CE Guildford Cathedral 14th March 2012

[orbis factor]

QUOTE[a] you make the mistake of assuming that contributors to this forum are 'amateurs' and not in possession of 'educated opinion'. In fact. many who contribute here are indeed now in or have been in the profession, and from much experience, I would suggest that many are more knowledgeable than a good many of the 'professionals'. You may not like what they say, and I can share some of those sentiments, but here there is a wide spectrum of agreement and disagreement - and I would humbly advise against such sweeping bromides.

What do you mean by professional? Are you a professional?

[pole_2_pole]

'Campaign for the Traditional Cathedral Choir' anyone?

As Bob Dylan penned, "the times they are a changin'...". Too bloody right, and about time people got off their high horses about boys' voices and accepted that girls are allowed the same share of it all.

[Beancounter]

Firstly, very well done Guildford. Splendid sound, and I especially enjoyed the introit.

Secondly, DracoM, I disagree with every point that you have made, but rather than risk personal offence by responding too exactingly point-by-point in my first post, allow me to state a contrasting view:

Your arguments appear to be predicated on the fear that the recruitment of girl trebles is to the direct and indirect detriment of the recruitment of boys by limiting the total number of exclusive opportunities to perform, broadcast and tour. Not only is this unhelpful and dispiriting, I think it is wrong.

It is mistaken to implicitly believe the number of opportunities to perform is finite, and that consequently girls minimise these for boys by being more involved in worship. Logically, this is a limited argument and certainly to my knowledge does not have much evidence to support it. Perhaps we may see an increase in the number of sung services given the right vocal resources without exhausting just one set of choristers. Moreover, the additional revenue earned by increasing numbers can fund more tours, recording and concerts, particularly at seasonal times when choral music enjoys particular cultural associations. And the benefit of a few more rest days for both boys and girls should be obvious for maintaining a well trained, non-overworked voice.

Fundamentally, however, I believe one of the principal barriers (as with getting children into any form of classical music) is social class: unfortunately, in my view, classical and choral music are still perceived as being the exclusive cultural preserve of the middle classes, which can seriously deter children from lower income backgrounds (whether of musical parents or not) from applying (or it even occurring to them). Consequently, it surely makes sense to broaden the recruitment base in order to ensure the greatest possible number of trebles can continue and develop the tradition. In the longer term, I hope this results in greater numbers of choral music lovers, who do not associate it exclusively with belief and, indeed, social hierarchy. With increasing numbers of institutions engaging in outreach work, thereby expanding the mission of a local cathedral, this is a more realisable vision than in previous generations.

Therefore, given the right financial management (not a plug), the increased role of both boys and girls can work to increase the appeal of choral music to future generations of choristers and listeners. As long as this is seen from an exclusively traditionalist perspective, the potential (but realistic) benefits may be overlooked.

[DracoM]

As host, can I welcome you to The Choir forum, beancounter. I hope you find much to enjoy and contest in your stay.

And, btw, my long post was outlining a case, a series of thoughts gleaned from observing arguments put on this Forum over the last two or more years and back on the R3 mbs as well, and trying to understand the rationale behind them, and actually they are not necessarily my own views.

You put the way a DoM / D&C might look at it very cogently. So we have the principles laid out on both sides. Thanks.

[ardcarp]

Fundamentally, however, I believe one of the principal barriers (as with getting children into any form of classical music) is social class: unfortunately, in my view, classical and choral music are still perceived as being the exclusive cultural preserve of the middle classes, which can seriously deter children from lower income backgrounds

Welcome from me too, and how I agree with the above. I have been banging on about it for ages. Are you surprised however when I say that my g-daughters' primarly school of 360 has no choir and no music specialist? Boys don't sing there. Not many girls either, come to that.

As a patriarch (!) of a family of singing females, both choristers and choral exhibitioners, I am thoroughly in favour of girls' singing in chors both cathedral and otherwise. I'm even in favour of mixed treble lines on occasion (shock horror). But I feel I need to say a word in support of those regular contributors to The Choir forum who are staunch supporters of the all-male choir. It is a rather special heritage. I guess their fear is that, put simply, girls will drive out boys. I do not quite agree, but can see their point as boys of a certain age certainly think, behave and respond differently from girls and there is a unique 'chemistry' in the all-male choir which those who have sung in them will readily recognise.

So I'm trying to have it both ways, really. But welcome agian, beancounter.

