The choral world has survived despite a longtime shortage of castrati.
I'm sure they'll figure something out.
In all seriousness, SATB is mostly a constraint because of how choral composers write their music, not because good music demands it. You can produce beautiful music without all four voice parts being equally represented.
Castrati never mattered for choruses - you just use a large choir of boys. They were important for opera/theater, where you need a single voice with enough power.
I compose music once in a while. I'm now trying to write more in a texture like SSAATB if I want amateurs to sing the music, but it's not as easy to write as SATB or SSAATTBB music.
In a former life I was part of a church choir (smallish church, ~140 members, everyone knew everyone). Same guy was running the orchestral band I had been a part of for a long time (trumpet, also had piano background), and they needed members.. A quick tryout and he told me to join the bass section - without taking into account I had a cold that day. I struggled to hit a lot of the notes, but then moved to tenor and easily hit most of the notes, almost being lead tenor for a while. Sure, it was a falsetto, but I could hit high A or C pretty reliably, IIRC.
Moved to the west coast (this was great lakes area) and something about the air is different, and while I stayed in choir for a few years, eventually lost the top octave entirely and am now a horrible singer (I used to be ok and could, for example, easily sing Livin' on a Prayer - I can't come close to it now). If I go back to the great lakes area, after a week, my singing voice has improved tremendously, only to lose it when I return. I do miss being able to sing better, but not enough to move back..
Every rocker with a hit song with high notes has to change the song in order to still sing it in concert. Layla, Take on Me, Dream On, Don’t Stop Believin’, etc.
If you watch reaction videos from vocal coaches hearing singers for the first time, you will find that they get nervous about the ways singers are tackling parts of their songs, because there are ways to sing that you can do for twenty years, and ways that you can do it that are good for six. Less if you start doing full concerts instead of bar sets or opening act work.
I don't think Steve Perry ever pitched down his vocals. IMO there are two types of singer, ones with good technique (due to practice or genetics) who can sing easily, and those who have to really force notes out in the studio (relying on perfect conditions) then pitch down live.
I agree he always seemed to me comfortable in that range, on talk shows, etc. The guy from Aerosmith on the other hand I would be surprised if he could match the radio version regularly in concert. As for Layla, I guess I only know the live/mtv unplugged and the original had higher notes?
Our SATB chorus was about 75 strong, with about 2 women who could sing tenor. They were highly valued, especially in the limited membership of a women’s barbershop ensemble.
If you’re male and you can sing anything or play a pipe organ, you are worth your weight in gold to the right church.
Some of my favorite vocalists are female contraltos, because I can sing in their range.
Choral work is the most demanding volunteer job I ever had. It’s also exhilarating, highly social, and rewarding. No regrets!
In my part of the world, it's definitely declining church attendance. If you don't have a huge population of young boys and girls trained in those choirs, and instead the population were self-selecting into voice training, I would definitely expect a serious sex imbalance.
There is only so much time in a day. Often singing in choir conflicts with playing sports because you have concerts and games on the same nights, so you have to make a choice. There are also schedule pressures - if you are going to get into college you nearly have to take math, English, science, and foreign language classes beyond what your school demands and that forces hard choices if there even is a class period free (don't forget you might be taking band to take up that space)
Finally, there are a lot of bad teachers. They are so interested in winning competition and teaching perfection - but for most music will never be anything other than a fun hobby and so they are getting the wrong teaching which turns many students off. I've seen a lot of award winning school choirs, and the next town over with the same number of students has twice the students in choir despite not winning awards - communities need to pick and often don't realize this.
In my secular chorus, we may have two main performances per season, but we rehearsed together for 2 hours every single week for months. We purchased polo shirts, and there was a dress code. Our dues covered operating costs and sheet music. Being a civic group for casual singers, our costs were kept low, but many choirs travel, double down on the costumes, and many people find it requires a high level of dedication, free time, and independent wealth. It is no coincidence that many members are retirees!
In church, a lector could prepare for 30 minutes and have a 5 minute speaking part at the Mass. The ushers and EMHCs also have part-time gigs. While altar servers are on duty for the entire service, they do not need to rehearse every single week. A church choir may serve for one or more weekend services, plus the 90-120 minute weekly rehearsals, and that's not counting holy days, Easter, Christmas. If you take a role as cantor, director, or piano/organ, expect to become indispensable! Some families just found it easier to join en masse so they could stay together.
