How to support adolescent male voices: Cambiata choirs

In my particular setting – a 4–19 school in North-East England – I don't have to worry about the usual problem secondary colleagues often have in not knowing the extent to which music has been covered in primary. Even so, we still face similar issues when it comes to getting boys to sing.

Singing is an integral part of the curriculum in our First School (EYFS-Y4) and we continue this into our Middle School (Y5-8). While I'd love to have more boys singing in the first school, the biggest challenge seems to be in Y7-8. We have a strong choral tradition and our Senior School (Y9-13) choir features a reasonably sized tenor and bass cohort. It would seem that, historically, there are a decent number of boys who either continue – or come back to – singing as they get older.

One of the reasons that boys traditionally stop singing around the age of 12 is that this is when voice change usually begins. It therefore makes sense to tailor ensembles to ensure the boys feel comfortable despite their changing voices. A colleague who works in a local middle school – and who launched a boys choir in the previous year to great effect – put me in touch with Professor Martin Ashley, Emeritus Professor at Edge Hill University.

Professor Ashley introduced me to the term ‘cambiata choir’ – an ensemble for changing male voices – and kindly agreed to visit our school and talk to our Y7-8 boys about singing. His approach to presentation (in particular his unabashed references to puberty and its effect on boys voices) and the wealth of his expertise clearly inspired a good percentage of our boys as, when we started rehearsals the following day, we had a large intake of around 40.

While I'm very proud of our school's choral tradition, I was keen that our new boys’ choir should exist entirely separately both in terms of repertoire and performance opportunities. Casual conversations I had with boys when looking into the possibility of starting this new ensemble told me that, although there were a good number of boys who loved the largely sacred repertoire and church-based performances of our senior choir, the majority were put off by the content. As we have a great deal of rugby in school, I developed a programme centred around the Home Nations:

England: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

Scotland: I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers

Ireland: Molly Malone

Wales: Delilah by Tom Jones

Broadly speaking, most of the choices were pretty popular. My original plan to link up with local professional rugby and football clubs to see if they would have the boys perform before a game didn't pan out – this is definitely something I'll continue to pursue as the boys were very excited about the possibility when we discussed it. In the absence of such public performances, I decided we'd work towards a performance as part of our series of Open Mic Nights, low-key concerts featuring a wide range of music away from our more formal, classically oriented concerts.

I was keen to make sure that the rehearsals were as easy as possible for the boys to attend. I had hoped that I might be able to run sessions during morning registration, but this proved logistically difficult. As such, our weekly rehearsals were booked for the very beginning of our Middle School lunch break and limited to ten minutes to ensure we avoided both year groups’ times for going into the cafeteria – and the very popular PE clubs, which took place towards the end of lunch time.

The atmosphere in early rehearsals was very boisterous with lots of boys pushing each other forward to sing, but with a general reluctance to make much sound themselves. Over the first few weeks, we built towards a strong, enthusiastic sound. Unfortunately, after four weeks of rehearsals, the rota for entry into the cafeteria changed, sending Y8 in earlier and, within three weeks, numbers had dropped to less than ten. This continued for a number of weeks until, gradually, boys began to return. What was encouraging was that there were a number of new starters, too, all from Y7. Casual conversations with the boys revealed that many had been put off by the ‘spirited’ atmosphere they'd seen when there were a large number of older boys there. Even more pleasing was that this new cohort was producing a fantastic sound and, over the course of several months, we moved on to simple singing in three parts.

After five months, we had a steady attendance of 15 drawn entirely from our Y7s and we were working towards performance in our school open mic night. Unfortunately, we were interrupted by school closure, but we have a strong programme of three tunes ready to go (with some simple choreography the boys had insisted upon!). What had initially been a very light sound has developed into a strong ensemble with a mixture of unchanged, changing and changed voices. I am confident that the boys will continue to attend when we return to school and that we will be able to build on the good work by recruiting from the new cohort of Y7s.

Guy's top tips

Don't alienate shy students

Initially, I tried to harness the high energy of some of the older boys in an effort to get nervous boys singing. This actually put off a number of talented younger singers. In future, I will run rehearsals in a more regimented way – in keeping with our approach to our other choirs and instrumental ensembles.

