An Age of Dilemmas

From you, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, 
  The substance of my dreams took fire. 
You built cathedrals in my heart, 
  And lit my pinnacled desire. 
You were the ardour and the bright
  Procession of my thoughts toward prayer. 
You were the wrath of storm, the light 
  On distant citadels aflare

Siegfrid Sassoon

 

 

Beethoven, Bach and Mozart were a taken-for-granted background to the pastoral life of a young squire given to foxhunting, playing cricket, golfing and writing romantic verses.  Later, Sassoon was to find that these dead composers were as meaningless to him as they were to the rank-and-file soldiers who died in the trenches.  The poem ends with the lines “And so the song breaks off; and I’m alone. They’re dead … For God’s sake stop that gramophone.”

Would that there was nothing more to understanding education than reading the first chapter of Matthew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy. Or indeed that Pierre Bourdieu had the last word on cultural capital. As a young student and intending teacher during the early 1970s, my mission in life was simple.  It was to bring sweetness and light to the heathen. Sweetness and light were classical music (or more specifically, classical choral music) and the heathen were schoolboys. This mission survived various teaching practices and my first two school teaching appointments. It began to unravel during my third school teaching appointment as soon as I left the sheltered environment of the cathedral close.

So began a long journey of learning that culminated in a post-doctoral monograph which the publishers insisted on calling Teaching Singing to Boys and Teenagers: the young male voice and the problem of masculinity (Ashley, 2008). I forget what I had wanted to call it, but it was not that. A year later, a more accessible and abbreviated version of this monograph appeared under the title How High Should Boys Sing? (Ashley, 2009). The question has continued to fascinate me and now, fifteen years later and ten years after “retirement” I am still grappling with the possible answers.

The present volume is more than a new edition and update, though some of the themes may be familiar. A new generation of boys has contributed and there are contributions too from some of the generation of 2009 who are now young adults. Equally, a new generation of choral directors and music teachers are confronting perhaps for the first time in their careers issues that are anything but new. Science adds a little more to the understanding of each successive generation, but as far as choral singing by boys is concerned, it has done so at an exponential rate over the last three decades.  Those who work with boys in choral singing can no longer afford to ignore the huge amount that has been learned even since 2009.

The last three decades have seen a significant change in the context for the performance of the works of dead composers by living boys. Most of these performances, in the UK at least, take place in ecclesiastical settings. These may be cathedrals. They may be the chapels of large public (i.e., fee charging) schools. They were once parish churches the length and breadth of the land, though these have dwindled to a negligible few. Strictly speaking, the opus dei, the daily singing of the divine offices, is an act of worship, not a performance. The choirs nevertheless record, broadcast, and take part in significant concerts such as the annual Three Choirs Festival. The change that I have lived through during the decades in which material for this book has been gathered has of course been the introduction of girls to most of these choirs.

I stated at the very outset of the introduction that I have never objected to this change, though some who appeal to tradition have done so. I do not see it as my role to have an opinion on this. My interest in boys and their voices is principally scientific, though also historical. I see my role as that of recording and analysing what is out there in living boys, or what can be found in records of boys who lived in the past. My loyalty is to the dispassionate pursuit of knowledge, and to the closely allied principle of falsification.

The recent upheavals in the order of things, if that is what they are, are far from lacking precedent. The choirs that we know today are themselves the product of major religious upheavals in the nineteenth century. They perform music that is the result of even greater upheavals in the sixteenth century. The one thing that has been relatively constant throughout this time has been boys’ physical bodies. The interest is in how these make wonderful sounds and how choirs have used, understood and treated them.

I tackle this question in three broad sections. In this chapter and the next I consider the position of science and its relationship with traditions of singing that long predate the age of modern voice science. Chapters 3 and 4 look in detail at biological matters concerning the ways boys sing. Chapter 3 deals in some depth with the question of puberty. It is the result as I stated in the introduction of a collaboration with Professor Gary Butler, a consultant paediatric endocrinologist. I have been much encouraged to write it by the reception of what I have had to say at conferences of singing teachers, and by audiences of boys in talks I have given, usually to Y8 (ages 12 and 13) in schools.

Chapter 4 extends this topic through a review of trends in the timing of puberty, again the result of some collaborative work, this time with Dr Anne-Christine Mecke of Leipzig. It is almost certain that the measurable physical events of puberty in a living boy of today differ little if at all from those in boys alive during the sixteenth century.  The rate at which these events progress, however, has been shown to be somewhat variable, sufficiently so to have quite significant impacts upon singing and what we expect boys to be able to do.