Some chorus members are also secretly voice coaches, so if you protest "but I can't sing tenor" they may lovingly tackle you and sell you a package of private lessons.
I found it difficult to serve in any other ministry alongside choir, and you may find it difficult to hold down a job and/or family alongside a secular chorus role. As I said, high demand/great rewards.
N=1 and not singing in a choir, I could probably sing tenor parts if I trained, but to me bass feels more satisfying, doubly so going low with throat singing.
As a professional-level baritone who has sung tenor parts quite a lot, there is a shortage of every low voice type (directors are often conflicted when I make the offer to sing tenor). People who can produce a chorally-acceptable A or Bb are in the shortest supply, though. It's getting worse as the amateur singing circuit gets smaller and the gender ratio gets more skewed.
Amateur-level choirs tend to have a lot more basses than tenors because it is easier to sing bass without effort spent on vocal training.
Tenor parts are more difficult, technically speaking, and voices capable of the tenor range are rarer. So any given man joining a choir can more likely manage the bass range, and if they can, they can almost certainly manage the bass parts.
FTA:
> When men do join singing groups, they often avoid the tenor section. The tenor voice is “a cultivated sound”, says John Potter, author of a book on the subject. A man with no vocal training is more likely to have the range of a baritone (a high bass). It does not help that the tenor voice is associated with operatic stars such as Luciano Pavarotti, who could powerfully sing high notes that no amateur can easily reach. And the tenor line in classical choral music can be difficult, with many unexpected notes and alarming leaps.
surely a real bass is rarer? I just assume, as someone completely musically inept, based on listening to the vocal groups on the radio, that a bass contributes less, and can be omitted more easily?
I know many women who admit they "fall in love" anytime they hear a low bass. They might marry a tenor and never cheat on them, but every time their hear a low bass their heart flutters. Men know/see this and so tenors become less interested since their higher voices don't get the women (there are plenty of other ways they have).
Anecdotal I guess, but when I was in a high school choir, I loathed that my teacher assigned me to the tenor section. It did not fit with the image of myself that the high school version of me held in my head; "a man should be a baritone or bass after puberty!"
I liked choir and stayed in it for all four years, but I was never particularly good at it so what the hell did I know anyway.
I go to local performances of baroque-era and somewhat earlier music regularly. I have noticed on occasion in a small vocal performance that has 2 people per part, occasionally a female contralto is paired with a male tenor. (I don’t know enough to know how that works as far as needing to modify the original parts or not.)
Though conversely I’ve also seen a male countertenor paired with a female alto, so maybe it’s just generally “who’s available for this performance” rather than an issue with a general shortage.
I sing tenor in a university choir as an older male community member and we encourage anyone to sing tenor whose voice is low enough. Over 1/3 of our tenors are women and our voices blend very well IMO.
After taking university music courses, and then private singing lessons, my observation is that most men learn to pitch their voices into a lower register - in order to sound more manly. Gay men tend to stop pitching their voices downwards and this leads to the perception that gay men use high pitches. Likewise, girls are taught to pitch their voices upwards and lesbian voices seem "mannish" due to stopping to pitch their voices to a higher register. It is my theory that men's natural voice/register is a lot higher and that if boys didn't try to sound macho, there would be a lot more tenors and counter-tenors (which is where my natural singing voice goes - not baritone like I thought it was supposed to be).
I doubt this is correct. Women tend to be mezzos and men tend to be baritones entirely based on the structure of their vocal apparatus, not because they are trying to force a sound (with the possible exception of gay men). In most cases, men who are good singers tend to sing high because that is where the demand is (tenors in classical music and also very high pop music), but as they learn to relax their larynx their comfortable range often drops.
One of my annoyances is that most male pop singing is at too high a range for normal baritone men without vocal training to sing along. I actually find it easier to sing along to female pop songs (by singing an octave lower) than to male pop songs.
If a handsome crooner with a deep voice sings sweet love songs, their fans will consist of hetero women.
If a woman sings in a high voice with a girly-girl image, she will tend to attract men.
