Essentials in Conducting

by Karl Wilson Gehrkens

When these principles are introduced in either a boy choir or a public school system, the effect will at first be disappointing, for the tone produced by the boy's head voice is so small and seems so insignificant as compared with the chest voice which he has probably been using, that he is apt to resent the instruction, and perhaps to feel that, you are trying to make a baby, or worse yet, a girl, out of him! But he must be encouraged to persist, and after a few weeks or months of practice, the improvement in his singing will be so patent that there will probably be no further trouble.

THE LIFE OF THE BOY VOICE

Boys are admitted to male choirs at from seven or eight to ten or twelve years of age, but are often required to undergo a course of training lasting a year or more before being permitted to sing with the choir in public. For this reason, if for no other, the director of a boy choir must be a thoroughly qualified voice trainer. He, of course, takes no voice that is not reasonably good to start with, but after admitting a boy with a naturally good vocal organ it is his task so to train that voice as to enable it to withstand several hours of singing each day without injury and to produce tones of maximal beauty as a matter of habit. But if the choir leader is not a thoroughly qualified vocal instructor, or if he has erroneous ideals of what boy-voice tone should be, the result is frequently that the voice is overstrained and perhaps ruined; or else the singing is of an insipid, lifeless, "hooty" character, making one feel that an adult mixed choir is infinitely preferable to a boy choir.[33]

Adolescence begins at the age of thirteen or fourteen in boys, and with the growth of the rest of the body at this time, the vocal organs also resume their increase in size, the result being not only longer vocal cords and a correspondingly lower range of voice, but an absolute breaking down of the habits of singing that have been established, and frequently a temporary but almost total loss of control of the vocal organs. These changes sometimes take place as early as the thirteenth year, but on the other hand are frequently not noticeable until the boy is fifteen or sixteen, and there are on record instances of boys singing soprano in choirs until seventeen or even eighteen. The loss of control that accompanies the change of voice (with which we are all familiar because of having heard the queer alternations of squeaking and grumbling in which the adolescent boy so frequently indulges), is due to the fact that the larynx, vocal cords, et cetera, increase in size more rapidly than the muscles develop strength to manipulate them, and this rapid increase in the size of the parts (in boys a practical doubling in the length of the vocal cords) makes it incumbent upon the choir trainer to use extreme caution in handling the voices at this time, just as the employer of adolescent boys must use great care in setting them at any sort of a task involving heavy lifting or other kinds of strain. In the public schools, where no child is asked to sing more than ten or twelve minutes a day, no harm is likely to result; but in a choir which rehearses from one to two hours each day and frequently sings at a public service besides, it seems to be the consensus of opinion that the boy is taking a grave risk in continuing to sing while his voice is changing.[34] He is usually able to sing the high tones for a considerable period after the low ones begin to develop; but to continue singing the high tones is always attended with considerable danger, and many a voice has undoubtedly been ruined for after use by singing at this time. The reason for encouraging the boy to keep on singing is, of course, that the choirmaster, having trained a voice for a number of years, dislikes losing it when it is at the very acme of brilliancy. For this feeling he can hardly be blamed, for the most important condition of successful work by a male choir is probably permanency of membership; and the leader must exercise every wile to keep the boys in, once they have become useful members of the organization. But in justice to the boy's future, he ought probably in most cases to be dismissed from the choir when his voice begins to change.

Let us now summarize the advice given up to this point before going on to the consideration of our second problem:

1. Have the boys sing in high range most of the time. The actual compass of the average choir boy's voice is probably g—c´´´ but his best tones will be between e´ and g´´

. An occasional a´´ or b´´ or a d´ or c´ will do no harm, but the voice must not remain outside of the range e´—g´´ for long at a time.

2. Insist upon soft singing until correct habits are established. There is a vast difference of opinion as to what soft singing means, and we have no means of making the point clear except to say that at the outset of his career the boy can scarcely sing too softly. Later on, after correct habits are formed, the singing may, of course, be louder, but it should at no time be so loud as to sound strained.

3. Train the voice downward for some time before attempting upward vocalization.