Chapter 5 considers the relationship between speaking and singing and thus introduces work on vocal acoustics. Unless incapacitated or elective mutes, all boys speak. Far fewer sing in choirs and fewer still grapple with the issues of performing the works of dead composers. The chapter reveals both gaps in our knowledge and misunderstandings of the knowledge we do possess.

Chapters 6 to 8 look at the operation of what has been learned about the science of voices in practice. The chapters open case studies of currently living boys studied longitudinally. Some of the material here is sociological, harking back to my earlier publication of 2009 and associated papers. The topic of vocal agency, a boy’s will to do as he pleases with his voice, receives some prominence. The greatest amount of space, however, is devoted to analysis of the voices at different stages of growth, a task I did not undertake in 2009.

Finally, Chapters 9 and 10, which are largely the result of my work with Dr Andrew Johnstone, consider all these matters in the historical context of singing ranges different to those of today. I reach the conclusion that as far as dead composers are concerned, the best marriage available is between living boys and those composers who died in the sixteenth century.

 

Voices at thirteen

There is a popular belief that a boy’s voice is at its best in the short period immediately before it “breaks”.  I came across a piece in the Guardian by Aled Jones.

Choir girls have one great advantage, of course: their voices don’t break. It’s so unfair. Especially if, as I was, you are on TV every five minutes having to talk about why your voice hasn’t broken, when you expect it to break, what you’ll do if your voice changes for the worse… By the time it happened, I was ready for a break from being a choirboy: I was so sick of being asked about my voice breaking. In the end, it was hard to tell exactly when it broke; my voice never actually did that squeaky thing where it goes high and low at the same time.

‘Well, I can hear the difference’ | Classical music | The Guardian

He was responding back in 2003 to the publication of the study by Graham Welch and David Howard on “gendered voice in the cathedral choir” (Welch and Howard, 2002). This much cited and valuable study has also become probably one of the most frequently misquoted on the topic. For the record, it did not state that there was no difference between boys’ and girls’ voices. It raised a more complex issue of changes in vocal timbre during puberty, a topic I tackle in considerable depth during this volume. On the subject of timbre, Jones had this to say. “People have always said that boys’ voices are “purer”, that – especially about a year before they break – they have this crystal-clear quality”. Peter Giles wrote similarly of the “greater sonority and plangency” of the boys’ voice in its final year, comparing it with the “sweeter” voice of a girl, whilst Andrew Nethsinga justified the introduction of girls to St John’s College Cambridge through stating that:

Boys’ voices tend to reach their peak around Year 8, whereas girls’ voices continue to develop for many years after that. Our choir will continue to celebrate and give a platform to those unique moments in boys’ vocal development whilst ensuring girls and women are also given the chance to benefit from a musical education that will transform the rest of their lives.

Girls and women to sing as members of The Choir of St John’s | St John’s College, University of Cambridge

That period in boys’ vocal life “about a year before they break” has been the subject of much interest since the rise of voice science.  George Bragg, who founded and guided the Texas Boys Choir for many years, appeared to maintain that the best period in boys’ vocal life is not “about a year before they break” but a year after they break.

During this change period the choirboy must be constantly under the surveillance of his choirmaster, mainly for the purpose of seeing that he does not over-use his voice. There are some weeks when the choirboy with the changing voice will be allowed to sing only part of the time. Later, it is possible for him to sing much of the time, and still later, all of the time. . .Once he is over this hurdle, there is a period of approximately one year which can, by all standards and results, be the most wonderful year of all his choir days. It is a time when he can assert his authority as never before because of his advanced experience. It is a time when he can assert himself vocally with assurance. (Bragg, G., undated, cited by Beet 2024).

We shall see in later chapters that there is indeed a scientific basis for this counterintuitive statement. There is also acoustic evidence to support the more common belief that it is the year before the break that the voice is most pleasing to the ear. The factor common to all of this is that when we talk about “boys”, we are for most of the time talking, not about children at primary school, but about young adolescents at secondary school. A grasp of this fundamental principle is going to be essential.

Much of the science on which this book is based is of relatively recent origin. By “recent” I mean from the 1950s onwards. The publication of Duncan McKenzie’s book Training the Boy’s Changing Voice in 1956 serves well enough as a marker for the beginning of present-day beliefs that boys should sing throughout adolescence in gradually descending ranges. Frederick Swanson made observations in the locker room and wrote about the relationship between what he had seen there and what he heard in the voices he taught (Swanson, 1959). It was an early attempt to relate clearly visible changes of puberty to voice and he got some things wrong (see Chapter 3). At the time, though, it was ground-breaking and it seems surprising now that so little attention had previously been paid to the matter. We shall see in Chapter 8 that, though knowledge of the larynx gradually developed over the centuries, the link that we make today between puberty and the young male larynx was either unknown to or considered insignificant by great vocal pedagogues of the past such as Tosi.

