Singing voices

In my experience cathedrals do have separate choirs for boys and girls. Boys (young ones!) are more likely to join a boys’s choir than one with girls in it. Of course, things may have changed since my singing days.

There have always been male altos in cathedral choirs, which were usually all male. Singing alto is a sort of vocal trick for men, who tend to be natural baritones. Lady tenors are a new thing, though. Choirs can rarely get enough male tenors - it’s a difficult range for the average man.

If girls are trained like boys they can sound very similar, though just before a boy’s voice breaks it can have power and strength that girls rarely have.. If girls are expected to sing in a ‘ladylike’ way, heaven help us, they will sound very different from boys.

Boys' voices are quite distinctive from girls' voices, so most cathedrals have boys' and girls' choirs.

I think at around 7-9 there is not much difference, but that certainly changes over the next few years. Having a mixed choir may well lead to fewer boys, as they drop out earlier when their voices break, and it doesn’t work to have an imbalance of older girls. I think the reasons for separate choirs are more than just the voices sounding different.

A counter-tenor is a unique sound.

Yes, it's a different skill because they're singing falsetto. It's a manipulation of the voice.

DH was a chorister at Christ's Hospital. His voice broke around 13 years old, but he was lucky that it settled quickly as a tenor. He sings in cathedral choirs, he is called a Lay Clerk.

Then, of course, we have the castrati, from 16th century Italy up until early 20th century I think when it was banned.

Our local cathedral choir is mixed male and female in all parts except bass. It does not sound any different from before girls were admitted. The mix works. But I do think girls and boys only choirs do sound different. Our choral society has female tenors.
There are some famous male sopranos who sound wonderful.

My local cathedral has its first lady alto Lay Clerk.

In the modern age, girls' cathedral choirs were introduced to give the boys a rest for a day or two!! I believe girl choristers now outnumber boys.

I don't want to get political here, that's not my agenda, but the fees at our cathedral school are £5,000+ a term. It worries me that voice training becomes the realm of the wealthy, though the church is of course quite generous with bursaries.

Has anyone come a ross the concept of “voicing”?
Some years ago now, our MD listened to a group of about 5 voices at a time, then awarded each singer a colour code. He moved people around depending on the colour= timbre of their voice. The results were noticeable. Everyone blended so much better.
I haven’t come across this recently.

Escaped, is it necessary for choristers to attend that fee-paying school? Do they get bursaries?
My local cathedral does not have a separate school. The Minster school is a state C of E school, open to all.

Yes, it's a choir school Cabbie21 and independent. Pupils go through a selection procedure and the number of places is limited. A Choristership, like a scholarship, allows for a 25% reduction on day school fees. It's a big commitment in terms of money and way of life.

I haven't heard of the colour voicing concept. Sounds innovative.

Never heard of a lady tenor

There’s a load of really interesting research on the Internet that’s been carried out by different Universities and Institutes.

Too lengthy to cite all of it but there is more to difference male/female than pitch and range.

Two findings that particularly struck me were that females have a larger cavity n the throat that gives their voices a softer, more breathy quality regardless of pitch. The act of breathing is biologically different.

The second was that the University of Sheffield carried out brain research on listeners rather than singers and found that different parts of the listeners brains became active depending on whether they were hearing female or male voices singing, again regardless of pitch and tone and obviously the listeners weren’t told which was which.

But unconsciously the brain could identify the difference.
In particular, the male brain lit up at the front when hearing a female voice, in areas of visualisation and at the back when hearing a male voice in areas of comparison.

Fascinating to think that our reactions to voices and the composition and balance of choirs can be unconscious but very real just the same. And that those exceptionally skilled choir leaders probably act unconsciously as well as employing all their knowledge and experience.