Re: [Finale] notation program comparison

[Mark D Lew]

On Jul 21, 2005, at 4:54 AM, Richard Yates wrote:

This may be of interest, although the score that as chosen as the  
exemplar

is not complicated.

http://home.earthlink.net/~jfalbano/ 
Six%20Music%20Notation%20Programs.pdf


I'm coming into this discussion late.  (This list is too busy, and I  
can only keep up with one mega-topic at a time -- and this time I chose  
the "countertenor barred..." discussion instead.)


I found it interesting how each software has a distinctively look.   
Even with the low-resolution PDFs as they first appeared on my screen,  
I recognized the Finale and Score versions at a glance.  Sibelius, on  
the other hand, fooled me, because the Encore one is so similar to  
Sibelius's standard style.  Is it just a coincidence that they resemble  
each other?


The fact that Mr Spreadbury submitted the Sibelius entry, whereas the  
Finale entry fell by default to the only person who volunteered, tells  
me something about the difference between MakeMusic and Sibelius.  The  
latter saw an opportunity to show off their product and made sure that  
they got one of their most knowledgeable employees to do a first-rate  
job.  MakeMusic either didn't know or didn't care enough to put out a  
similar effort.  They wouldn't have even needed to provide an engraver.  
 They could have easily enlisted Johannes or any of several others on  
this list to volunteer.


mdl

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Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has

[Craig Parmerlee]

David W. Fenton wrote:


On 22 Jul 2005 at 18:03, Craig Parmerlee wrote:

 

Last year, we fought ferociously to get 
ourselves out of the legacy problem -- advancing our platform 15 years

in the course of 12 months.  Now we are determined to take full
advantage of the productivity that comes when you can get rid of that
legacy.  It is abundantly clear to me that Finale is still slaving
under its legacy.  We think of reinventing 5% of our system every
MONTH.  Finale is reinventimg one percent of its system every YEAR. 
Two entirely different worlds.
   



I don't know who "we" is, nor what kind of software it is you're 
talking about, or how big a customer base you have, and how 
restrictive you are on the environments and platforms your software 
supports, but I do know that good code doesn't rust. If it's well-

designed and implemented well, it can last a very long time.
 

You seem to missing the point.  You are talking about longevity.  I am 
talking about innovation.


Yes, of course bits do not deteriorate.  Software written in 1990 can be 
preserved indefinitely.  However the changing world around that software 
makes it less and less relevant every day.


There are many software vendors using the cash cow model -- Microsoft 
office might be a great example.  And if they can get away with minimal 
innovation and still produce a nice revenue stream, more power to them.  
That is Microsoft in a nutshell.  However, the success of many software 
ventures today depends on an ability to sustain a rapid pace of 
innovation.  Ebay/Paypal, eHarmony, SideStep and Carfax may be good 
examples here.  These are companies that succeed by innovation and their 
ability to sustain rapid delivery of desirable features.


These companies most certainly do not operate on a "big annual release" 
mental model.  They are introducing valuable capability continuously -- 
just as soon as they can get it ready for market.


The software world you are describing is the mindset of the 1980s that 
still traps a lot of companies.  When one is laboring under a heavy 
burden of legacy code, there may not be many alternatives.


As I see it, Finale is unable to deliver rapid innovation, but they also 
have lack the strength to operate a cash cow model.  As a person who has 
at least a dozen Finale releases on the shelf, I get no pleasure in 
observing that.


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[Finale] OT: [er... uh... 12/12?... was ahem... Countertenor]

[shirling & neueweise]

i really had no intention of actually reading the digest, but dammit 
if the mouse didn't slip off the scrollbar while i was skimming the 
page (more for the trippy visual effect than the knowledge) and 
waddayano, came across this:


From: "David W. Fenton"
Well, I think it's sexist thinking and old-fashioned historically 
uninformed musical thinking that allows them to cling to the bogus 
justification for the rules.


YES!  that's EXACTLY what owain and i have been trying to say to you! 
we're so happy you finally see the light!


dude, i couldn't resist the jab 8^)
hugs and kisses,
jef

--

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mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] :.../ http://newmusicnotation.com
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Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has

[Mark D Lew]

On Jul 22, 2005, at 7:49 PM, Carl Dershem wrote:

And I thought *I* was cutting it thin!  Here's wishing business to 
you!!


Well, to be fair, 2004 was more "bohemian" than usual for me.  I'm 
typically somewhere around $20,000.


mdl

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[Mark D Lew]

On Jul 22, 2005, at 7:27 PM, John Howell wrote:

Mariah Carey's top isn't that much beyond Queen of the Night.  The 
whistle tones in her early songs were typically around F, G and A in 
the same octave as the QotN F.  I remember one song in which she went 
up to Bb.


Actually I've transcribed some of her things, at least one of which 
goes a full octave above Queenie's high F.  Maybe they were later 
recordings and she was pushing the envelope.


Are you certain?  I've done the same with a few of her songs, and my 
conclusion was that the timbre of her sound gives the impression of 
being an octave higher than it actually is.


But perhaps I'm in error. Can you cite a song title for me?

I'm always amazed to note that even though she sounds like a fairly 
high soprano at times, Barbra Streisand (almost?) never sings above a 
d".  She's only one of a group of canny pop singers who know 
absolutely what their good range is, and never, ever exceed it.


