Dave Pitzer replies to me:

>>I mostly agree with your [Ms. Wang's] analysis, except for the part about
>>children's voices being uniquely child-like.  You can train adult trebles
>>(male and female) to sing with that sound.  In fact, it's done all the
>>time.
>
>I disagree.  Not that such training isn't done or that it isn't done "all
>the time".  But it isn't done successfully -- not by a long shot.  I can't
>speak with much experience or authority regarding young female voices but
>the young (pre-pubescent) male voice (both solo and en-mass) is truly
>unique in sound.  I can't imagine that anyone would contend otherwise.

This is the goal of the so-called "British Cathedral" sound of choral
singing.  Not surprsingly, Australia and New Zealand share it.  If someone
didn't tell me, I wouldn't have been able to distinguish between women (or
adult male trebles) singing in this style and children.  So it's not
"unique" to me.  Mostly, one has to go to obscure British labels like
Priory.  I haven't seen a Priory CD in the US, except at Berkshire Record
Outlet.

>I would doubt seriously, however, that in a blind experiment, I and many,
>many others could not pick-out or distinguish an all-male boys choir from
>an adult imitation.

Your ears are way better than mine, in that case.

>It also occurs to me to ask:"Why would adults want to attempt to imitate
>that "sound" in the first place?"

Because it sounds good and/or proper to them that way.  I had a theory
professor from New Zealand who remarked, rather smugly, to the class, "*We*
don't let our sopranos wobble."

>Along this same line, I have noticed over the years that the "sound" of
>an all-male college-aged "glee club" (for lack of a better term) also has
>a unique sound.  These are post-pubescent male voices, to be sure, (ages
>18-22 or so) but the uniqueness is still there.  Is it the repertoire such
>choirs traditionally perform or perhaps the harmony they employ? I think
>not.  I maintain that the mixed voices of, say, the Harvard Men's Glee
>Club or the West Point Men's Choir have a distinctive sound compared to
>an equivalent all-male choir with members more or less equally spread
>between the ages of about 20 to 50+ years in age.  College-age males have
>a distinctive sound as well -- basses, baritones and tenors -- over their
>somewhat older counter-parts.

I believe this is somewhat a matter of style, rather than of the age of the
voices.  Having sung in Glee Clubs and in regular choirs, I find that the
mental images of "blend" differ.  There is a marvelous Robert Shaw Chorale
recording, "Glee Club Favorites," which convinces me that, in the same
repertoire, the respective sound differs, so it's not really the writing.
On the other hand, the Robert Shaw Chorale used better voices than most
choirs have access to.

>In other words, you would be hard-pressed to convince me that "Off We
>Go into the Wild Blue Yonder" (for example) wouldn't sound distinctively
>different as sung by the Air Force Academy men's glee club than the same
>tune (in exactly the same harmony) sung by an equal number of male members
>from, say, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir or the Robert Shaw Chorale.

I wouldn't bother to try to convince you, since the sound is different.
But it's not necessarily due to the age of the voices, but to the style in
which those voices are taught to sing.  I've heard relatively young choirs
successfully tackle the Romantic Maennerchor repertoire.  It doesn't sound
like the Air Force Academy.

>I have tapes made during my younger days as a classical music radio
>announced.  Compared to tapes of my "radio announcer's voice" of today,
>I had a distinctively different sound twenty years ago.  Same voice,
>different sound.  Not surprisingly, I sounded "younger" twenty years ago
>and, God willing, I'll again sound different twenty years hence.

Yes, mature voices sound different than young voices.  But choral singing
isn't a matter of the individual voice, but a blend of voices.  That blend
can be manipulated.

Steve Schwartz