Dave Pitzer <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Steve Schwartz replied to me:
>
>>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.
>
>True.  But choral singing is a "blend" of voices resulting from individual
>voices.  The blend can (and does) reflect the age of the individuals.
>I'll stick by my contention that a college-age "glee" club" sounds
>distinctive from a more mature group of the same size and voice breakdown
>singing the same music in the same "style".  A group of 21-23 year-olds
>sounds different than a group of 20-50+ year-olds.  Again, I'd like to
>hear other opinions on this as well.

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.

Ulvi
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