Hmm.  I don't know that Barbra ever seems like a high soprano to me.  
Also, I'm pretty sure she's sung above d".  I have a Michel Legrand 
book with all the Yentl songs, but unfortunately it's at my sister's 
house right now.  I'm pretty sure there's some F's in there (though 
it's possible Barbra sings them transposed).


mdl

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[Mark D Lew]

On Jul 22, 2005, at 3:12 PM, John Howell wrote:

If I'm right about his voice type, it was what the French call "haute 
contre," and I later had two students with this same type of voice, 
with the power of the male chest voice carried up higher into the 
mezzo range.  I believe that the next Pro Musica countertenor, Earnie 
Murphy, had the same type of voice, as did, on the pop side, Clark 
Burroughs of the Hi-Los and Don Shelton of the Hi-Los and Singers 
Unlimited.


That's why so many countertenors prefer to be called "sopranist".  The 
"haute contre" method of production is significantly different -- more 
like the traditional voix-mixte tenor style that's common for French 
tenors (or French style tenors, like Nicolai Gedda).


Another great haute contre is Jean-Paul Fouchecourt, whom I had the 
pleasure of hearing in Berkeley a few years ago.


mdl

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[Mark D Lew]

On Jul 22, 2005, at 7:14 PM, John Howell wrote:


And i still don't understand the reason for "pants" roles!


Persistence of tradition, mostly.  In the early days there were 
high-voice male roles written for castrati.  Traditionally the 
pants-role characters were callow young men (but not prepubescent).  
Before long, female singers were sometimes cast in these roles, if no 
castrato was available.  Composers who wrote the roles understood that 
they might be sung by a woman or a castrato.  Gradually, the castrati 
were phased out and the roles were sung only by women.  Composers 
continued the tradition of writing pants roles for young male 
characters, even long after there were no more castrati.  (The 
tradition of casting non-castrated males in these roles is actually a 
newer tradition.)


mdl

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[Carl Dershem]

John Howell wrote:


At 7:12 PM -0700 7/22/05, Mark D Lew wrote:

Several opera singers have made fine careers with a range no larger 
than two octaves.  About two and a half is typical for a well-trained 
singer, about three for a particularly versatile one.


I'm always amazed to note that even though she sounds like a fairly high 
soprano at times, Barbra Streisand (almost?) never sings above a d".  
She's only one of a group of canny pop singers who know absolutely what 
their good range is, and never, ever exceed it.


Well, not just that - she plays it for maximum effect, making the best 
of every note.  It's like some of the 'high note" trumpet playing you 
hear in big bands - the notes aren't all that bloody high, but they way 
the pieces are arranged will make them sound higher than they really 
are.  And, of course, the timbre of the player can enhance the 
perception of high pitch.


cd

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Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has

[Carl Dershem]

Mark D Lew wrote:

For many of us, 100 bucks is not "measly".  My gross income last year 
was about $7,000.  Does that mean I "care" less about Finale?  Show some 
perspective.  Not everyone here is the same.


And I thought *I* was cutting it thin!  Here's wishing business to you!!

Anyway, my solution to the upgrade "problem" is simple.  I just choose 
not to upgrade until it's worth it to me.  Easy.


Agreed.

cd

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[Mark D Lew]

On Jul 22, 2005, at 7:07 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:


You're making the same mistake as the Texas rulemakers.


No, I'm not.


You're looking at "normal" for the population of men.

We're looking at "normal" for individuals.


No, what you are doing is misreading my words in order to play games 
with the word "normal".  I explicitly stated that I'm not passing 
judgment on anyone but only stating the fact that the physical 
mechanism for countertenor singing is different.  You chose to ignore 
that and rebut an imaginary person who is arguing that countertenors 
are abnormal, inferior, and wrong.  I'm not sure who, if anyone, is 
claiming that.  It certainly isn't me.


Let me try this another way.

Chad Bradford, a baseball pitcher formerly with the Oakland A's, 
recently traded to the Boston Red Sox, throws the baseball in a 
characteristic way.  He tilts his body nearly to perpendicular and 
throws with a low sidearm move that has the ball leaving his hand just 
inches from the ground.


If you were to say that Bradford's style of pitching is "normal", you'd 
be wrong.  It is not normal.


Does that mean he's ineffective?  No.

Does that mean he's a deviant person?  No.

Does that mean his motion is less natural to the human body?  No.

Does that mean he'd be a better pitcher if he pitched like a "normal" 
pitcher?  No.


Does that mean his style of pitching is less effective or less 
legitimate?  No.


But even if it's just as good, it's not normal.  Notwithstanding the 
numerous individual differences in style, nearly all Major League 
pitchers pitch with a motion which is basically overhand.  That is the 
norm.  Bradford is outside of that norm.


That's the point I'm trying to make about countertenors.  The way they 
sing is outside the norm.  That's not a criticism, it's a fact.  All 
your arguing about how a certain countertenor you know was a better 
singer when he sang countertenor is completely beside the point.  
That's true of almost any serious countertenor singer, and I've known 
several of them.


mdl

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[John Howell]

At 7:12 PM -0700 7/22/05, Mark D Lew wrote:

Mariah Carey's top isn't that much beyond Queen of the Night.  The 
whistle tones in her early songs were typically around F, G and A in 
the same octave as the QotN F.  I remember one song in which she 
went up to Bb.


Actually I've transcribed some of her things, at least one of which 
goes a full octave above Queenie's high F.  Maybe they were later 
recordings and she was pushing the envelope.