[Double Diapason]

To my ears girls can never make the same sound as well trained boys. I am certainly no misogynist but I would rather hear the all male sound whenever I listen to any cathedral choir. I believe that if properly handled that girls will not drive out boys and indeed there should be healthy competition between each team. I strongly object to mixing them though as that WILL drive boys out. I am sure that if girls had have been admitted to the choir I sang in as a boy it would have had a negative effect on my motivation and effort.
PV's comment about amateurs is complete twaddle and I cant agree with Beancounter's comment; "And the benefit of a few more rest days for both boys and girls should be obvious for maintaining a well trained, non-overworked voice". The fact is if you are doing it right daily singing will NOT over work your voice, indeed it will do it nothing but good!! Any children who show strain from daily singing have been trained incorrectly and their DoM's should hang their heads............

[Magnificat]

Fundamentally, however, I believe one of the principal barriers (as with getting children into any form of classical music) is social class: unfortunately, in my view, classical and choral music are still perceived as being the exclusive cultural preserve of the middle classes, which can seriously deter children from lower income backgrounds (whether of musical parents or not) from applying (or it even occurring to them). Consequently, it surely makes sense to broaden the recruitment base in order to ensure the greatest possible number of trebles can continue and develop the tradition. In the longer term, I hope this results in greater numbers of choral music lovers, who do not associate it exclusively with belief and, indeed, social hierarchy. With increasing numbers of institutions engaging in outreach work, thereby expanding the mission of a local cathedral, this is a more realisable vision than in previous generations.

Beancounter,

As far as cathedral choirs are concerned the problem with trying to expand the recruitment base is that the working class do not go to church and never have done in any great numbers in this country. This is the real cultural problem that has to be overcome. Frankly it is impossible and we just have to accept that it will always be the middle classes ( and occasionally the upper class - I wonder why this is? ) who will provide our choristers.

VCC

[Magnificat]

I do not know a single person in the business of Cathedral music who is not committed to the success of children's singing, meaning all children. There is simply no question of boys or girls being squeezed out. It is also inappropriate to use forums such as these to offer (amateur) opinions to those who are the professionals.
PV

pienvoce,

I wouldn't be so complacent about this.

I wonder whether many cathedral DoMs have the necessary skills, drive and determination to really put the effort into devising the recruitment and retention strategies necessary to attract boys these days which in some places will mean ensuring that there is a lot more going on for them than just the singing.

In some places DoMs are already using the excuse that the boys' commitment is too heavy and militates against keeping them and their parents on board when they don't sing anywhere near as much as they used to anyway and as a result use the girls in the daily run of services more often and at every opportunity.

Anyone who really cares about maintaining the great tradition of the English cathedral choir of boys and men has to say that it is too important to leave it just to the professional musicians.

If cathedral Deans and Chapters do care about it they should be keeping a close watch on their music department and providing the necessary help and support to the DoM in every possible way ( including the help of non - musicians where necessary) to ensure that recruitment of boys is successful. Or will they simply be content that the girls will always be there to provide a decent top line for their choir?

VCC

[terratogen]

I strongly object to mixing them though as that WILL drive boys out. I am sure that if girls had have been admitted to the choir I sang in as a boy it would have had a negative effect on my motivation and effort.

If this is true—and I don't doubt that it is, in many cases and in many places—then it is symptomatic of a much larger issue that needs to be addressed before we can see in earnest to the sometimes daunting task of encouraging boys of a certain age to sing in liturgical choirs.

I don't think that the concerns about girl and boy choristers are ever outright, explicitly misogynistic. How could they be? We live in a world that is growing less and less tolerant of misogyny's more outrageous presentations. No British father—at least no British father I would ever hope to know or be—is explicitly going to encourage his son to be a literal woman-hater, and no school worth its funding is going to tell its boys directly that their female peers are somehow beneath them.

But misogyny doesn't need to be overt to be dangerous— dangerous, in this case, to the survival of these much-beloved choirs. The subtle sort of misogyny that comes from growing up in a historically patriarchal society is perhaps more damaging for being less obvious. When 2.5 million people take to Youtube to insult a teenage pop singer for—horror of horrors—'sounding like a girl'; or when well-meaning choir schools emphasise that despite being singers, their boy choristers are 'just normal boys' ('They play football and yell, after all!'); or when certain organisations try to mask misogyny with personal preference ('All choristers are equal, but some choristers are more equal than others; and, by the way, we don't want to spend money to fund or time to listen to the girl choristers, and they really had better leave our music alone')... well— children are sponges; they get the idea.

