Listener perception of and acoustic differences between girl and boy choristers in an English cathedral choir

Abstract

For centuries, boy choristers have been singing the top (treble) line in English cathedrals. Girl choristers were first admitted in 1991, and there is a long-running debate as to whether they can carry out this role appropriately. This paper will detail the results from two listening experiments designed to establish whether or not listeners can tell the difference between girl and boy choristers singing the top line in cathedral music. In the first experiment, 189 listeners took part and on average they were able to tell the difference 60% of the time; this was statistically significant over chance. The results suggested that repertoire played a significant part in this ability, and the second experiment was carried out in which the boys and girls sang the same repertoire. Nearly 170 listeners have completed this experiment and, on average, they are making guesses (correct 52% of the time). The paper will discuss the acoustic differences between the stimuli with respect to the singing of boy and girl choristers, while placing the discussion in the context of the English cathedral tradition.