What's amazing is that one of my college sopranos, who was soloing on 
a Carey song, discovered suddenly that she could easily produce those 
notes.  She discovered it unexpectedly, in the middle of a 
shoundcheck, and came close to blowing a speaker as the audio mixist 
dove for the board!!


Several opera singers have made fine careers with a range no larger 
than two octaves.  About two and a half is typical for a 
well-trained singer, about three for a particularly versatile one.


I'm always amazed to note that even though she sounds like a fairly 
high soprano at times, Barbra Streisand (almost?) never sings above a 
d".  She's only one of a group of canny pop singers who know 
absolutely what their good range is, and never, ever exceed it.


John


--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411  Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has

[Mark D Lew]

On Jul 22, 2005, at 4:03 PM, Craig Parmerlee wrote:

Posting to a discussion group is neither here nor there.  Complaining 
about Finale's upgrade policy seems pointless and counter-productive.  
If one doesn't care about Finale's survival, then why is one here?


Caring about Finale's survival isn't the only reason to be here.  I 
care about tools for engraving.  Since Finale is a good one, I'm 
interested in understanding how best to use it and in helping others 
achieve the same.  That doesn't necessarily translate to a desire to 
keep the company alive.


 And if one does care about Finale's survival, surely that is worth 
more than a measly 100 bucks a year.


For many of us, 100 bucks is not "measly".  My gross income last year 
was about $7,000.  Does that mean I "care" less about Finale?  Show 
some perspective.  Not everyone here is the same.


Anyway, my solution to the upgrade "problem" is simple.  I just choose 
not to upgrade until it's worth it to me.  Easy.


mdl

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State

[Tyler Turner]

--- "David W. Fenton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Of course, if men couldn't have sung it, it wouldn't
> have been 
> written for them, so, we can see that the issue of
> discrimination 
> doesn't have anything to do with the determination
> of the validity of 
> the "singing in the wrong range damages the voice"
> justification for 
> the Texas rule in regard to countertenors
> specifically.
> 

Just to be sure, you're not suggesting that TMEA was
saying that a countertenor singing in the soprano
range would damage his voice, are you? We're all on
the same page that this wasn't their rationale, right?

Tyler




Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page 
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs 
 
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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[John Howell]

At 6:53 PM -0700 7/22/05, Mark D Lew wrote:

Sure, cross-gender portrayals are commonplace in opera, too. 
Personally, I rather like that sort of thing, and I've even used it 
intentionally on occasion when I've had the opportunity to design a 
program.  If I'm directing a chorus where I'm obliged to accept 
female tenors, I'd have no problem telling them, "you may be a 
woman, but you're playing a male character, so you get to sing 
'There is nothing like a dame' with the rest of the tenors".


It was decided early on that in our production of "Oliver!" this 
summer we would use girls as well as boys in both the workhouse scene 
and in Fagin's gang.  What i don't know yet, because I haven't seen 
the costumes, is whether our costumer will try to hide the fact that 
they're girls or just go with the flow.


And i still don't understand the reason for "pants" roles!

John


--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411  Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[Mark D Lew]

On Jul 22, 2005, at 3:12 PM, John Howell wrote:

Does anyone remember details of a legendry singer- South American, I 
think

called Yma Sumac?  - hope I have the spelling sort of correct!

As a youngster I remember being amazed when told she had a six octave+
useable vocal register.


Watch it, Keith; you're giving away our age!  Yes, I remember her 
well.  Allegedly from Bolivia or some equally exotic place, the word 
on the street was that she was really from Brooklyn.  And I thought it 
was more like a 5-octave range, but who's counting?!


The sort of people who judge a singer by the size of her range are 
notoriously bad at counting octaves.  A lot of them get confused by how 
notes are named.  They think, "I can sing this F, this F, this F, and 
that F, therefore I can sing four octaves."  No, that's three octaves.  
Others simply make shit up, like the crazies who claim that Mariah 
Carey has an eight-octave range.


I'm pretty sure that Yma Sumac's range was a bit short of five octaves, 
which is still huge.  From the lowest bass note to the highest soprano 
note in the entire operatic literature is only four and a half octaves.


Yes, she had a viable and big baritone range and could take her voice 
up at least to Queen of the Night range, although I can't remember 
whether she made it into Mariah Carrey's top octave--might have.


Mariah Carey's top isn't that much beyond Queen of the Night.  The 
whistle tones in her early songs were typically around F, G and A in 
the same octave as the QotN F.  I remember one song in which she went 
up to Bb.  It sounds higher than operatic soprano because she sings in 
a different style (rather like Mado Robin's), but it's actually only a 
few notes higher.


The distance between Mariah Carey's top and bottom recorded notes is a 
little shy of four octaves, though she supposedly can sing beyond in 
either direction.  I'd still question any claim of a "four-octave 
range", given that the two registers are completely disjoint with a gap 
of about a sixth in which she never sings.  (Curiously, this gap 
corresponds with the upper range of a "normal" soprano.)


Several opera singers have made fine careers with a range no larger 
than two octaves.  About two and a half is typical for a well-trained 
singer, about three for a particularly versatile one.


mdl

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[David W. Fenton]

On 22 Jul 2005 at 18:53, Mark D Lew wrote:

> As for the male singing soprano, both Darcy and David F made a similar
> point by claiming that the Texas countertenor is singing in his
> "normal" range.  I think semantics is getting in the way of
> information here.  I don't want to tangle with the words "normal" or
> "natural" because it carries a value judgment when you deny that an
> activity is natural or normal.  But allowing the claim to stand is
> misleading.  If Gary sings tenor and Bob sings bass, the two men are
> using pretty much the same vocal technique in their singing.  If
> Andrew sings countertenor, he is not using the same vocal technique. 
> He is using his voice in a different way.  All men have either
> register available to them, but one is choosing to develop the higher
> register while the others are not.  If the lower register is defined
> as "normal", then both bass and tenor are normal in a way that
> countertenor is not.

