Balance. The question of balance must be left to the taste of the choirmaster; but it is very necessary to give a general rule for those singing, to know when they individually are singing too loudly for the surrounding tone. The following will be found of some assistance:
Never sing so loud that you cannot hear the other parts.
Many well-known writers have given an ideally balanced choir in numbers, but it is practically impossible for anyone to lay down a hard and fast law, for the simple reason that in speaking of tenors, one has to know whether they are robusto or lyric, the former having a much more powerful effect in choral work than the latter. The same remark applies to high basses and the basso profundo; especially does this apply to trebles of a flute-like head-quality, and to those boys that have that big, hornlike voice. But, for what they may be worth, the following numbers are suggested.
Thirty-six voices, eighteen to twenty-four boys, twelve to fourteen men, light tenors on the Decani side, heavy on the Cantoris; and, having obtained these numbers, the question of balance is still one which every individual member must feel more or less intuitively. Dr. Coward suggests twenty-two trebles, twenty altos, nineteen tenors, twenty-one basses, which he calls a "bright sky and a firm foundation."
The question of color is determined a great deal by the use of the resonators, and must be studied privately. Nevertheless, if the right mental attitude is established, and the true sense of the words duly appreciated, a great deal of tone-color can be obtained by an appropriate shading of the voice—now bright, now sombre. The thing to be avoided is the "unemotional" quality of tone.
