Cambiata Approach


This highly popular method in the 1960s espouses four types of boys voices existing in grades 4–12:
  1. Boys unchanged—trebles
  2. Boys in first stage of mutation—cambiata
  3. Boys in second mutational stage—baritone
  4. Boys with completed vocal mutation—basses
Tenors do not exist in these years, as mature tenor voices do not emerge until the mid to late twenties. This approach prescribes that ninety percent of all boys’ voices mutate and lower according to a common pattern: first stage in seventh grade; second change to baritone in eighth grade.

Contemporary Eclectic Approach


▪ Unchanged—Pre-mutational
▪ Midvoice I—Early mutation
▪ Midvoice II—High mutation
▪ Midvoice IIa—Climax of mutation & key transitional period
▪ New voice—Stabilizing period
▪ Emerging adult voice—Post-mutational development and re-expansion

Although a student of Irvin Cooper, Cooksey concluded that Cooper’s classifications were too narrow in scope to be useful pedagogically. Expanded categories to six and asserts that maturation proceeds at various rates through a predictable, sequential pattern of stages.