What voices have emerged? Lessons on boys’ vocal dispositions and choral tone from a new choral leaflet series

ABSTRACT

Emerging Voices is a choral series published by Oxford University Press. The aim is to cater for adolescent male voices at various stages of change. Part ranges conform to the ‘cambiata’ system developed by Irvin Cooper. The paper asks whether a unique, characteristic timbral quality exists in voices at the mid-point of change and can be heard as distinctively different from unchanged ‘treble’ and newly emerged baritone timbre. The first 12 pieces in the series have been recorded by choirs ranging from beginner school groups to a prestigious national youth choir. During the recording process, samples of individual parts were taken to analyse and evaluate the vocal timbres that ‘emerged’. A distinct midvoice timbre was only found in choirs where boys possessed significant choral experience gained as trebles. Such voices were more adaptable to different choir dispositions, able to manoeuver between a low alto part and a high tenor part. The paper concludes that Cooper’s ideal of ‘fitting the song to the voice, not the voice to the song’ is only fully realised in solo singing instruction but where boys lacked significant choral experience, placement in cambiata parts that matched speaking voice pitches could result in pleasing choral tone through skilled blending of midvoice stages.

KEYWORDS:

• Singing
• boys
• adolescence
• voice change
• choral

Notes on contributor

Emeritus Professor Martin Ashley was formerly Head of Research in the Faculty of Education at Edge Hill University, where he received AHRC funding to work with the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain in collaboration with the University of York. Prior to joining Edge Hill, he was Reader in Education at the University of the West of England, Bristol, where he was the recipient of an AHRC funded fellowship entitled Young Masculinity and Vocal Performance. He taught for seventeen years in maintained and independent schools before moving into higher education.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Created by the author and two colleagues and available free from the Apple app store, this tool measures speaking voice fundamental frequency and categorises the result by pubertal stage.