You're making the same mistake as the Texas rulemakers.

You're looking at "normal" for the population of men.

We're looking at "normal" for individuals.

The countertenor who sang with the NYU Collegium (and a countertenor 
who sang with the choir I was in back in Cleveland) had far more 
agility and control in the countertenor range than he had in the 
baritone range. And this was despite the fact that he'd been singing 
countertenor regularly for less than a year when he sang the 
Buxtehude Jubilate in concert.

You can criticize his actual performance however much you like, but 
he was a far better musician, far more usable in performance, in the 
countertenor range than he was in the baritone range.

You may say it's "abnormal" but it wasn't for *him* -- it was the 
range where he was best able to make music.

That should be what the Texas music educators should be concerned 
with, it seems to me.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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RE: [Finale] GPO/Kontakt Primer (and a Notion as well)

[Fiskum, Steve]

Thanks for this unoffical review of Notion. I have been waiting to see a demo 
and find out more info. 

>From its website and some of the ads I've seen I have had the iimpression that 
>playback was a bit more important than notation. It is interesting to hear 
>your thoughts on the program.

Thanks again,
Steve Fiskum
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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State

[David W. Fenton]

On 22 Jul 2005 at 20:43, Don Hart wrote:

> on 7/22/05 7:52 PM, David W. Fenton at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> 
> > 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.
> 
> Conceived this way because of the woman's place in society, which was
> *not* singing in church. 

Again, WHY is not relevant to the FACT that men sang the music 
without damaging their voices. Why men were singing that music is not 
relevant.

Of course, if men couldn't have sung it, it wouldn't have been 
written for them, so, we can see that the issue of discrimination 
doesn't have anything to do with the determination of the validity of 
the "singing in the wrong range damages the voice" justification for 
the Texas rule in regard to countertenors specifically.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[Mark D Lew]

On Jul 22, 2005, at 4:19 AM, Phil Daley wrote:


I am surprised that any states do not use blind judging.

How do they eliminate the possibility that a judge would know a 
student and then use that information in the resulting rating?


The states I have worked in all used blind judging.


Nearly all of the auditioning I've been involved with from the other 
side of the table is for staged productions (ie, opera or musical 
theater), so it's hard for me to separate stage presence from other 
factors.  Even so, I learn a huge amount about a singer by watching 
her.  If I hear sounds that concern me, I want to see her posture, 
lips, neck, etc, to get a quick idea of whether it's just a brief lapse 
or indicative of a serious problem in technique that I'll have to work 
with.  I want to see how confident she is, and how she presents herself 
visually.  I want to see if she engages the audience with her eyes.  I 
want to see if her facial expressions enhance the performance and 
communicate the text.


Most of these things are less important if it's for concert performance 
only, and still less if the singer will never be seen by the audience 
at all.  Even so, they aren't irrelevant.


Picking the best singer is hard, and you never have time to collect as 
much information as you like.  Why disable yourself further by cutting 
off further information?  To me, this is like arguing that auditions 
should all be done by listening to the singer on tape instead of live.  
Sure, you could do that, and as a practical matter you might have to, 
but why would you want to if you have the choice?


--

On the other hand, John Howell wrote:

Hi again, Mark.  On the local level the real reason we try to audition 
blind is that there are rivalries among both voice teachers and choir 
directors, and we attempt to avoid those existing prejudices by not 
allowing the judges to know whom they're hearing. This really does 
protect the students as much as possible.  And it really does allow 
you to concentrate on the sound and vocal technique and range.  But 
it's the very real rivalry that's the proximate cause for using 
curtains, not any question of gender roles.


Yeah, I can undestand that.  I've been fortunate enough to avoid ever 
getting mixed up in any situation like that, but I've seen them from 
distance.  I could see how auditioning blind would be a necessary evil 
in such a case.


I hate that kind of petty politics. If I have any input in choosing 
singers my only goal is to get the person who is best for the part and 
best for the production.



Ah, I can tell that you're theater-oriented!


True.  Most of my experience is in opera and quasi-opera, but I've also 
sung in numerous symphony choruses


The average orchestra plays from a stage, is quite visible, and yes, 
their physical presence IS part of the product.  (Sez me, getting 
ready to plunge into the pit with mine viola for this summer's 
production of "Oliver!")  But the object in choral singing is to 
reduce individuality so that physical blend joins vocal blend.  That's 
why tuxes and long black dresses.


Yes, but appearance matters whether you're looking to increase 
individuality or reduce it.  If a prospective chorister is incapable of 
singing without bobbing her head annoyingly, that's a negative for the 
chorus.  If a prospective chorister tends to always sing with a dazed 
look in his eyes and a scowl on his face, that's a negative for the 
chorus.  Those are things you won't find out about in a blind audition.


OK, here's a practical answer.  Our (very good) community chorus has 
one (count them, ONE!) female tenor, and yes, that is her natural and 
healthy voice range.  She dresses as the women do, and stands at the 
border between the tenors and the altos.  No physical distraction, and 
nobody who doesn't actually know her would notice that she was singing 
with the tenors rather than the altos.  If we had an alto countertenor 
(which we don't), he would stand in about the same place.