John Cooksey’s definitive work on the topic, first published in 1977, disagrees with Swanson’s on certain key points with regard to puberty but plenty of people today believe that Cooksey “had it nailed” (Morris, 2011). Cooksey’s impact was brought home to me some fifteen or so years ago when I was asked to recommend a singing teacher for a cathedral and learned through experience how controversy about Cooksey’s work can play out. For obvious reasons, the cathedral and all personnel involved must remain nameless! Uncertain of who to recommend, I consulted a very highly respected opera teacher and author of a major international text on the teaching of singing who I happened to run into at a conference. She had little hesitation in recommending X, so I passed this recommendation on, and X was duly appointed. It took only a couple of weeks before I received a communication from the cathedral’s director of music. Apparently, at the beginning of term, X had heard each boy in Y7 and 8 sing and had informed almost every one of them that they should not be singing treble. X’s tenure as singing teacher at that cathedral was quite short. For the avoidance  of doubt, Y7 is ages 11 – 12, which is US Grade 6, and Y8 therefore US Grade 7, ages 12 – 13.

What had happened? It is entirely plausible that nearly all the Y7 and 8 boys in the choir exhibited the slightly deepened speaking voice that Cooksey associated with “variable loss of tonal clarity and richness in higher pitches, most notably in the C5 – F5 range” (Cooksey, 1992: 56, see later chapters of this volume).  Several in all probability were at a later stage of voice change. Ergo, they can no longer sing treble. The choir is no longer viable. To this, I say, hold on a minute. An almost identical situation would be found in every cathedral choir in the country.  So, are all these choirs to become non-viable overnight? The above example, though the most spectacular, was not an isolated incident. I have regularly been consulted over disputes between singing teachers who want boys to stop and choir directors who want (need?) them to continue. This has occurred most frequently when a boy is both a cathedral chorister and a member of a reputable youth choir. He is told he is a “treble” in the former and a lower “cambiata” (more of that later) in the latter. The parents are understandably confused.

Cooksey died in 2012. He is still the most widely quoted author in texts on the vocal development of adolescent boys, though there are notable dissenting voices such as Henry Leck’s (Leck, 2009). We shall see in the present volume that Cooksey’s work creates difficulties when the topic is historic voices and the teaching of boys in the past. Using boys’ voices in the way that J. S Bach might have used them almost certainly means disapplication of norms established by Cooksey, with consequences such as those described above. In this volume I attempt to bring some order to what can become a scene of confusion or even hostility. In so doing, I draw upon my own longitudinal studies of adolescent boys. Cooksey’s predictions have been validated at a fundamental level in each and every one of the case studies. Nevertheless, there are complications. For one thing there have been measurable changes in the timing of puberty, even across the decades since he published his main findings back in 1977. For another, aside from a study tour to England during which he undertook work in Brompton Oratory, Cooksey tended to see matters in terms of the developmental progression of American middle and high school boys, paying less attention to the countering effects of vocal agency (see above for definition) than he might otherwise have done.

Science never stands still and a lot has been learned about acoustic as opposed to laryngeal registration events in recent years.  We are only now just beginning to explore the relevance of this to boys’ voices. Perhaps the “elephant in the room” in all this is what we know now about the way boys grow that was not known in previous centuries. In particular, male puberty has long been misunderstood and even now remains a difficult topic because it can only be measured by intrusive means. Some readers may be surprised to learn the results of our clinical study in which a suitably qualified paediatrican was able to make those measurements.

Puberty is not the only period during which voices change. Far greater and more significant changes occur during the first three years of life. Old age is also a time of quite significant voice change, particularly for females as a result of the menopause and post-menopausal vocal development. Men’s voices change during the senior years too, though to a lesser extent. As far as boys are concerned, voices change throughout adolescence, not just during the measurable stages of puberty. The changes of the peripubertal phase are particularly significant for choristers, though often go unnoticed in many choirs. The years immediately after the final stages of puberty are reached are years when Edward Bairstow said it is “no use a boy trying to sing” (see Chapter 7). Several more years of adolescent voice change are necessary before a voice that would have satisfied Bairstow emerges and these, to all intents and purposes, are post-pubertal changes. Neither phoniatric nor sociocultural researchers have given these years sufficient attention in my view and this is something I attempt to address in this book.