A singer or group with great falsetto/whistle register, or female tenor/contralto, ambiguous or hetero lyrics, and androgynous image or radio-only can effectively draw in a broadly mixed-gender audience.
See new wave, synth pop, hair metal, David Bowie, Concrete Blonde, Janis Joplin, Alison Moyet, et. al.
If a performer lands on the far side of the spectrum, the producers will inevitably hire backup dancers and singers to broaden their appeal.
"If a woman sings in a high voice with a girly-girl image, she will tend to attract men."
You mean attract them sexually? maybe. I don't know any guys who are musically into the celine dions or mariah carey's.
"If a handsome crooner with a deep voice sings sweet love songs, their fans will consist of hetero women."
Maybe, but male tenors will get that and more, and it's been that way since I was a young man non-tenor in a choir.
From a '96 Royko column:
"Then there are their voices. Clinton's voice is high-pitched. Dole's is much deeper. Does that matter? You bet it does. Clinton has a voice for today. Just listen to popular rock music. All of the singers have high- pitched, eunuch-like voices. It's almost impossible to tell the men from the women, if there is any difference.
There was a long-gone time when a baritone such as Perry Como or a bass such as Vaughn Monroe topped the hit charts; when a deep-voiced singer would bellow: "Old Man River, that Old Man River... he don't plant taters, he don't plant cotton." But today, the lyrics would have to be changed to "Old Person River, that Old Person River... he or she does not plant potatoes or cotton because the work is demeaning."
And today's deep-voiced singers are found only in the country music field, self-pitying losers groaning about their two-timing women going honky-tonkying and leaving them with a sink full of dishes and not one beer in the fridge. Their fans will be too"
There is also the aspect of identifying with the singer, rather than being sung to. A deep-voiced man may enjoy singing the same love songs as Isaac Hayes or Barry White. The women may liken themselves to Mariah or Celine (Shania and Shakira are more my speed, tbh).
Also that Royko column (I assume Mike Royko, journalist?) He doesn't take into account other genres. How many rappers have gruff or menacing deep voices to go along with rattling basslines? How about death metal singers who sing in the signature "death growl"? Plenty of goth, industrial, No Wave vocalists pulled it off too, such as Andrew Eldritch, Sascha Konietzko, Michael Gira, Lux Interior. Baritone/bass vocals were not uncommon, but they were definitely drowned out by the radio and MTV.
Yes. Ironically the non-falsetto portion (low and high notes, particularly belted in the last chorus) is much harder than the falsetto note. Most singers can do the falsetto note. But for whatever reason that impresses people more.
One of the great injustices of music. As a bass voice, both pop music and theater is _dominated_ by tenors (or maybe they're baritones? The point being that it seems no one wants to hear you if you can't belt a Bb4).
I can state that (anecdotally) this is true. My range allows me to be placed in various sections as needed, but the vast majority of the time I am asked to sing tenor, for lack of numbers / strong voices to do so.
The choral world has survived despite a longtime shortage of castrati.
I'm sure they'll figure something out.
In all seriousness, SATB is mostly a constraint because of how choral composers write their music, not because good music demands it. You can produce beautiful music without all four voice parts being equally represented.
Castrati never mattered for choruses - you just use a large choir of boys. They were important for opera/theater, where you need a single voice with enough power.
I compose music once in a while. I'm now trying to write more in a texture like SSAATB if I want amateurs to sing the music, but it's not as easy to write as SATB or SSAATTBB music.
In a former life I was part of a church choir (smallish church, ~140 members, everyone knew everyone). Same guy was running the orchestral band I had been a part of for a long time (trumpet, also had piano background), and they needed members.. A quick tryout and he told me to join the bass section - without taking into account I had a cold that day. I struggled to hit a lot of the notes, but then moved to tenor and easily hit most of the notes, almost being lead tenor for a while. Sure, it was a falsetto, but I could hit high A or C pretty reliably, IIRC.
Moved to the west coast (this was great lakes area) and something about the air is different, and while I stayed in choir for a few years, eventually lost the top octave entirely and am now a horrible singer (I used to be ok and could, for example, easily sing Livin' on a Prayer - I can't come close to it now). If I go back to the great lakes area, after a week, my singing voice has improved tremendously, only to lose it when I return. I do miss being able to sing better, but not enough to move back..
