The Child-Voice in Singing / Treated from a physiological and a practical standpoint and especially adapted to schools and boy choirs

by Francis E. Howard

The results in beauty and power of tone which may be obtained from carefully selected choir boys can seldom be equalled in the school-room, first, because training is required to develop voices in strength and purity of tone, and the time devoted generally to school singing, one hour a week possibly, is no more than that given to a single rehearsal of choristers.

Again school singing includes all members of the class, and while it is true that there may be but few pupils in each room who cannot sing, yet there are likely to be some.

These voices, which we call monotones disappear almost entirely when pupils are trained to use the head voice. Still, there is a percentage in every class in school, whose inherited musical perceptions are very feeble, and their slowness cannot but retard the general progress.

Many of the difficulties that beset the teacher of music in schools, then, are eliminated at the start by the choir trainer, when he selects boys with good voices, who sing in tune naturally.

The increase in the number of vested choirs in this country has been very rapid during the past few years, and fortunately, the ideas which have prevailed among the majority of choir-masters on the subject of the boy voice, have been just. This is easily understood when we reflect that we have made the best English standards our ideal.

The leaven of sound doctrine on the boy voice is working rapidly, and there are many choirs both in our large and small cities that are excellent examples of well-trained soprano boys.

There is, however, one problem of male choir training which is not yet satisfactorily solved, at least it is troublesome to those choirs which have a small or moderate appropriation for music.

Boy sopranos are plentiful, basses and tenors are easily obtained, but good male altos, men, not boys, are almost unknown outside of a few large cities. This state of affair has led, in many cases, to the employment of boys as altos, and they have of course sung with the thick or chest voice. It is an unmanageable and unmusical voice, it is harsh, unsympathetic, hard to keep in tune, its presence in a choir is a constant menace to the soprano tone, and were it not for the idea that there is no recourse from this voice, save in the employment of woman altos, it would not be tolerated by musicians.

There is a recourse, however, and it is at the command of every choir trainer whose sopranos have been taught to sing with the head voice alone. It is to select certain sopranos, and when the voice breaks, let them pass to the alto part, and continue to use the head voice.

The objection which will naturally occur, is, that no singing should be permitted during the break. Well, let us consider. The period during which the voice, in common parlance, is breaking, is a period of laryngeal growth, just as inevitable and natural, as is the growth of the body generally. The voice may be fractured, but the larynx is not.