Hi, Stephen.

 

Interesting observation, but when you write:  "These baseball chants such as, "Let's Go Jeeter", the timbre was predominantly male ..." I kind of wonder.

 

I don't doubt your observation, just your interpretation.  Unless you have a reasonably accurate count of male vs. female participants, I suspect that the convergence in that range represents BOTH male and female, with the females using chest voice for more power.  If the timbre was indeed skewed toward the male (but how can you really tell?!!) it might be because it was higher in their chest voices and therefore carried more energy.  Actually I hear exactly the same thing in the well-known, "We will, we will rock you" chant, although I've never checked the pitches.

 

As I recall, Indiana University used to have a large-scale cheering camp for high school teams during the summer (and perhaps still does).  And the Speech and Hearing folks there found, along with the fact that every single cheerleader showed at least temporary and often permanent vocal damage, the fact that the cheering pitch was most often about 3/4 of the way up in the voice range, which was the exact part of the vocal folds where nodes were likely to develop.

 

On the other hand, one of the finest lyric sopranos I ever had in my university ensemble was a cheerleader in high school, but was taking voice lessons from a very smart teacher who taught her how to cheer with healthy production instead of trying to belt it.  This in contrast to another young woman who came to me with obvious vocal troubles, admitted to having had nodes as a cheerleader, but was lucky enough to have a teacher who sent her to a voice therapist.  After one year off, I accepted her into the ensemble--and as a first soprano, no less.  She was VERY lucky to have recovered completely.

 

And on the OTHER other hand, in the Sweet Adelines Chorus I conducted, most of those singing bass had been smoking for around 20 years!

 

John