Every rocker with a hit song with high notes has to change the song in order to still sing it in concert. Layla, Take on Me, Dream On, Don’t Stop Believin’, etc.
If you watch reaction videos from vocal coaches hearing singers for the first time, you will find that they get nervous about the ways singers are tackling parts of their songs, because there are ways to sing that you can do for twenty years, and ways that you can do it that are good for six. Less if you start doing full concerts instead of bar sets or opening act work.
I don't think Steve Perry ever pitched down his vocals. IMO there are two types of singer, ones with good technique (due to practice or genetics) who can sing easily, and those who have to really force notes out in the studio (relying on perfect conditions) then pitch down live.
I agree he always seemed to me comfortable in that range, on talk shows, etc. The guy from Aerosmith on the other hand I would be surprised if he could match the radio version regularly in concert. As for Layla, I guess I only know the live/mtv unplugged and the original had higher notes?
Our SATB chorus was about 75 strong, with about 2 women who could sing tenor. They were highly valued, especially in the limited membership of a women’s barbershop ensemble.
If you’re male and you can sing anything or play a pipe organ, you are worth your weight in gold to the right church.
Some of my favorite vocalists are female contraltos, because I can sing in their range.
Choral work is the most demanding volunteer job I ever had. It’s also exhilarating, highly social, and rewarding. No regrets!
I’d love to play organ with a choir group. But I am not religious, so it feels wrong.
I understand completely — doctrinal disagreement keeps me out of men’s choirs, musical theatre, and men‘s gyms, too!
You may find a good fit at a UU church.
I read this as "a shortage of tensors" and was curious as to the latest chicanery.
But yeah tenors right -- matches my experience.
And here I read the word correctly, yet thought it was going to be about bonds, and the rise of 50- and 100-year maturities. I am a singer btw
The site is called The Economist so I thought this was going to be about not having enough choices for tenor on loans and similar contracts.
I assumed it meant interest rate swap tenors. We need liquidity at the six year point!
Given that it's the economist, it could have been about illiquidity in the bond markets.
Tensors are in no shortage nowadays. I did read this a tensors though and got a good laugh.
There have never been enough tenors anywhere, as the article acknowledges.
It's not clear what the evidence is that the problem is getting worse though? Or why it would be?
"Or why it would be?"
In my part of the world, it's definitely declining church attendance. If you don't have a huge population of young boys and girls trained in those choirs, and instead the population were self-selecting into voice training, I would definitely expect a serious sex imbalance.
There is only so much time in a day. Often singing in choir conflicts with playing sports because you have concerts and games on the same nights, so you have to make a choice. There are also schedule pressures - if you are going to get into college you nearly have to take math, English, science, and foreign language classes beyond what your school demands and that forces hard choices if there even is a class period free (don't forget you might be taking band to take up that space)
Finally, there are a lot of bad teachers. They are so interested in winning competition and teaching perfection - but for most music will never be anything other than a fun hobby and so they are getting the wrong teaching which turns many students off. I've seen a lot of award winning school choirs, and the next town over with the same number of students has twice the students in choir despite not winning awards - communities need to pick and often don't realize this.
In my secular chorus, we may have two main performances per season, but we rehearsed together for 2 hours every single week for months. We purchased polo shirts, and there was a dress code. Our dues covered operating costs and sheet music. Being a civic group for casual singers, our costs were kept low, but many choirs travel, double down on the costumes, and many people find it requires a high level of dedication, free time, and independent wealth. It is no coincidence that many members are retirees!
In church, a lector could prepare for 30 minutes and have a 5 minute speaking part at the Mass. The ushers and EMHCs also have part-time gigs. While altar servers are on duty for the entire service, they do not need to rehearse every single week. A church choir may serve for one or more weekend services, plus the 90-120 minute weekly rehearsals, and that's not counting holy days, Easter, Christmas. If you take a role as cantor, director, or piano/organ, expect to become indispensable! Some families just found it easier to join en masse so they could stay together.
Some chorus members are also secretly voice coaches, so if you protest "but I can't sing tenor" they may lovingly tackle you and sell you a package of private lessons.
