I was a little disappointed this month when I visited one of my longitudinal case study boys to carry out the three monthly assessment. He’d been looking forwards to a cathedral singing week organised by, let’s say a “well known organisation” but had decided not to go because they’d decided allow girls on the course as well. According to his mother, a lot of other boys had withdrawn too. I don’t know how true that was, but I do know (and felt) how real this boy’s disappointment was. There is something we can call the 90/90 rule. If you introduce girls to what was previously a boys only singing activity, it’s 90% likely that 90% of the boys will eventually leave and you’ll end up with a choir that’s 90% girls. How many times does this have to be reiterated?
Not that we get everything right ourselves! I’ve written quite a lot about vocal agency – the way a boy chooses his singing range as opposed to accepting what nature has given him at the particular time. This leads to boys who still have treble voices trying to sing down an octave too soon and it equally leads to boys who once had good treble voices continuing to sing in falsetto when they should have changed to a lower part some time ago. Between these two extremes there is genuine leeway for agency as the singing voice never perfectly matches the speaking voice, particularly during the time of change. Well, here we are carefully assessing all our boys in Cambiata North West and allocating them to treble, cambiata I, cambiata II or baritone on the basis of their current stage of voice change. Do they go meekly to the allocated section? No – these are boys! They want to be with their mates. If Boy A is a cambiata but Boy A’s mates are baritone, then Boy is a “baritone” in spite of the fact that Boy A is staring at a computer screen which clearly shows cambiata in the test he’s just done. I should have known…
To finish upbeat, here are two good things to publicise. Christopher Bell has sent me the latest publication offering from NYCOS. It’s called Going for Gold and it’s an 18 minute “sports cantata” that is written very much with boys in mind (and, dare I say, a certain event occurring during 2012). It’s in unison and fits the Cambiata I range comfortably. An absolutely ideal piece for Y7 and Y8 boys. We will certainly try it in CNW. Penny Watson has sent me her recently completed doctoral thesis from New Zealand. It’s called Stereotype Threat and Adolescent Males in Choirs: A Reflection of Gender Beliefs? and is a very welcome addition to the library of good research on boys’ singing. I shall be adding it to the recent dissertations and monographs on boys’ changing voices page of my website very soon.
