On 22 Jul 2005 at 19:04, Don Hart wrote: > on 7/22/05 5:38 PM, David W. Fenton at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > On 22 Jul 2005 at 16:27, Don Hart wrote: > > > >> on 7/22/05 2:17 PM, David W. Fenton at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > >> > >>> And I definitely believe that the "no female tenors" rule is more > >>> justifiable than the "no countertenors singing alto" rule. The > >>> former is, at least, historically appropriate. > >> > >> So we can sexually discriminate based on a history determined by > >> sexual discrimination? > > > Er, it isn't sex discrimination. > > What isn't: Catholicism's ban on females singing within it's walls or > the "no female tenors" rule?
Irrelevant. The music was conceived for male voices, which meant male voices were capable of singing it WITHOUT DAMAGE TO THEIR VOICES. > >> That might not hold up in a court of law. ;-) > > > > Only a court with a really stupid judge who couldn't tell the > > difference between valid qualifications for musical tasks and brain- > > dead stupid fantasies about equality. > > David, I just thought it was ironic you would more readily support a > limitation on female singers because of a history that started out > limiting female singers. I'm not talking about limiting anyone based on gender. I'm talking about dealing with the historical reality of what voices are physically capable of doing. There's not question that male voices can sing high without damage. Whether or not female voices can sing low without damage, I don't know, but it seems to me that the mechanisms of sound production probably mean that women can't possible be as range-versatile as men. The violin can't play notes below its g string (absent scordatura), but the cello can play lots of notes that overlap with the principle range of the violin. I'm not advocating that cellists take the place of violinits. I'm just pointing out that physical realities of the instruments have an effect on what range the instrument can produce. When questions of "normal range" are on the table, it then becomes important to realize that male and female vocal mechanisms are physicologicall different, and, thus, any rules that are based on that physicology are, of necessaity, going to have to reflect those differences, or be seen as arbitrary and/or unfair. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
