Lesley Garrett rightly observes that it is nonsense to say “there is an ‘exclusive’ purity to a boy’s voice” (Lesley Garrett: it’s time to stop excluding girls from choirs, 6 December).
However, girls’ choirs have flourished for many generations and virtually all cathedrals now have a girls’ choir. In comparing their voices, the age range needs to be considered. Boys sing with more power till their voices change, while girls gain their best sound later on.
I have just been asked to start a boys’ choir in the mixed school at which I teach singing, and the boys are joining up rapidly. In general boys prefer to sing in their own choir.
More importantly, if boys are not able to sing in an environment in which they are comfortable, adult mixed choirs will start to lose their male voices. It’s difficult enough at the moment without destroying a major source of potential tenors and basses (and what about those counter-tenors!?).
Robert Hammersley
Cuckfield, West Sussex
• Lesley Garrett has it the wrong way round. King’s College doesn’t exclude girls per se, it simply recruits singers who make the sound that’s required, which happens to be made by boys. That’s because a treble voice doesn’t sound like a soprano voice. She might as well argue that Little Mix should include boys, or Arsenal’s first XI should have some female players.
Edward Collier (ex-choirboy)
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
• Instead of one lot of musicians asserting that boys’ voices are purer than girls’ voices, and another lot countering “no, they’re not”, can’t a technician with a gadget analyse the sound waves and give us a definitive answer?
Priscilla Bench-Capon
West Kirby, Merseyside
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
• Do you have a photo you’d like to share with Guardian readers? Click here to upload it and we’ll publish the best submissions in the letters spread of our print edition