Do embrace part singing

Simple part singing is possible if carefully planned and boys are assigned to specific parts. Don't be frightened to move boys as their voices change.(See recommended repertoire, below)

Aim high

Following on from the previous point, don't underestimate the ability of the ensemble. I initially set quite low expectations in an effort to cater to as wide an audience as possible. Those who would have left anyway did so, while those who were more able got bored.

Useful links for further reading:
https://www.martin-ashley.com/blank-1

Recommended repertoire

If you want to arrange music for cambiata voice, the usual accepted ranges are those outlined by John Cooksey. He identified five progressive stages, each of which has a recommended singing range. If in doubt, it is probably safest to restrict yourself to the safe range usually associated with Stage 2: G#3 to F4. Here are some repertoire suggestions to get you going:

• Changing Voices: Songs for Boys (Novello). Including audio and a digital edition, this book contains the following choral arrangements, which progress in difficulty: Don't Forget Your Old Shipmate; Rule The World; Masters of War; Spanish Ladies and Dancing in the Moonlight.
• Changing Voices: Christmas Songs for Boys: Another volume in the above series, this volume contains Remember, O Thou Man; Winter Wonderland; Gaudete; Rockin’ Robin and Good King Wenceslas.
• The Boy's Changing Voice (Hal Leonard). Twenty art songs and folksong arrangements, all within a range of one octave.
• Changing Voices (Edition Peters). Solo songs within an octave for teenage male singers.
• Warm-Ups For Changing Voices(Hal Leonard). Twenty-five warm-up exercises with year group specific tips. Audio included.
• Emerging Voices (OUP). A series of choral octavos for cambiata ensemble, including Angels Watchin’ Over Me; Erlkönig; Haul Away, Joe!; Piano Man; Shenandoah and The Lover's Ghost.

Cambiata choirs: a potted history

Recognition of the cambiata voice as a viable instrument is relatively recent. Broadly speaking, for most of the last century in the UK, if you were a boy with a nice singing voice, you would be singing in a church choir, right up until the point where it was identified as ‘breaking’, whereupon you would be out of the choir and told to rest it for a good while.

Martin Ashley, Editor-in-chief of ABCE Choral Singing Research, tells MT: ‘The current use of the term “changing” rather than “breaking” reflects a retreat from the once influential views of Manuel Garcia, who viewed the adolescent singer as a “plant exhausted before being able to bear fruit”. The idea of a changing voice that can be used in gradually decreasing pitches throughout adolescence comes largely from the United States through the work of [20th-century] researchers such as Irvin Cooper and John Cooksey.’

In recent times, church choirs have become fewer and further between, and another, unexpected phenomenon has influenced the provision for those with changing voices: boys are going through puberty younger. In the 1970s the average age for the onset of puberty in boys was 14. These days it is 12½, and the modern narrative around changing voices is increasingly geared around a sense of pastoral and educational duty to support young boys with changing voices to continue to make music.

Happily, there is a rich community of cambiata choirs in the UK. In many of the big Christian foundations the boys must leave at the end of Year 8 or when the voice begins to change, but there are some that have embraced their ‘cambiate’ and benefit from the high retention rate that goes with this. To take just two examples: the Southwark Cathedral Consort, which comprises teenagers from 13 upwards, provides its cambiata voices with individual coaching; and the Catholic Diocese of Leeds's extensive vocal foundation, which aims to retain all of its trebles through voice change.

The rise of secular cambiata choirs has been extraordinary. The National Youth Choirs in England and Scotland both have dedicated provision for cambiata voices, as do the London Youth Choir, the Hallé Youth Choir and Royal National Orchestra Chorus of Scotland, to name just a few of the higher profile groups. And thanks to various commercial ventures, the perception of the changing voice is no longer that of something to be hidden among other voice types. If you missed Cambiata North West's haunting and beautiful contribution to the War Horse Prom in 2014 (pictured), you may well remember the Wales-based group Only Boys Aloud placing third in Britain's Got Talent in 2012.