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Choir hits high notes |
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Written by Rosa Smith
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Friday, 30 October 2009 |
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Of all the things a school program could not have enough of—funding, supplies, class space, even teachers—you’d never expect to see a shortage of boys. But at Grant, the choir classes are experiencing exactly that.
The all-male Harmonaires choir has always been a small class, but this year its members number only 11—far fewer people than the class has room for. And in the 84-person A Cappella choir, the 30 male singers are outnumbered almost two to one by female voices.
“The sopranos basically overpower the whole choir,” says Luisa Tonga, a member of A Cappella.
In another elective class—Art History, for example—having more girls than boys might not be such a problem. But in choral music, balance is important. Choir director Katy Wagner-West compares a choir with too many sopranos to a cake with too much frosting and nothing to hold it up. Bass tones provide a foundation for the music, and when the different vocal sections aren’t in balance, the song takes on a sound that it wasn’t meant to have. As junior Caleb Taylor puts it, “It sounds nice, but it doesn’t sound right.”
The smaller the group, the greater the problem, according to Taylor’s fellow A Cappella member Zac Festner. When singing with only a few other people, “you don’t want to be heard because you don’t want to sound off.” Mistakes are much more noticeable, and singers, feeling self-conscious, sing quietly to blend in with other voices—meaning their sound, already less than that of the other vocal groups, is even harder to hear.
Festner, who tried out for A Cappella “to gain more confidence with my voice,” has experienced this often during class; and with so few people in Harmonaires, the problem is unlikely to resolve itself in the next couple of years. As the introductory, non-audition choir for boys, Harmonaires (like Choralaires for girls) is a starting point for future members of both A Cappella and Royal Blues. Fewer boys in Harmonaires this year could mean even fewer boys in the audition choirs next year.
Why aren’t guys signing up for choir? According to Wagner-West, the fact that “it’s harder to recruit guys” is “an age-old concern for choir teachers.” Contrary to common beliefs about boys’ and girls’ behavior in other subject areas, Wagner-West has observed that in choir, girls are “a little more outgoing and ready to put themselves out there.” Self-confidence, or perhaps just familiarity with vocal music, is definitely an issue—when asked why they wouldn’t consider being involved in choir, many students respond at once with “I can’t sing.” Not having friends in the program can deter people from participating. So can commitment to other activities, such as sports, and other classes held during the same period; Tonga observes that “the few guys we have in choir are the really committed ones.” Some people just don’t like the songs. Festner and Taylor think Harmonaires in particular suffers from lack of advertising, and Taylor, who sings in both A Cappella and Harmonaires, says he’s heard all kinds of reasons for not joining the latter class. One reason in particular upsets him: “Everyone shows up at Grant thinking they can instantly get into the Royal Blues. When they find out they can’t, they just give up. They don’t even look for other options.”
One might worry that dwindling numbers could eventually mean a disappearance of the choir classes altogether. But vice-principal Kim Patterson doesn’t see that happening. “I definitely think we have enough kids interested in choir [to sustain the program],” she says. Even so, choir is one elective that isn’t in very high demand. This year, with very limited space in most other elective classes, Patterson says she could have placed around 40 or 50 students in choir. But most people weren’t interested. The question, then, as Patterson proposes, is “How do we … create a culture where people will want to take that class?”
One answer is recruiting from middle schools. Wagner-West believes one reason fewer guys are signing up for choir in high school is the lack of vocal music programs in the lower grades. “It’s hard to get people to sing,” she remarks, when they haven’t had any experience with it. To get middle-schoolers interested in choir, she brings her Royal Blues on tour to schools to “talk it up,” describing college opportunities, Grant’s prestigious program, and the opportunity to make new friends and try something new.
Another option on the table is opening Harmonaires and Choralaires to middle school students who could come at the beginning or end of the day, as is done with band and with math and science courses. “A good way to build a program—whether it’s football or science [or choir]—is to grow it up through the younger grades,” explains Patterson, who made this suggestion to help solve.
Leadership also plays an important role. Wagner-West has noticed that “the guys that do put themselves out there end up becoming the leaders,” helping the others feel comfortable singing out. She contends that no one should worry about feeling comfortable in choir in any case: although they are “a really close-knit group,” the choir community is “incredibly welcoming.”
“Choir becomes a family,” she says with a smile.
For now, though, she still faces the question of how to help that family grow.
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