

...and I remember well Salisbury's first broadcast CE with girl choristers, directed by the splendid Richard Seal.

I remember Richard Seal once making the possibly unhelpful observation that the difference between a boy's voice and a girl's voice was like that betweem a Nuits-St-Georges and a Chablis.

[vinteuil]

I remember Richard Seal once making the possibly unhelpful observation that the difference between a boy's voice and a girl's voice was like that betweem a Nuits-St-Georges and a Chablis.

... unhelpful to the point of absurdity. It is obvious that a girl's voice is a romanée-conti, whereas a boy's is a pouilly-fuissé.

.