About the Boys (R4)

[jean]

I assume everyone is listening, but here's a link in case you missed it:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03mfvlc

[Magnificat]

I assume everyone is listening, but here's a link in case you missed it:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03mfvlc

I liked the thoughts and images conjured up of all those little savages shooting at wild pigs with bows and arrows being tamed and civilised by being taught to sing!!

VCC

[decantor]

I liked the thoughts and images conjured up of all those little savages shooting at wild pigs with bows and arrows being tamed and civilised by being taught to sing!!
VCC

Yes indeed - except that Golding feared the reverse process, where the singing of 'Kyrie' became the chanting of 'Kill the pig!'. But his concern over the temporary nature of civilisation was wider than that of mere boys.

What I liked about the programme was its assumption that the boy's voice actually is distinctive - there was even a whiff of scientific corroboration in the 'ring' at 3KHz and 8KHz. There was also some common sense offered about the appeal of the boy's voice, about how Britten and others used it, and about its changed nature in recent decades. Even Martin Ashley, whose book ("How High....?") seemed to offer excuses for choristers not to sing in the traditional format, weighed in with encouraging remarks; indeed, all the contributors were enthusiastic, including the boys themselves.

Chris Gabbitas made good use of his 30 mins. It was not a weighty programme about first principles, and it said nothing about whence trebles spring, but it covered a lot of ground in a sensible way, all of it positive. Yet it was twelve hours after the thread was opened before Mag made the first comment. Are boarders in The Choir really so insouciant of boys' singing? Or was the programme duller than I thought? Or did the celebration of New Year simply take precedence?

[Mary Chambers]

I hadn't noticed at this was on, so many thanks for drawing attention to it. The title 'About the boys' doesn't immediately make one think it's about trebles.

It was very interesting, even if it didn't really come to any conclusions about the appeal of boys' voices. I suppose it's different for everyone. It is, of course, a very beautiful sound, but there's more to it than that. I liked the comment that it isn't really the sound that makes the effect (or at least not only the sound), but the fact that it is boys making the sound. "It's about civilising the male". That rang a bell with me. I have two sons, one of whom could have been a good singer. The angel voice did not seem to go naturally with the Just William character of the child! It's the contrast that is magical.

I do think it's something to do with the voice's impermanence, and also the impermanence of a young boy's beauty. However handsome he may grow to be, no man can quite equal that. (In today's climate, that may be thought an 'inappropriate' remark. I don't think so.)

[amateur51]

I hadn't noticed at this was on, so many thanks for drawing attention to it. The title 'About the boys' doesn't immediately make one think it's about trebles.

It was very interesting, even if it didn't really come to any conclusions about the appeal of boys' voices. I suppose it's different for everyone. It is, of course, a very beautiful sound, but there's more to it than that. I liked the comment that it isn't really the sound that makes the effect (or at least not only the sound), but the fact that it is boys making the sound. "It's about civilising the male". That rang a bell with me. I have two sons, one of whom could have been a good singer. The angel voice did not seem to go naturally with the Just William character of the child! It's the contrast that is magical.

I do think it's something to do with the voice's impermanence, and also the impermanence of a young boy's beauty. However handsome he may grow to be, no man can quite equal that. (In today's climate, that may be thought an 'inappropriate' remark. I don't think so.)

Very astute comments, Mary - many thanks.

[jean]

What I liked about the programme was its assumption that the boy's voice actually is distinctive - there was even a whiff of scientific corroboration in the 'ring' at 3KHz and 8KHz.

What struck me first as I listened was the word unique - this came up the last time the subject was discussed:

As a matter of interest (taking up one or two of the comments under the article, not here), if a boy treble sounds both different and unique, what does an 11-year-old girl sound like that makes her not unique?

The subsequent discussion wasn't helped by a few misunderstandings, but no satisfactory definition of unique was reached, I thought.

I wondered about Mary's point here, which wasn't explicitly made in the previous discussion:

...I do think it's something to do with the voice's impermanence...

Or is it that are girls genetically so safe and circumscribed and well-behaved that they can never provide the frisson of the tamed savage?

The programme suggested that, as Mary does here:

The angel voice did not seem to go naturally with the Just William character of the child! It's the contrast that is magical.

and Draco in the previous discussion:

...Britten...makes his boys sound like BOYS, who can be rowdy, play football, fight, and yet can sing as if butter would not melt etc. To my ears, girl-led ensembles can sound secure and angelic, but don't often sound as if they got dirty, kicked footballs around and bloodied noses...

[amateur51]

Very astute comments, Mary - many thanks.

And yours jean

[Magnificat]

I do think it's something to do with the voice's impermanence, and also the impermanence of a young boy's beauty. However handsome he may grow to be, no man can quite equal that. (In today's climate, that may be thought an 'inappropriate' remark. I don't think so.)

Mary,

What you say is so very true.

I was impressed that Christopher Gabbitas was not afraid to talk about inappropriate actions surrounding choristers and child protection. He could quite easily have avoided this topic altogether.

VCC.

[doversoul1]

Thank you jean for posting the link. I found the programme very interesting. But why was this not on Radio3?

[terratogen]

A very interesting listen. Like Jean, I would be interested to hear more about the use of the word unique, which comes up almost as much as the perhaps more fuzzy and troubling pure in the discussion of boys' voices. I would have to dig them out of my notes to check, but I have somewhere measurements of cadaveric larynges of pre- through peri-pubescent children and spectrograms of the voices of the boy and girl trebles at a certain English cathedral (Wells?), and if I'm remembering correctly, there wasn't much that was glaringly "unique" about the boys as a unit compared to the girls as a unit. (Though, of course, each individual boy will have a unique voice compared to that of the boy beside him.) Even where statistically significant physiological and acoustical differences do begin to creep in, it seems, as so many people both here and on the programme have suggested, that it's in many respects adults and their powers of ascription that really give cultural power to boys' voices. Mary's comment about adults' locating of boys as beautiful subjects rings true, and looking at the ways in which more and more choirs are advertising their recordings and tours, promoters are beginning to capitalise on that in earnest.

It's been my (completely unscientific, very tiny n) observation that in places where a DoM is more emphatic about the fundamental differences between boys' and girls' voices, his peer boys and girls will tend to sound quite different indeed; where he regards them more as equals, it's not uncommon for him to nurture more similar sounds in the boys' line and in the girls'. I'm reminded of unrelated studies in which adult participants, left to interact with an infant after having been either correctly informed, misled, or left in the dark as to the sex of the child, overwhelmingly interact more physically with the "boys" and present the "boys" with "boy toys" and the "girls" with "girl toys." I wonder if that's here to stay.

Thanks for drawing attention to this short but interesting piece. What a nice surprise for the New Year.

[ardcarp]

Anyone remember Gabbitas Thring? Now just called Gabbitas, I think.
(Sorry....off topic as usual.)

[DracoM]

Is the very high singing boy treble a particular feature of European, and even more obviously Northern European choirs / music? Is the boy treble voice as prized in other cultures?

[Keraulophone]

Anyone remember Gabbitas-Thring?

Once useful for finding temporary teaching posts in bijou prep and out-of-the-way 'public' schools.

[ardcarp]

...and now brokering quite a lot of posts abroad, e.g. in India.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

the prog about Hollywood's Secret Voices last night on BBC4 told the story of how a girl sang Oliver in the film score, she had a better boy's voice apparently


my guess is that properly constituted blind trials on voices would have the same falabbergastingly fair outcomes that blind auditions now provide for the major more enlightened orchestral ensembles .... and that few if any judges would do much better than 50/50 at ascribing gender to an unseen voice