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Men who come to Mass and have great singing voices usually don't want to
sing in the choir, and they all have excuses. The most common is that they
can't carry a tune. While that may be the case in reality for some, I think
it is not the case for all, or perhaps most.

I think in most cases the problem is caused by the choir director, to be honest.

If they want men to sing they have to set up a way to instruct beginners.

Instead they basically tell the beginners to follow along, and neglect any serious instruction. (often they speak as though they are pressed for time, but if there's one thing I've noticed about them is that they tend to waste a lot of practice time)

If they expect men who don't know how to sing to start singing right away, it's putting beginners on the spot.  It's not right to do that to the male singer or the congregation.

I think there's a big tendency among certain trads to want to trip up other men, and putting them in embarrassing positions is one of the main ways they do it.

In fact, I don't think it's far off to say that if these chapels really wanted male scholas they could easily have them if they seriously encouraged it.

I don't believe they really want them.

I was going to post what I wrote below, then I re-read your post, Tele, and now
I think I see where you're coming from:  regarding the theme of this thread, that
is, why we are having this shortage of men's involvement in so many things.  

+W got into that in this conference talk.  At the end, he admitted that he had
just spent 55 minutes talking about something that he had not planned on
covering.  This means that what we have here is an extemporaneous speech.

There is something going on these days that changes the playing field.  It's not
the same game anymore.  We are missing something that we had in the 40's
and the 50's, and I'm not sure I know what it is.  People don't change that much,
or at least human nature doesn't change.  But something about the men, or
the way men think of themselves, is different now than in those days.

I agree that men can be embarrassed when things don't go right in singing,
and they do not want to lose credibility or feel like they have failed.  But as
far as "training" goes, just about all we have now is rehearsal time.  Men who
show up for rehearsal can learn the music.  Now, I hear you saying that it
would be a good idea to have them come to rehearsal once a week for some
number of months before they decide that they're ready to come in and sing
with the choir for the first time at Mass.  Is that it?  I suspect that would
backfire, because the girls and women would see this guy coming to rehearsal
and not singing at Mass, when the girls don't bother with that.  They sing at
Mass the first day they rehearse, in fact some of them don't make it to
rehearsal and they still sing in the choir.  (You're going to say who's hair-
brained idea was that? No?  Good question.)

I hope this topic can be explored.  There must be answers.  There was a time, not
too long ago, when men scholas were commonplace.  I would like to hear from
others who have experience in this, before they die off and we can't ask them
anymore.  For they would be men, or perhaps even women who knew men that
were doing this in the 40's and 50's, that are now 70 and up.  That's a narrow
demographic.  

As for the director, that is a big part of it, to be sure.  Likewise, it has to do
with the priest.  Before you can get the congregation excited about something,
you need to have the priest's leadership.  Now, the priest can make an announce-
ment from the pulpit every so often, but until he comes up with some kind of
concrete plan that actually works, the rubber isn't going to hit the road.  

For example, if the director is ready, willing and able to get a men's schola going
but he cannot convince the pastor that it's a good idea, where will that lead?  

One of the great things about a men's schola is that you can do anything then,
that is you can have any kind of Mass without restriction, because there is no
Latin Rite traditional liturgy that demands more than a men's schola.  None of
them demand women singers, none of them demand an organ, even, but an
organ is of course of great benefit.  You should never substitute a piano for the
organ, and it is improper to have strings, winds, brass or especially percussion
at Mass.  Piano is a percussion instrument.  

So, it seems to me that the decision to have a men's schola is closely related to
a commitment to start having High Mass and Gregorian Chant propers, for
example.  Not that it's necessarily a consequence, but it certainly has a tendency
to go in that direction.  

Another aspect is whether your conductor is Catholic or rather, whether he is
experienced in the tradition of the art and science of Catholic vocal liturgical
music, the foundation of which is Gregorian Chant.  But curiously, Chant is
likewise the forerunner of all of Western music!   So it's not too difficult to find
musicians who claim to know all about Gregorian Chant when in fact, all they've
done with it is read about it in books.  That's not enough.  It's a bit like saying
you're a swimming expert when all you've done is attend swim meets and read
about swimming, or that you're an expert with stained glass when you have an
extensive collection and lots of books but you've never built a stained glass
window.  

The nice thing about Chant is, that it teaches you.  You learn from the Chant by
singing the Chant.  Of course, you have to have some gentle and wise guidance
and a docility to learn.  There are far too many conductors and singers with all
attributes necessary, but lacking one thing:  the humility to accept correction and
the related desire to learn something they do not know yet.  

It is an art as well as a science, but the bottom line is, are you able to produce
the results?  Do you generate music that is heavenly, or, is it rather more like
purgatory for the listeners?  The purpose of singing at Mass is to raise the hearts
and minds of the congregation  --  AND THE PRIEST -- to God.  

If you can achieve that, it may be sufficient, but if not quite sufficient, at least it's
in the right direction.  

Men who
show up for rehearsal can learn the music.  

This idea of yours is a big problem, there's a total disregard for the requirements of the learning process.  Most men don't sing in this culture, whereas many more girls are encouraged or taught to sing.  A woman can go up and sing in a whispy voice and there's a crowd of other women to drown her out, though unfortunately nothing to drown out the loud old ladies.

The problem really is very, very simple.  It's that no serious effort is made to train a good schola.  It's not considered a priority.

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I agree that men can be embarrassed when things don't go right in singing,
and they do not want to lose credibility or feel like they have failed.  

That in particular angers me about your post.  Bad singers should be embarrassed to sing.  And people who encourage men to embarrass themselves are also disgraceful people who are not interested in either the music nor in the reputations they damage by encouraging incompetent performances.

It seems to me you're getting angry about an illusion.  I did not mean that things
don't go well because the man is not able to sing.  I meant that things can go
poorly even IF HE DOES know how to sing.  Singing is a very complex operation
and doing it well requires a lot of togetherness.  In all cases, nervousness or
tension or stress is a sure thing for disaster.  Therefore, thinking that one is a "bad
singer" is enough to make sure one will be unable to do it.  

I asked a priest who offers the CTLM according to the pre-1955 missal all
the time, and he said that when a high ranking feast displaces the Sunday
Mass (which never happens with the 62 missal) then at High Mass, the choir
would be expected to sing the propers for that irregular Feast Day.  That
means that such a choir should verify in advance, about a week or two,
so as to adequately prepare the new propers for that special High Mass,
as they may have never seen them previously, that is, this would be new
music for them.  

I have a Liber, and I could look up some examples, but some of these
Feast Days may not have all the propers set to Chant, especially if they are
of recent establishment (that is, up to about 1960).  But then again, perhaps
one of the requirements for making a Feast day of such higher rank would
have been to prepare all the music for it.  I've never heard how that worked.  
But whatever was done, it was all abandoned 50 years ago with the advent
of the '62 missal.