I've been in choruses with female tenors often, including one who I 
think really was more effective as a tenor than she would have been as 
an alto, and it's been similar to what you describe.  The SF Symphony 
Chorus had an excellent male alto for a few years when I was there, and 
one of the UC Berkeley choruses had one for a while to.  As far as I'm 
concerned, they don't even have to stand at the "border" between 
sections. I don't mind seeing a man standing surrounded by women or 
vice versa.


As to the concern about whether you need to change the words for a 
single off-gendered singer, men have been singing "women's" words and 
women have been singing "men's" words for literally centuries.  Much 
of the renaissance madrigal and chanson literature has gendered 
poetry, but it doesn't really matter, and there was no church 
prohibition against women singing that literature with men.  It's 
simply a non-issue in a choral context, whereas for solo voic

Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[Mark D Lew]

On Jul 22, 2005, at 3:35 AM, dhbailey wrote:

Thanks for that link -- it seems very good.  While there is a 
statement that singing "out of range" may cause nodules, it doesn't 
define how to determine that.  Many females who sing tenor do so 
because it is their natural range.  Many males who sing soprano do so 
because it is their natural range.


In my experience, only about 10% of women who normally sing tenor in 
choruses do so because it is their natural range.  The most common 
reasons I've found are, in order:  (1) the singer personally identifies 
with being a "female tenor"; (2) the singer is completely out of touch 
with her head voice and is only using the bottom half of her range, 
thus she finds even alto to be "too high"; (3) the chorus director 
encourages her to sing tenor in order to fill out the section.  These 
tend to overlap, as some chorus director who wouldn't actually push a 
woman to sing tenor will readily acquiesce if the singer already wants 
to.


As for the male singing soprano, both Darcy and David F made a similar 
point by claiming that the Texas countertenor is singing in his 
"normal" range.  I think semantics is getting in the way of information 
here.  I don't want to tangle with the words "normal" or "natural" 
because it carries a value judgment when you deny that an activity is 
natural or normal.  But allowing the claim to stand is misleading.  If 
Gary sings tenor and Bob sings bass, the two men are using pretty much 
the same vocal technique in their singing.  If Andrew sings 
countertenor, he is not using the same vocal technique.  He is using 
his voice in a different way.  All men have either register available 
to them, but one is choosing to develop the higher register while the 
others are not.  If the lower register is defined as "normal", then 
both bass and tenor are normal in a way that countertenor is not.


mdl

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State

[Don Hart]

on 7/22/05 7:52 PM, David W. Fenton at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

> 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.

Conceived this way because of the woman's place in society, which was *not*
singing in church. 

Don Hart

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Re: [Finale] notation program comparison

[Owain Sutton]

Noel Stoutenburg wrote:
Adobe succeeded in 
persuading the court that a digital font is output of a computer 
program



Case law suggests, that in 
the U.S., if you printed out all of the characters of the revere font 
enlarged them with an analog pantagraph, and scanned and digitized the 
enlarged images, that this would not be infringement on the font in the 
U.S.


Case law, or speculation?  All that you describe is several direct 
copies of a computer output.

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Re: [Finale] notation program comparison

[Noel Stoutenburg]

Matthew Hindson Fastmail Account wrote:

With respect to reverse engineering the "Revere" font of Graphier as 
Matthew suggested, and about which he further wrote, in part:


It would of course be illegal to do this most likely - what is the 
status of 'abandonware' these days?


It would probably depend upon in which jurisdiction(s) the copyrights 
are registered involved.  For example,  there are works composed by Wood 
between 1923 and his death in 1926, in which the copyrights were owned 
by Oxford University Press.  I understand that, under UK copyright law, 
these works are in the public domain, because the copyright expired at 
the end of the 70th year after his death, however, OUP-USA claims that, 
despite the fact that these items are public domain in the country of 
original registration, that under U.S. law, those works of Wood composed 
between 1923, and 1926, which are still subject to copyright. 

Further, "Fonts" in the U.S. are explicitly excluded from copyright by 
statute, (though digital fonts are in a somewhat less clear area because 
of a confusing ruling of the U.S. supreme court; Adobe succeeded in 
persuading the court that a digital font is output of a computer 
program, and while the exact same shapes generated by handset type are 
not copyrightable, the digital version is.)  Case law suggests, that in 
the U.S., if you printed out all of the characters of the revere font 
enlarged them with an analog pantagraph, and scanned and digitized the 
enlarged images, that this would not be infringement on the font in the 
U.S.; I'm guessing, however, that it would violate graphical copyright 
in the E.U.


ns


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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State

[David W. Fenton]

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. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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[Finale] GPO/Kontakt Primer (and a Notion as well)

[Robert Patterson]

I've seen thread after thread about GPO, but I'm sorry to say I haven't 
paid much attention. Now I've received the Fin06 marketing brochure, and 
my interest is piqued.


I understand that a version of GPO sounds comes bundled with Finale. Is 
"Kontakt" the playback engine for those sounds? What are the advantages 
of upgrading to the full versions vs. staying with the bundled versions? 
Assuming Kontakt is what plays the GPO sounds, how does Finale trigger 
them? Is it still MIDI with all the problems that entails?


