Boys and mens choirs

[drspouse]

I know they are less common now than they were but watching Carols from Kings has made me think about this.
When I was a child I was in a girls-only CofE choir, so SSA. It was unusual at the time. Children who sing in good quality church choirs (cathedrals etc) get a really good grounding for a career in music and I'm assuming still get scholarships to schools and colleges. Yet some are still only open to boys and men.
Where I live as an adult there is a big church with two very good choirs: boys and men, and girls and the same men. I believe the younger men get a small stipend (beer money for the student types) and of course both the upper voices and tenors could be sung by women. Again it's an intensive singing training that young women can't get.
My understanding is that girls only sing very solely differently to boys due to socialisation before puberty (girls learn to sing like other girls). And I imagine that some girls sing in a more "boy" manner.
So how is this still possible? Especially for school/college age, when it's not a club of like minded adults?

I was told by a former cathedral organist that boys voices are different. I cant hear a difference but Im happy to be corrected. There are more girls and mixed choirs now but yes its still mostly boys that get the opportunities. So the new choir gets evensong once a week and the boys choir gets the rest. Not equal by any stretch of the imagination but better than 20 years ago yes.

I live in Denmark. The choral tradition is almost non existant. The bbc equivalent however has several choirs, and the girls choir is really the equivalent of Kings college. I sang with their junior choir and the adults. There were 4 boys amongst 46 girls.

It would be nice to have more all female choirs but I don't want to see all male choirs die out either.

I wonder if girls in the culture of a boys' choir would grow to sound more like them?

Many of the cathedrals now have girls choirs of equal status. (Except the London ones I think) I often here Liverpool Metropolitan cathedrals girls choir and think they are better than the boys.

• hear!

It still says the boys sing 5 times and the girls twice...

Loads of choirs where I live. I sing with a women's a capella group (about 40-50 of us, SSAA usually), we have a brother men's a capella choir (about 15, 3-4 sections depending on the song), there's the overall mixed a capella town choir (about 70 strong, a lot of overlap into the single-sex choirs, 3-6 sections), and a children's 7-17yo choir which is mixed. We're affiliated to the cathedral via the musical director but not religious. The cathedral has all it's own choirs too, and our MD runs at least four more local mixed groups that I know of.

My choir does a lot of gigs and we compete, and the vast majority of other choirs are mixed or women's when they're "for fun", iyswim. I don't know how the cathedral choir works but some of the kids in my school are in it, I'll have to ask. Hardly any women-only choirs, which is a shame - there seems to be an age gap for men, too, they stop singing at high school (my dd13's school choir is all girls) and don't go back to it til past 40. Unless they're musicians or active in the church.

Hardly any men-only choirs, that should be

Bet the balance is different in Wales!

Adult single sex choirs definitely should both exist - they're different to each other and to mixed voices.

I don't know enough about choristers, whether mixed genuinely equal but separate would be the way to go. I think there are still inequities in some cathedral schools only giving choral scholarships to boys.

That should say mixed or genuinely equal...

I was told recently that young girls don't sing soprano because it strains the voice - instead they sing alto. Boys nearly always have a limited shelf life, so preservation of the voice is not so important as capturing the moment. Older girls/women sing soprano if their voices allow. Or so I heard. Maybe that's crap to appease the girls.

What is SSA and SSAA?

Two soprano parts and one or two alto parts?

Soprano/Alto (varying numbers of parts).
I don't think there are any college choral scholarships for women at all, either.
Ris maybe that's new - my choir had quite young girls as sopranos.

The situation is much better than it was 20 years ago; I still remember what a big deal it was when Salisbury Cathedral set up the first cathedral girls' choir, and now most cathedrals have them. But all the big-name choirs are boys only: King's, St John's Cambridge, Magdalen, New College, Temple, Westminster Abbey, St Paul's. It's outrageous and there is no justification for it apart from tradition and patriarchy.

Exactly.
Plus as I say the lack of semi-professional opportunities for women.

I would be very sorry to see boys' choirs become mixed - when a choir starts having girls in it very quickly becomes majority girls. I think it's important to get boys into music and this is one way it happens. Plus I can definitely hear the difference and it is an important English choral tradition.

There are choral scholarships for women at the good mixed Oxbridge college choirs - Clare, Trinity, Caius etc. But of course women don't get to sing at cathedrals at all (apart from in voluntary choirs which are generally of a lower standard and sing once a week at most).

I had the exact same thought in the car earlier op listening to the Wells Cathedral Choir on Classic FM.

Local large churches here take and pay girl choristers.

Boys do have a clarity of sound which I have no idea how it generates it but there is a difference.

There has to be a place for single sex choirs and mixed. All generate a different sound which has a place in choral music. For example, Messiah sounds great with a mixed choir, but some pieces definitely benefit from the sound of a chamber choir.

Wincher, it's totally possible for colleges and cathedrals to have both a boys' choir and a separate girls' choir, as most cathedrals do now. In fact it's more sensible, as they can share the services between them, rather than the boys doing 6 or 7 services a week, which is a massive commitment.

I don't know about the soprano girls thing. Dd's choir is definitely soprano and alto - she has vocal lessons and right now can take parys from either section, but she'll probably mature into an alto 1 like me. Our MD says the opposite - that singing too low can strain your voice. I was considering dropping to alto 2 as I can do the range, but figured I'd stay where I was after he said that.

That's good news Irene but our local almost-cathedral is also of the women only in the really awful occasional choir.
Wincher there are still, for example, many more male composers. A 4 part choir is a wonderful training for composition and arrangement.

www.theguardian.com/music/2018/dec/06/lesley-garrett-says-kings-college-choir-must-accept-girls

I am Welsh and we obviously have a great tradition of male voice choirs. I love them, and I like the different sound of a single sex choir. (I sing in a mixed sex choir) .
Boys voices are different from girls’ . There is a different sound, not more beautiful, but different. Hence the history of the castrati, they didn’t sound the same as women. In my mixed sex choir women sing tenor parts along with men, but the male sound is very different, even singing the same part.