Boy Choir Magazine

Unlike organized sports, no one sits on the bench for any performance of a boy choir. Each boy has a unique job to do and is an equally vital part of the final event. Further, the boy learns that he is a part of beauty and creativity, and that he completes only with himself. He is taught that to become better than he ever thought he could be requires that he become more familiar with his own make-up.

As the choirboy looks out over his choir, he immediately recognizes that he is a part of something much bigger than himself. The boy choir is altogether best described as a “finely tuned machine”. He can see this early on. At first, the choir is far larger than he can grasp, so he settles into his part and quietly marvels at its larger being. But soon enough, he learns that he has an important role in this larger organism that was created for the sole purpose of producing something beautiful.

The youngest choirboys are often assembled together and segregated from the older and more experienced boys. It is here they learn the ropes of the choir, their duties, their responsibilities and much about music. It is also here that the boys learn to work together as a cohesive team bent on the sole function of creating something beautiful and elegant out of mere squiggles on a page.

The boy choir focuses on giving to others – not solely achievement of personal or team strategic objectives or records. In this sense, the boy learns something altogether different than his peers in other activities. In a boy choir, the choirboy is taught that unselfish giving is his ultimate objective, and that it is achieved by an equally important objective of bettering himself though teamwork with the other boys. When the boy ultimately leaves his choir as an older young man, he has learned leadership is achieved by first measuring and improving self in the context of a team and then giving to the community as a priority of whatever he does with his talents.

There are, of course, many kinds of boy choirs around the globe. There is the oldest tradition of boy choirs in cathedral settings. There is also the Anglican tradition that not only flourishes but, in many ways, now carries the ancient traditions forward. In the remainder of Europe, non-affiliated choirs – many of them “resident” choirs – carry yet another tradition forward, but in fundamentally the same way as their ecclesiastical counterparts. The boy choirs of the United States have their roots in the non-Anglican tradition of European choirs and have developed largely community based, non-resident choirs.

But from the viewpoint of the boy sitting in the seat, all of this is totally irrelevant and most of it unknown to him. These are things the boy learns later – long after he has left the confines of his boyhood purpose.

As the choirboy sits in his seat and looks to his left and right, he sees his friends and his peers that have assembled together to make music for those seated before them. From their many practices, he has come to know them in great detail. He knows who is capable of carrying the less enthusiastic members. He knows who among the groups is the natural leader and even who has the natural talent. But more importantly, he has also discovered much about himself and who he is in this constantly changing blend of boys, music, art and performance.

From this discovery, the choirboy learns from the boy choir how to become better; how to carry and be carried; how to protect his friends; how to coach them without embarrassing them; how to be a friend of the boy sitting to his right and left without having to worry about besting him or beating him in a competition where one has to be better by design. In the boy choir, the assembled choir is the being of worth that must be protected and nurtured as the individual learns to be important because of their participation in the whole. The choirboy learns that his importance and his value are derived from the strength and the excellence of the body, which is only powerful if all the members engage in harmony together. Hence, the boy choir becomes the powerful model of all his later activities and, ultimately, his life’s professional journeys. The boy choir becomes the core feature and template of his values that is then fitted to every other experience in life.

He is blessed indeed. But more blessed are all those who he encounters later in his life. For here is a man who understands from experience the value of others, the ultimate worth of the team, and the unparalleled power and ultimate beauty of harmony.