Why choirgirls are a bad idea

Boys, by Edward Bell

Boy or girl, it isn’t easy being a full-time chorister, but the rewards are vast. For me, it was a good two years before the homesickness fully dissipated, and I was a veteran nine-year-old before I started really having fun. A year later the school became co-ed and our elite band had to adjust to the sudden arrival of girls. For a brief moment I thought they were even going to infiltrate the ranks of the choir. I couldn’t articulate why, but I remember thinking that would have been a bad thing.

Very aware of the limitations of my own voice, I developed an obsession with the voices of others. Singing with the girls at school, I noticed that while their voices lacked the individuality of boys’ voices, they had a natural purity and sounded cleaner. There’s a lot to be said for that purity. I’d postulate that — for trained singers — girls’ voices blend more naturally than boys’.