I found it difficult to serve in any other ministry alongside choir, and you may find it difficult to hold down a job and/or family alongside a secular chorus role. As I said, high demand/great rewards.
But none of that is particular to tenors.
The choir with twice the students was twice the male students, about the same female.
On the point of there always being a shortage of tenors, these charts are interesting: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Frequency-distribution-o...
The shape of the distribution has a much longer tail for women than men, on the high pitch side.
It looks weird because the frequency is plotted linearly instead of logarithmically like our ears are sensitive to.
When plotted in a log scale for the X axis, the distributions look correct.
Hmm good point
N=1 and not singing in a choir, I could probably sing tenor parts if I trained, but to me bass feels more satisfying, doubly so going low with throat singing.
I suspect it's become a problem the moment it became a primarily amateur endeavor. There's enough tenors when you can pay.
Declining popularity among men
Then why no shortage of basses?
As a professional-level baritone who has sung tenor parts quite a lot, there is a shortage of every low voice type (directors are often conflicted when I make the offer to sing tenor). People who can produce a chorally-acceptable A or Bb are in the shortest supply, though. It's getting worse as the amateur singing circuit gets smaller and the gender ratio gets more skewed.
Amateur-level choirs tend to have a lot more basses than tenors because it is easier to sing bass without effort spent on vocal training.
Tenor parts are more difficult, technically speaking, and voices capable of the tenor range are rarer. So any given man joining a choir can more likely manage the bass range, and if they can, they can almost certainly manage the bass parts.
FTA:
> When men do join singing groups, they often avoid the tenor section. The tenor voice is “a cultivated sound”, says John Potter, author of a book on the subject. A man with no vocal training is more likely to have the range of a baritone (a high bass). It does not help that the tenor voice is associated with operatic stars such as Luciano Pavarotti, who could powerfully sing high notes that no amateur can easily reach. And the tenor line in classical choral music can be difficult, with many unexpected notes and alarming leaps.
" voices capable of the tenor range are rarer."
surely a real bass is rarer? I just assume, as someone completely musically inept, based on listening to the vocal groups on the radio, that a bass contributes less, and can be omitted more easily?
As the article states, its usually 2:1 women to men so there is also a kind of shortage of basses, its just not as severe.
I can't really recommend joining a choir as a strategy for meeting women but... when I did choir I did alright.
I know many women who admit they "fall in love" anytime they hear a low bass. They might marry a tenor and never cheat on them, but every time their hear a low bass their heart flutters. Men know/see this and so tenors become less interested since their higher voices don't get the women (there are plenty of other ways they have).
I don't know how much this is a factor, but...
Anecdotal I guess, but when I was in a high school choir, I loathed that my teacher assigned me to the tenor section. It did not fit with the image of myself that the high school version of me held in my head; "a man should be a baritone or bass after puberty!"
I liked choir and stayed in it for all four years, but I was never particularly good at it so what the hell did I know anyway.
This is now my favorite benign conspiracy/cause of the lack of tenors!
Damn those big-voiced basses — they're stealing all our love interests :p
i think it's very hard to sing all the way up to the high C5 as a male, this doesn't surprise me at all
Someone should make a musician training tool called tenorsflow
I go to local performances of baroque-era and somewhat earlier music regularly. I have noticed on occasion in a small vocal performance that has 2 people per part, occasionally a female contralto is paired with a male tenor. (I don’t know enough to know how that works as far as needing to modify the original parts or not.)
Though conversely I’ve also seen a male countertenor paired with a female alto, so maybe it’s just generally “who’s available for this performance” rather than an issue with a general shortage.
I sing tenor in a university choir as an older male community member and we encourage anyone to sing tenor whose voice is low enough. Over 1/3 of our tenors are women and our voices blend very well IMO.
Can't wait for Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast have a supply chain episode on this topic. :)
After taking university music courses, and then private singing lessons, my observation is that most men learn to pitch their voices into a lower register - in order to sound more manly. Gay men tend to stop pitching their voices downwards and this leads to the perception that gay men use high pitches. Likewise, girls are taught to pitch their voices upwards and lesbian voices seem "mannish" due to stopping to pitch their voices to a higher register. It is my theory that men's natural voice/register is a lot higher and that if boys didn't try to sound macho, there would be a lot more tenors and counter-tenors (which is where my natural singing voice goes - not baritone like I thought it was supposed to be).
