Starting from Victoria

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

52-53

text excerpt

When my voice broke, I sat with the organist and turned over the pages of music for him. Twice only I caused consternation, once I absent-mindedly during the first lesson, put my elbow on the organ keys and frightened quite a number of people out of their wits—the terrible shriek from the organ must have made them think it was Gabriel’s trumpet. A few weeks later, whilst turning over the pages of an anthem in a large volume containing many such, I pulled the darned book off the music stand and it fell on the organist’s fingers and keys. The row I had caused the organ to make earlier on was bad enough, but this was worse, so was the confusion. The book, besides pining the organist’s fingers down was partially resting on the manual above and the noise was like an army of scalded cats. I made several attempts to put the offending book back on the stand but only made matters worse. The choir had stopped singing with the exception of an elderly bass who we had suspected of being stone deaf and who now confirmed our suspicion. The boys and some of the men had difficulty in restraining their mirth […] The organist did the best thing. He pushed in all the stops and stopped the noise whilst the Vicar announced, “We will now sing the hymn No.— ‘Through the night of doubt and sorrow’ “. 

So much for my career as a boy chorister. When I was 18 I developed a falsetto voice, called alto, and in recent years known as counter tenor in some quarters but I think this is all rot. I contend that unless your speaking voice is similar to your singing voice, then the latter must be falsetto. 

excerpt from 'Starting from Victoria' pp. 52-53 (307 words)

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