Choir Boys

Posted by Sarah Canice Funke Mar 15, 2007

Why don't boys sing? The answer typically given is that boys don't want to "sound like girls," a reason that appears to associate the activity of singing with femininity.

However, the study found that the activity of singing itself was in fact much more highly regarded among boys than researchers were prone to expect. Rather the problem appears to lie in a fundamental shift surrounding the definition of "boy" and what the "boy" voice should sound like.

A high, pure tone was once expected from boys aged 10-15. Now, however, boy bands contain members far past adolescence. The singers in these bands have deeper voices that pre-adolescent boys can't match. Intimated by this inability to achieve the sound and range of boy band singers (natural as the inability may be), pre-adolescent boys are disinclined to attempt singing in public. Boys' choirs, dramatically distant from the ideal projected by the boy band singers' lower register, are the singing groups avoided most. So what is a distraught choir director to do? Hope that some primary school boy bands make the big time, making the high voice the cool voice? The study doesn't offer many solutions, but suggests that getting boys involved in a choir early on may nurture a love for singing that otherwise might have gone unnoticed.

For further information, read the full BBC story.