Hi, Christina, and welcome to ChoralNet.  This is from my wife's experience, not my own.  Understanding the changing male voice is the same for either a female or male teacher.  You need to understand the physiology and the psychology of it, and there are some very good books on the subject.  (You also have to understand the girl's changing voice, although it is neither as obvious nor as traumatic.)

 

Where you may have to be creative is in modeling, deciding whether to try to sing in the correct octave or in your own higher octave.  (Male teachers have the opposite problem.)  As a boy's voice drops you can follow it down and model it in situ, but if it drops below your own you have to find whether it is confusing for you to sing an octave higher, or whether it's better to use the piano.  But since that's a matter of what your singers are used to, I suspect that you can do what you want as long as it is consistent.

All the best,

John

Hi, Christina.  I teach 7-8-9 grade boys and have learned a lot about how to bridge the gap between female teacher and male voices.  Since I am an alto 2, I am comfortable singing in the same range as middle school tenors.  I can model tone and pitch in their actual octave, and things work very easily. 

 

Young baritones/basses, however, are a different story.  Once their range drops lower, I need to sing in my female range instead.  These boys can tell when a note is low or high for me and try to copy what they SEE more than what they hear.  ie:  if they need to sing F below middle C, I need to model F above middle C.  I can hit the low F, but the boys will see how low it is for me and will then drop down an octave.

 

The biggest thing to know is that boys can sing in tune easily -- as long as the range is comfortable for them.  Unfortunately, the music we have chosen doesn't always work for the range they have this week (it can change hugely from week to week.)  Young basses and young tenors can rarely sing in the same range and be comfortable.  Look for music with separate parts for the guys as soon as you can.

 

Kelly

Good morning, Christina -- please be certain to see the April and May 2012 issues of Choral Journal.  This double issue is devoted to working with male singers as they develop from adolescence through early college.  Of particular interest to you will be Jana William's article in the May issue about her experiences as a female high school teacher working with boys.

Take care,

Patrick Freer

Hi, Christina.  Keep at the fore of your mind that the mechanism in men and women works the same. Men's voices are lower because testosterone makes the larynx bigger than in [most] women. The vocal cords are also bigger, ergo capable of lower pitch and possessing a larger range in chest register than [most] women.  In head voice, most basses and baritones can sing as high as women. Witness male R&B singers who use their head voice (Soooooooooouuuuuul Train!).  Sorry, you probably don't get the reference, but those born in the middle 60s or earlier surely will.  Unfortunately, except for that genre and a few countertenors, we tend not to teach men to use their head voices.  Listen to Chanticleer to hear a bit of what men can do in head voice, if trained. (Have you ever heard "portare Dominum" so effortlessly sung?)

 

The big thing about changing male voices is a lack of coordination because of the rapidly growing larynx and vocal cords.  Any kid that is having a growth spurt tends to be uncoordinated because they aren't used to the new/changing size of their bones, cartilage and muscles.  When in this phase, it is important not to tax their throat.  As a private voice teacher, I teach lots of middle and high school kids.  When I recognize what appears to be a major growth spurt starting (usually manifesting itself outwardly before the voice change, i.e. oversized feet), I tell them to take a vacation from lessons and come back to me in four to six months. By that time, they are usually through the rough part and have gotten past the Bobby Brady phase. (Look up Bobby Brady "Time to Change" on Youtube.) Before that, I teach them like an adult.  After the change, they come back, remembering their technique and singing well in a new range (after a couple of lessons). 

 

If you have to keep them singing in that uncoordinated stage, I would ask them to sing alto or tenor, using head voice most of the time.  That means they need to be taught how to use it before the rushing onset of hormones.

Christina, 

Jaclyn Johnson wrote her thesis on this topic----with the help of almost 100 women who replied to her questionnaire on Choral Net. Please shoot her an email: jmjohnson(a)murrieta.k12.ca.us

As a young woman who's brought her high school choir to both Regional and National ACDA Conferences, I can say that she's got a great handle on how to teach male singers.

 

I'm sure she'd be glad to share her work with you-

 

Hey Christina! I'm a senior Music Ed major as well and we just discussed these issues in my high school methods course. My instructor loaned me the book "Strategies for Teaching Junior High & Middle School Male Singers" by Terry J. Barham. If you can find it at a bookstore or somewhere and skim through it, I think you'll find that the advice in the book will be helpful to your research for your presentation. Hope this helps!

 

Meg

Christina, it just occurred to me that you would benefit from reading the book "In the Middle With You," by the late great middle school choral icon, Sandra Chapman.  It is self-published, and her husband, Allen Chapman, would be the person to talk to about getting a copy.  I can send you his number if you e-mail me. The bokk is, IMO, and invaluable resource for beginning and established teachers of middle school choirs.