I doubt this is correct. Women tend to be mezzos and men tend to be baritones entirely based on the structure of their vocal apparatus, not because they are trying to force a sound (with the possible exception of gay men). In most cases, men who are good singers tend to sing high because that is where the demand is (tenors in classical music and also very high pop music), but as they learn to relax their larynx their comfortable range often drops.
One of my annoyances is that most male pop singing is at too high a range for normal baritone men without vocal training to sing along. I actually find it easier to sing along to female pop songs (by singing an octave lower) than to male pop songs.
If a handsome crooner with a deep voice sings sweet love songs, their fans will consist of hetero women.
If a woman sings in a high voice with a girly-girl image, she will tend to attract men.
A singer or group with great falsetto/whistle register, or female tenor/contralto, ambiguous or hetero lyrics, and androgynous image or radio-only can effectively draw in a broadly mixed-gender audience.
See new wave, synth pop, hair metal, David Bowie, Concrete Blonde, Janis Joplin, Alison Moyet, et. al.
If a performer lands on the far side of the spectrum, the producers will inevitably hire backup dancers and singers to broaden their appeal.
"If a woman sings in a high voice with a girly-girl image, she will tend to attract men." You mean attract them sexually? maybe. I don't know any guys who are musically into the celine dions or mariah carey's.
"If a handsome crooner with a deep voice sings sweet love songs, their fans will consist of hetero women." Maybe, but male tenors will get that and more, and it's been that way since I was a young man non-tenor in a choir.
From a '96 Royko column:
"Then there are their voices. Clinton's voice is high-pitched. Dole's is much deeper. Does that matter? You bet it does. Clinton has a voice for today. Just listen to popular rock music. All of the singers have high- pitched, eunuch-like voices. It's almost impossible to tell the men from the women, if there is any difference. There was a long-gone time when a baritone such as Perry Como or a bass such as Vaughn Monroe topped the hit charts; when a deep-voiced singer would bellow: "Old Man River, that Old Man River... he don't plant taters, he don't plant cotton." But today, the lyrics would have to be changed to "Old Person River, that Old Person River... he or she does not plant potatoes or cotton because the work is demeaning."
And today's deep-voiced singers are found only in the country music field, self-pitying losers groaning about their two-timing women going honky-tonkying and leaving them with a sink full of dishes and not one beer in the fridge. Their fans will be too"
There is also the aspect of identifying with the singer, rather than being sung to. A deep-voiced man may enjoy singing the same love songs as Isaac Hayes or Barry White. The women may liken themselves to Mariah or Celine (Shania and Shakira are more my speed, tbh).
Also that Royko column (I assume Mike Royko, journalist?) He doesn't take into account other genres. How many rappers have gruff or menacing deep voices to go along with rattling basslines? How about death metal singers who sing in the signature "death growl"? Plenty of goth, industrial, No Wave vocalists pulled it off too, such as Andrew Eldritch, Sascha Konietzko, Michael Gira, Lux Interior. Baritone/bass vocals were not uncommon, but they were definitely drowned out by the radio and MTV.
On the Song Exploder podcast, Take on Me episode, the artist talks about the producer saying that a male falsetto was a “make this song a hit” button…
doesn't he go really low in that song too? i thought what made that song special was the range in that little chorus.
Yes. Ironically the non-falsetto portion (low and high notes, particularly belted in the last chorus) is much harder than the falsetto note. Most singers can do the falsetto note. But for whatever reason that impresses people more.
One of the great injustices of music. As a bass voice, both pop music and theater is _dominated_ by tenors (or maybe they're baritones? The point being that it seems no one wants to hear you if you can't belt a Bb4).
Tenors. Only particularly challenging baritone parts go above E4 or F4.
There’s been an alto shortage for many, many years. Maybe for similar reasons.
I can state that (anecdotally) this is true. My range allows me to be placed in various sections as needed, but the vast majority of the time I am asked to sing tenor, for lack of numbers / strong voices to do so.
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