Boy Choir Magazine

He sits in a row of rows, looking forward to his Director or whatever crowd there has been assembled to hear him sing. His eyes flicker back and forth between the white pages set before him all adorned with funny squiggles that he has come to learn and coax as sounds from his throat.He then stands to sing these controlled sounds and, as he does, his eyes witness the change that his sounds make, and that of his choir of fellow boys, on those around him. It is always the same – the hushed silence, the facial expressions that say to him, “You are doing very, very well. You are making something beautiful come out of yourself. You are a part of something far larger than just a small boy.”

It is that recognition, that inner voice, which draws him on to the next song and the next practice day after day until it becomes an indelible part of who he is. It is a strong memory that he will recall continuously, long after his voice has changed and long after the boy is hidden inside the man. The boy will always be there remembering, singing, recalling the power that he drew out of himself. It is a part of him that will never be forgotten.

The choirboy begins this trek through life usually through no part of his own. He hears about the choir or he is invited to the choir by teachers or family. To him, it is pretty much just another activity to which his elders have pointed him. But it is a rather extraordinary activity that he will not come to recognize until the adult in him is well in control.

The choirboy does not lose his boy identity just because he has chosen to embrace the beautiful and creative rather than more violent activities that require win-lose competitiveness with other boys. Instead, he embraces an activity that requires competition with himself while engaged in a pure teamwork frame that provides for a win-win arrangement with his peers. In this way, his relationship with his peers is purified by establishing the rules that everyone benefits and everyone can grow to the fullest strength to which they will allow themselves to grow.

He realizes early on that his most basic job is to create beauty and, thereby, to please all those within the sound of his voice. He is able to realize a quantum leap in maturity because he does not have to share the maturation process with fear that he will not be found “good-enough” or that imminent failure is a necessary part of his daily routine. Indeed, his experience is one that even on his worst day, he can still conquer and can still master his fear by uniting his voice with the strength and beauty of all his peers. He never awakens on any given morning with the fear of his peers, of their plans to move ahead of him or their plans to dominate his individual very important part.

The choirboy sits in his practice chair and shares his attention with four most basic influences that always float simultaneously about him: the boyhood inside of him wanting to stand up and run away; his friends, who even at their best are always vying for his attention; the Director who, while he is here, is his teacher, parent figure and god; and the sheet of music before him demanding that he fix his eyes, figure out its complexities, follow its perfection and sing when his moment has come. Each of these pulls at him and tugs and competes for his attention. But he learns soon enough how to manage all four in a process that is so efficient it has been proficiently used for millennia.

Eventually, the choirboy exchanges the practice chair for the place of the performance. He is dressed in special clothing that matches whatever venue he finds himself in. But just as his clothing is special, he knows he, too, is special and he is why all these people have assembled here before him. It is a secret that he knows only deep in his heart. It is hidden so deep that soon he, too, will forget it, and by the time he reaches manhood he may not remember it at all. As the choirboy looks out over those assembled before him, he nurses something common to every young boy: it is the small but convicting certainty that these have come to hear his voice and that somehow, even amid all the other voices around him, that they will hear the beauty of his single voice. As the baton falls, his eyes seek out those who carved the way for him to be here. And as his eyes lock onto theirs, and he sees their proud and loving smiles, he knows that his secret is not at all a fantasy but a fact. His voice rises to its most perfect resonance and sings for all the world to hear and enjoy.

Time and body chemistry ultimately catch up with the choirboy – every one of them. They are relentless pursuers. Time claims all its intended passengers. One morning the youth awakens and he is no longer a choirboy – indeed, he is no longer a boy. But the choirboy has not escaped without taking something on into life with him. The experience, the other boys and the timeless beauty are things that will remain with him as long as he lives.