A shortage of tenors

In a former life I was part of a church choir (smallish church, ~140 members, everyone knew everyone). Same guy was running the orchestral band I had been a part of for a long time (trumpet, also had piano background), and they needed members.. A quick tryout and he told me to join the bass section - without taking into account I had a cold that day. I struggled to hit a lot of the notes, but then moved to tenor and easily hit most of the notes, almost being lead tenor for a while. Sure, it was a falsetto, but I could hit high A or C pretty reliably, IIRC.

Moved to the west coast (this was great lakes area) and something about the air is different, and while I stayed in choir for a few years, eventually lost the top octave entirely and am now a horrible singer (I used to be ok and could, for example, easily sing Livin' on a Prayer - I can't come close to it now). If I go back to the great lakes area, after a week, my singing voice has improved tremendously, only to lose it when I return. I do miss being able to sing better, but not enough to move back..

The choral world has survived despite a longtime shortage of castrati.

I'm sure they'll figure something out.

In all seriousness, SATB is mostly a constraint because of how choral composers write their music, not because good music demands it. You can produce beautiful music without all four voice parts being equally represented.

Our SATB chorus was about 75 strong, with about 2 women who could sing tenor. They were highly valued, especially in the limited membership of a women’s barbershop ensemble.

If you’re male and you can sing anything or play a pipe organ, you are worth your weight in gold to the right church.

Some of my favorite vocalists are female contraltos, because I can sing in their range.

Choral work is the most demanding volunteer job I ever had. It’s also exhilarating, highly social, and rewarding. No regrets!

The problem is not new, though. The article opens by mentioning a 1926 concert in which the choir asked the audience "If you sing tenor, please join us." The tenor range is relatively rare among men's voices. I'm a high tenor myself; I can routinely sing a G, and I can get up to an A if my voice is in good form. I think I managed a B♭ (Bb if HN strips out the ♭ (flat) Unicode character) once, but it was decades ago so I'm not sure if I'm remembering the arrangement correctly; and choral arrangers rarely ask tenors to sing a B flat since they know so few people can handle it. Pretty sure I've never been able to hit a C, though. (C5, that is; of course I can hit a middle C).

But tenors have been in short supply for decades and decades. Every single time I've tried out for a choir, when the choral director hears how high I can sing, I can see some sort of "tell" on his or her face. A smile, a widening of the eyes... I can sightread, too, so I know I'm a shoo-in for any choir (well, any amateur choir at least: I'm not a music professional and wouldn't be able to devote 20+ hours a week to a choir). But I suspect that even if I couldn't sightread at all and had to have my hand held for any new piece, choir directors would grab me anyway, just because of how high my voice can reach if I haven't been abusing it.

There have never been enough tenors anywhere, as the article acknowledges.

It's not clear what the evidence is that the problem is getting worse though? Or why it would be?

I read this as "a shortage of tensors" and was curious as to the latest chicanery.

But yeah tenors right -- matches my experience.

I sing tenor in a university choir as an older male community member and we encourage anyone to sing tenor whose voice is low enough. Over 1/3 of our tenors are women and our voices blend very well IMO.

Can't wait for Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast have a supply chain episode on this topic. :)

I go to local performances of baroque-era and somewhat earlier music regularly. I have noticed on occasion in a small vocal performance that has 2 people per part, occasionally a female contralto is paired with a male tenor. (I don’t know enough to know how that works as far as needing to modify the original parts or not.)

Though conversely I’ve also seen a male countertenor paired with a female alto, so maybe it’s just generally “who’s available for this performance” rather than an issue with a general shortage.

Someone should make a musician training tool called tenorsflow

One of my annoyances is that most male pop singing is at too high a range for normal baritone men without vocal training to sing along. I actually find it easier to sing along to female pop songs (by singing an octave lower) than to male pop songs.

After taking university music courses, and then private singing lessons, my observation is that most men learn to pitch their voices into a lower register - in order to sound more manly. Gay men tend to stop pitching their voices downwards and this leads to the perception that gay men use high pitches. Likewise, girls are taught to pitch their voices upwards and lesbian voices seem "mannish" due to stopping to pitch their voices to a higher register. It is my theory that men's natural voice/register is a lot higher and that if boys didn't try to sound macho, there would be a lot more tenors and counter-tenors (which is where my natural singing voice goes - not baritone like I thought it was supposed to be).

There’s been an alto shortage for many, many years. Maybe for similar reasons.

I misread this as "A shortage of tensors" ... disappointed.

I can state that (anecdotally) this is true. My range allows me to be placed in various sections as needed, but the vast majority of the time I am asked to sing tenor, for lack of numbers / strong voices to do so.

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