Part of my interest stems from having seen a demo last week of a new 
program called Notion. As a notation program it takes you back to late 
ProCo or early Mosaic days (w/o Mosaic's part linkage) in terms of how 
it looks. (The spacing, in particular, is awful.) But the playback 
engine is amazing: it is an utterly new paradigm. Instead of using midi 
or anything like it, the program synthesizes the waveforms on the fly. 
You could have an orchestra of 50 pianos playing 10 notes each, and the 
program synthesizes that sound in real time, so there is no latency and 
no voice overrun. Furthermore, they've linked samples of various 
intruments playing different techniques (all recorded by the LSO) to 
their corresponding standard notation markings. As a result, you 
automatically get different samples if you put a slur, an accent, or 
staccato, etc. on a note. They have a demo score of Stravinsky Infernal 
Dance for which the playback in many passages sound remarkably like a 
real orchestra. The rep. claimed that no special tweaking was required.


That said, I think Notion will have a tough time staying in business. 
They are nowhere close to either Fin or Sib on notation features, and 
meanwhile, I wonder if both Fin and Sib aren't moving towards imitating 
Notion's playback paradigm. Hence, my question about GPO/Kontakt and how 
Finale interacts with them.


Another problem with Notion is that you have to do things its way. It 
contains many, many notation features, but the ones they have not 
accounted for, you cannot do.


While I remain unconvinced that Notion will have the opportunity to 
deliver on its promises, I was impressed by their representative. He 
obviously believes passionately in the program. He literally thinks it 
can change the world by bringing interest in and deep knowledge of 
orchestra music back to the masses. It was a bit moving to see a man 
older than me (and I'm not young) with such youthful stars in his eyes. 
I think Notion has thrown a challenge at both Fin and Sib that I hope 
they will heed. Even if Notion is knocked down, perhaps Fin and/or Sib 
can deliver on Notion's promise.


--
Robert Patterson

http://RobertGPatterson.com

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RE: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[Dennis Bathory-Kitsz]

At 06:12 PM 7/22/05 -0400, John Howell wrote:
>a viable and big baritone range and could take her voice up at least 
>to Queen of the Night range

Speaking of which, one of the most astounding -- and strange, thin,
beautiful -- voices I'd heard was Mado Robin. Anybody know her work? I have
one recording, and although her pitch wobbled a bit in the lower register
(it was a 1950s recording, a few years before her death from leukemia), the
sound of her voice in the high register could be described as crystalline,
more like a glass harmonica than an ordinary soprano.

Dennis


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RE: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[John Howell]

At 6:41 PM -0400 7/22/05, David W. Fenton wrote:

On 22 Jul 2005 at 18:12, John Howell wrote:


 Several writers have hinted at this, but let me say it straight out.
 Male sopranos in renaissance music were NOT very often castrati (a
 practice the church did not approve of, but did take advantage of),
 and were not always boys at churches without choir schools.  It
 depended on the choir.  And if modern voices can, for many singers,
 open up the head range and sing comfortably in alto and soprano
 ranges, so could rennaisance voices.


Well, you'll also note that soprano parts in the music of that period
seldom goes much above the A on the first ledger line.


Actually there's a pretty clear difference between music that appears 
to have been written for boys and music that appears to have been 
written for "regular" male sopranos (if I may use that term in light 
of the present thread!).  In the case of boys,the tessitura and not 
just the range extremes lies clearly higher, with the alto, tenor and 
bass parts grouped together in a lower tessitura.  Unchanged boys can 
float in that tessitura.  In the case of men, though, that tessitura 
is difficult, and the parts lie lower--seldom if ever reaching up to 
that A"--and fit more compactly with the lower three parts.  Even 
Chanticleer's charts recognize that, although their sopranos aren't 
bad.



And then there's the issue of clefs and transposition and variable
pitch and chorton vs. kammerton. . .


I debated whether to mention those variables and decided not to, but 
you're absolutely right.  The whole thing is really confusing, and 
I'm not sure there's any concensus even now about how to interpret 
certain combinations of clefs.


John


--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411  Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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RE: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[Dennis Bathory-Kitsz]

At 06:12 PM 7/22/05 -0400, John Howell wrote:
>Watch it, Keith; you're giving away our age!  Yes, I remember her 
>well.  Allegedly from Bolivia or some equally exotic place, the word 
>on the street was that she was really from Brooklyn.  And I thought 
>it was more like a 5-octave range, but who's counting?!  Yes, she had 
>a viable and big baritone range and could take her voice up at least 
>to Queen of the Night range, although I can't remember whether she 
>made it into Mariah Carrey's top octave--might have.  A lot of hype, 
>but a startlingly unusual voice.

I'd forgotten -- yes, I heard recordings. And here's the bio from IMDB:

Dennis



Yma Sumac
Date of birth
10 September 1927
Ichocan, Peru 
Birth name
Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chavarri del Castillo 
Nickname
The Peruvian Songbird 
Mini biography
Known for her astonishing 4 1/2 octave vocal range, Yma Sumac (AKA Ima
or Imma Sumack) is from Ichocán, Peru, a town high in the Andes. From an
early age she performed in radio and movies and made recordings throughout
South America. She came to the United States in the 1940s and performed
with a small group of musicians and dancers. When she signed with Capitol
Records in 1950 her stage name's spelling was changed to the more exotic
"Yma Sumac." An urban legend that she is really "Amy Camus," a nice Jewish
girl from Brooklyn, originated in 1951 with a joke amoungst musicians
repeated in one of Walter Winchell's gossip columns. She has acted in
several films and stage shows, and continued to concertize into the 1990s.
She lives in Los Angeles and has been contemplating new releases of
recordings of her most recent concerts.