And as long as they continue to get that idea; and as long as boys continue to associate girls and femininity with weakness, low worth and negativity; and as long as we operate in a system that associates boys with sport and wildness (etc.) and girls with art and orderliness (etc); boys are going to learn to consider collaborating with girls less worthy of their social energy and time, and they might very well flee the choirs at the first sight of their female peers. Everyone loses.

If the presence of a flourishing group of girl choristers threatens and/or discourages the boy choristers enough that the boys would abandon their musical/spiritual interests and communities, we have a serious social problem that can only be temporarily staved off by insulating the boys in their traditional position of predominance and privilege within choral foundations. If we're to keep boys singing in these and other choirs for the long-term, we're going to have to re-think the ways in which we condition boys and girls to respond to and interact with one another. How to go about doing that is, of course, another matter altogether.

[Gabriel Jackson]

Beancounter,

As far as cathedral choirs are concerned the problem with trying to expand the recruitment base is that the working class do not go to church and never have done in any great numbers in this country. This is the real cultural problem that has to be overcome. Frankly it is impossible and we just have to accept that it will always be the middle classes ( and occasionally the upper class - I wonder why this is? ) who will provide our choristers.

VCC

The first statement isn't actually true (well...maybe in St Albans, but not where I live!). And 100 years or so ago an awful lot of the boys who sang in liturgical choirs were working-class kids, as were the men, particualrly in provincial cathedrals. When/why did that change, I wonder...?

[DracoM]

Chapel / Methodism / non-conformism in working class areas? Working class have not often been great cathedral worshippers. Doesn't mean they don't 'go to church', just not in cathedrals. RC cathedrals tend to be different.

[jean]

Chapel / Methodism / non-conformism in working class areas? Working class have not often been great cathedral worshippers. Doesn't mean they don't 'go to church', just not in cathedrals. RC cathedrals tend to be different.

Well, yes; all those working-class Irish Catholics...

I know the Oxford Movement intended to draw in working-class congregations with magnificent ritual - and perhaps lure them away from Catholicism, hence many of their most spectacular churches being in working-class areas. I'm not sure how far this worked, though.

(Is that the Katherine Dienes who was organist at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral some years ago?)

[Tenebrae]

To my ears girls can never make the same sound as well trained boys. I am certainly no misogynist but I would rather hear the all male sound whenever I listen to any cathedral choir. I believe that if properly handled that girls will not drive out boys and indeed there should be healthy competition between each team. I strongly object to mixing them though as that WILL drive boys out. I am sure that if girls had have been admitted to the choir I sang in as a boy it would have had a negative effect on my motivation and effort.
PV's comment about amateurs is complete twaddle and I cant agree with Beancounter's comment; "And the benefit of a few more rest days for both boys and girls should be obvious for maintaining a well trained, non-overworked voice". The fact is if you are doing it right daily singing will NOT over work your voice, indeed it will do it nothing but good!! Any children who show strain from daily singing have been trained incorrectly and their DoM's should hang their heads............

Well there is such a disparity of opinion on here that I felt compelled to join in. I agree with most of DD's second paragraph; professional & amateur opinions are equally valid and many a professional is blinkered in a way that amateurs frequently are not, and I also doubt that the sharing of the workload between boys and girls is either needed or has much of an impact on 'tired' voices, though it may allow extra time to learn additional repertoire.

But I am alarmed by his first paragraph and am pretty sure that numerous experiments & examples have led us to realise that girls can be trained (should one so wish) to mimic exactly the sound of similar aged boys. Having followed this forum in the past I have no wish to give extra fuel to Lizzie's Winchester bias, but there they have a slightly older girl's top line I believe, which is not only absolutely first class and quite possibly the equal of the boys line there but also produces a very similar sound - though I would wager that is because they are trained in exactly the same way rather than because the DoM wishes to confuse the casual listener!

[ardcarp]

And 100 years or so ago an awful lot of the boys who sang in liturgical choirs were working-class kids, as were the men, particualrly in provincial cathedrals. When/why did that change, I wonder...?

I do remember as a student (not quite 100 years ago) seeing occasional adverts ...I seem to remember Lincoln as one example...on the lines of; 'Bass Lay Vicar . Some cathedral maintenance duties required. Knowledge of plumbing would be an advantage.'

On the subject of Anglo-Catholic churches being in working class inner city areas, I recall one in Brum, St Alban the Martyr Conybere St, where the priests (birettas, bells, smells and all) ministered faithfully to a 'deprived' neighbourhood. Splendid people.

[Lizzie]

Jean - Yes, the very same! Liz