 

Voices beyond thirteen

The attainment of a singing range similar to that of an adult by no means marks the end of the voice change process, though for a good many listeners, it marks the end of a boy’s career. This requires some explanation since if we take the ages of eight to thirteen as the “treble” years and the ages of thirteen to twenty as the foundational years of the life-long voice, we are talking of seven years for the latter as against five for the former. We shall see during later chapters that though there can be some regret or resistance when the time comes to stop singing “treble”, most boys quickly forget their former voices and are keen to develop their new ones, a task that will occupy them for these important, formative years.

The opening chapter of John Bridcut’s 2006 study of Benjamin Britten’s relationship with children is entitled Because I’m Still Thirteen and begins with the quotation of a somewhat extraordinary diary entry when Britten, at the age of forty, fills in his personal details as though he were still thirteen. Britten is a “dead composer” of interest because he is one of the very few of whom it can be positively said composed works intentionally to be sung by boys. The Missa Brevis written for the choir of Westminster Cathedral is perhaps a work about which we can be confident that a suitable boys’ choir is needed for the authentic realisation of “composer’s intentions”. Elsewhere, Bridcut describes Britten’s complete infatuation with David Hemmings for whom the role of Miles in Turn of the Screw was created. Hemmings was twelve when he first performed it and fifteen when he last performed it. The intervening years told a story in which Britten was said to be in love with the boy, though no evidence has ever come to light that this was anything other than intensely platonic. It is what happened when Hemmings’ voice broke that is of significance.

In the middle of his keynote aria, Malo, David’s voice broke – just like that. A mortified Britten brought the orchestra off, waved his baton at David in a fury and put it down on his music stand as the curtain lowered . . . Hemmings remembered it as the last time he had any dealings with Britten. When I asked him whether this father figure whom he so adored had said anything to him, he surprised me – and I think himself – by the answer that sprang to his lips: No, no, he didn’t. That was a bit sad, I have to say, but from that moment on, I was history. Sad, isn’t it? (Bridcut, 2006:210)

It is indeed sad that a boy, any boy, should be so discarded at the age of fifteen. In chapter 7, I refer to the years of middle adolescence as “the years of gestation of the adult singer”. This is surely an exciting time and certainly one of intense, formative passion in many cases. Britten, however, has not been the only one to cast boys aside when they reach middle adolescence. Until relatively recently, it was the practice of most cathedrals and collegiate choirs to do the same thing. A boy might not have been waved off in a conductor’s fury, but he would have been terminally dismissed at his final evensong by the cathedral dean nevertheless.  From that point on, he would be left to make his own way. Perhaps he might be fortunate enough to attend a senior school able to nurture and guide his choral ambitions, perhaps he might not. The following are the recollections of A H Mann, director of music at King’s College Chapel, Cambridge for fifty years until his death in 1929. Mann was the originator of the world famous Once in Royal David’s City solo, and the principle that any boy in the choir ought to be able to sing it at a moment’s notice on the night. This he had learned from his own teacher, Dr Buck of Norwich.

I went in thoroughly for the two ingredients of an ordinary schoolboy’s life, -viz., (1) a little work, and (2) plenty of fun, succeeding in obtaining an unlimited supply of the latter, but compelled, alas! to do more of the former . . . if necessary, still more extra time was secured by making us practise at night, after school hours, for these special events, the result being that we are probably able to sing, but, in other respects, remained ignorant little ‘dodgers’ and very ill prepared to battle with the world. (Mann in Kitton, 1899: 70 – 71).

An Oxford D Mus was not a bad achievement for an ill-prepared little dodger, but the academic neglect of choristers would not be tolerated today. It is probably now only a dwindling minority of cathedrals that show no concern at all for their choristers’ futures. As far as “dead composers” are concerned today there are not many adolescents encultured into Byrd, Bach or Brahms from the age of eight. To lose even one of them is to jeopardise the already precarious future of “classical” music.

It is undeniable that boys have received an often very good choral education in ecclesiastical choirs in times past, but I cannot help but feel that it is to our currently thriving youth choir sector rather than to the very small number of boys still involved in ecclesiastical choirs that we must look. This is going to require a very different approach. What distinguishes the youth choirs from the cathedrals is precisely the fact that they are youth choirs, that is to say, SATB choirs for young people aged between 18 and 25.  The NYCOS National Boys Choir (approx. ages 9 – 14), to take an example with which I am familiar is, though an exceedingly fine choir in its own right, also a pedagogical strategy to secure the future of the youth choir itself, and thereby the longer-term future of choral singing. I recently consulted Christopher Bell, its artistic director, whose views I greatly respect. In his own words:

 

Repertoire for Youth Choirs