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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State

[Don Hart]

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?

>> 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.  DH

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Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has

[David W. Fenton]

On 22 Jul 2005 at 18:03, Craig Parmerlee wrote:

> Last year, we fought ferociously to get 
> ourselves out of the legacy problem -- advancing our platform 15 years
> in the course of 12 months.  Now we are determined to take full
> advantage of the productivity that comes when you can get rid of that
> legacy.  It is abundantly clear to me that Finale is still slaving
> under its legacy.  We think of reinventing 5% of our system every
> MONTH.  Finale is reinventimg one percent of its system every YEAR. 
> Two entirely different worlds.

I don't know who "we" is, nor what kind of software it is you're 
talking about, or how big a customer base you have, and how 
restrictive you are on the environments and platforms your software 
supports, but I do know that good code doesn't rust. If it's well-
designed and implemented well, it can last a very long time.

And Netscape is a perfect example of what can go wrong by throwing 
out everything and starting over.

Things You Should Never Do
http://joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog69.html

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has

[Craig Parmerlee]

Craig Parmerlee wrote:
First, let me apologize to Johannes for the incorrect quotation line in 
my earlier message.



dhbailey quoted Craig Parmerlee saying:



[snip]>

As users who have a vested interest in Finale surviving, we cannot 
solve the software problems for them.  But we can buy upgrades to 
help them fund the continued development.  Anybody who cares enough 
to post messages on an Internet board really shouldn't be complaining 
about paying a hundred bucks a year to keep the thing going.




dhbailey wrote:

I don't see your logic here -- what does our posting to a discussion 
group of users helping users (since the program is harder to master 
without such help) have to do with how much discretionary money we have 
available to spend to keep a corporation afloat?


Craig Parmerlee wrote:
Posting to a discussion group is neither here nor there.  Complaining 
about Finale's upgrade policy seems pointless and counter-productive.  
If one doesn't care about Finale's survival, then why is one here?  And 
if one does care about Finale's survival, surely that is worth more than 
a measly 100 bucks a year.


dhbailey wrote:



With your major release every 60 days, what sort of marketing model 
does your product have?  Annual subscription, pay a hefty fee every 60 
days, pay for the product once and get the major releases for free?  
What sort of product is it -- a product that a major corporation uses 
across the corporation, a product that a single user would purchase?  
How many developpers are working on your product, that you can push a 
major release out the door every 2 months?



Craig Parmerlee wrote:
Our business model is that our users pay us for the RESULTS they achieve 
with our software.  No results -- no payment.  Therefore we are all 
highly motivated to make the software more and more powerful every day.  
We come in every day with a new set of ideas to make our users more 
productive.  It is my job to make sure this rolls out with some kind of 
architectural sanity, but basically we think of time to market in terms 
of days and weeks, never years.  Last year, we fought ferociously to get 
ourselves out of the legacy problem -- advancing our platform 15 years 
in the course of 12 months.  Now we are determined to take full 
advantage of the productivity that comes when you can get rid of that 
legacy.  It is abundantly clear to me that Finale is still slaving under 
its legacy.  We think of reinventing 5% of our system every MONTH.  
Finale is reinventimg one percent of its system every YEAR.  Two 
entirely different worlds.


Imagine how motivated Finale would be if they got a percentage of the 
publishing royalties for everything produced with Finale (i.e. my 
business model).  If that were Finale's business model, I dare say we 
wouldn't be seeing new skins and cute sound fonts.  We would be seeing a 
real dedication to maximizing the productivity of the composers, 
arrangers, and copyists.


dhbailey wrote:

Sure we have a right to complain, sure we should be voicing our upset. 
The whole marketplace thing is a partnership, and partnerships only 
work when both partners (all partners) get what they feel to be fair 
returns for their investment in the partnership.  We put in the money 
and the suggestions for new features and the requests for bug-fixes.  
Finale puts in the development time and produces the product.  When 
either partner feels the equality of the partnership has been broken, 
they are faced with a dilemma -- they can continue the partnership, 
hoping things will rectify themselves and a perceived slight will be a 
one-off occurence, or they can dissolve the partnership, feeling that 
things are irrevocably skewed.


But we can still talk about it and try to come to some sort of 
understanding of why the company seems to be following the path it is.


And hope that the company is listening and paying attention.


Craig Parmerlee wrote:
Yes.  I agree completely.

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RE: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[David W. Fenton]

On 22 Jul 2005 at 18:12, John Howell wrote:

> Several writers have hinted at this, but let me say it straight out.
> Male sopranos in renaissance music were NOT very often castrati (a
> practice the church did not approve of, but did take advantage of),
> and were not always boys at churches without choir schools.  It
> depended on the choir.  And if modern voices can, for many singers,
> open up the head range and sing comfortably in alto and soprano
> ranges, so could rennaisance voices.

Well, you'll also note that soprano parts in the music of that period 
seldom goes much above the A on the first ledger line.

And then there's the issue of clefs and transposition and variable 
pitch and chorton vs. kammerton. . .

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State

[David W. Fenton]

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.

> 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 W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] notation program comparison

[Johannes Gebauer]

Actually, I think two versions have had much better templates than 
before. Not ideal in every respect, but still much better.


However, what really needs to be improved is Finale's template handling. 
There is absolutely no reason that the wizard can only have two 
templates. If MM shipped Finale with, say, 5 different templates, 
representing European, American, Jazz etc standards People would 
probably find it much easier to find an ideal template for the task. 
Currently the Maestro Default file tries to accomodate a variety of 
styles, and none of them very well.


