Steve Schwartz wrote:

>>True.  But choral singing is a "blend" of voices resulting from individual
>>voices.  The blend can (and does) reflect the age of the individuals.

[log in to unmask] replied:

>Speaking as a physicist, the number of voices is likely very important in
>this debate.  For a large choir, the manipulation that Steve talks about
>would be easier as the distinct features of each individual "waveform"
>would tend to wash out in the blend.  For small ensembles the individual
>characteristics will be more noticeable as they are masked less by their
>combination.  For those who care about such things, this masking effect
>grows like "squareroot(N)", where N is the number of voices.

The specific harmonic pattern of, say, a 12 year old soprano would,
indeed, be diluted or subsumed by other such voices and the more voices,
the more "smoothing" of the waveform, I suppose.  But surely, one hundred
such voices (boy sopranos) would still retain the "fingerprint" of
"boy-soprano-ness".  Just as a violin section of, say 30 1st and 2nd
violins -- all gut strung -- will sound distinctive from an equal number of
steel string violins -- although a smaller sampling would have the unique
sound to an greater degree.  As you say the blend smoothes exponentially
but probably approaches "blandness" asymptotically.

Notwithstanding all of this, I still contend that the "sound" of an all-boy
choir is unique and not reproducible by any mix of adult voices no matter
how fervently they might attempt to match it.  I'm happy to note that Ms.
Knight joins me in this view.  (Adults may approach it "asymptotically" but
that's a game that can't be won!)

David Pitzer