Johannes

Dennis Bathory-Kitsz schrieb:

At 03:54 PM 7/22/05 -0400, David W. Fenton wrote:

But if you're trying to test ease of use and good results with very 
little work, then I think the defaults ought to be used.
And I think Finale falls down on the defaults, and that's what the 
vast majority of users will end up with.



You're absolutely right. I think I've forgotten how bad the Finale defaults
were, because I've been moving templates forward for a long time (haven't
broken anything yet). But yes, a nicely set up Finale template would be a
Good Thing.

Has that been done in the latest version? I once again moved my template
forward, so I don't know.

Dennis


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--
http://www.musikmanufaktur.com
http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de
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RE: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[John Howell]

At 7:16 AM +1000 7/23/05, keith helgesen wrote:

Does anyone remember details of a legendry singer- South American, I think
called Yma Sumac?  - hope I have the spelling sort of correct!

As a youngster I remember being amazed when told she had a six octave+
useable vocal register.


Watch it, Keith; you're giving away our age!  Yes, I remember her 
well.  Allegedly from Bolivia or some equally exotic place, the word 
on the street was that she was really from Brooklyn.  And I thought 
it was more like a 5-octave range, but who's counting?!  Yes, she had 
a viable and big baritone range and could take her voice up at least 
to Queen of the Night range, although I can't remember whether she 
made it into Mariah Carrey's top octave--might have.  A lot of hype, 
but a startlingly unusual voice.  She probably wouldn't have 
qualified for the Texas Honor Choir.


Someone--I'm almost sure it was Andrew--mentioned Russell Oberlin. 
He was the first countertenor when New York Pro Musica Antigua 
started up in the '50s, and while I never had the opportunity to meet 
and talk with him, my impression from the voice itself is that it was 
not a falsetto voice but a tenor voice that simply lay a 3rd or a 4th 
above the normal tenor range.  I always thought that his recording of 
Messiah (possibly with Bernstein) was the most beautiful I had ever 
heard, although there was nothing else HIP about the interpretation. 
If I'm right about his voice type, it was what the French call "haute 
contre," and I later had two students with this same type of voice, 
with the power of the male chest voice carried up higher into the 
mezzo range.  I believe that the next Pro Musica countertenor, Earnie 
Murphy, had the same type of voice, as did, on the pop side, Clark 
Burroughs of the Hi-Los and Don Shelton of the Hi-Los and Singers 
Unlimited.


Oberlin's contemporary in the UK was Alfred Deller, who was a 
falsettist countertenor in the tradition of the English chapel 
choirs.  It was a rather thin voice compared with Oberlin's, but the 
two of them started reintroducing the countertenor voice into our 
ears after a couple of centuries without it.  Our older son, a 
professional countertenor, also uses falsetto action, but today's 
fine countertenors use a highly developed vocal production that 
starts with falsetto but leaves it way behind.  Apparently Mike Rawls 
has this type of voice, too.  I've put him in touch with our son.


Several writers have hinted at this, but let me say it straight out. 
Male sopranos in renaissance music were NOT very often castrati (a 
practice the church did not approve of, but did take advantage of), 
and were not always boys at churches without choir schools.  It 
depended on the choir.  And if modern voices can, for many singers, 
open up the head range and sing comfortably in alto and soprano 
ranges, so could rennaisance voices.


John


--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411  Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State

[Don Hart]

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?  

That might not hold up in a court of law.  ;-)

Don Hart

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[Andrew Stiller]

On Jul 22, 2005, at 2:57 PM, Phil Daley wrote:

What about teachers who force basses to sing tenor because they are 
short of tenors?


Isn't that the same problem?  I don't see them outlawing that.



In  my college band, we had to sing our college songs from time to 
time. The conductor (who BTW was the same guy that said Harry Partch's 
instruments should be burnt) insisted any baritone who didn't want to 
sing second tenor was just being lazy. I always came away hoarse after 
playing/singing Sousa's "Wisconsin Forward Forever."


Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/

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RE: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[keith helgesen]

Does anyone remember details of a legendry singer- South American, I think
called Yma Sumac?  - hope I have the spelling sort of correct!

As a youngster I remember being amazed when told she had a six octave+
useable vocal register.

Cheers K in OZ


Keith Helgesen.
Director of Music, Canberra City Band.
Ph: (02) 62910787. Band Mob. 0439-620587
Private Mob 0417-042171

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
Andrew Stiller
Sent: Saturday, 23 July 2005 7:03 AM
To: finale@shsu.edu
Subject: Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

For whatever it may be worth, Maggie Roche has been singing tenor 
professionally for 35 years without perceptible ill effect.

What's that you say? Pop singers don't count? I rather think they do.

Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[Andrew Stiller]

For whatever it may be worth, Maggie Roche has been singing tenor 
professionally for 35 years without perceptible ill effect.


What's that you say? Pop singers don't count? I rather think they do.

Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/

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Re: [Finale] notation program comparison

[Dennis Bathory-Kitsz]

At 03:54 PM 7/22/05 -0400, David W. Fenton wrote:
>But if you're trying to test ease of use and good results with very 
>little work, then I think the defaults ought to be used.
>And I think Finale falls down on the defaults, and that's what the 
>vast majority of users will end up with.

You're absolutely right. I think I've forgotten how bad the Finale defaults
were, because I've been moving templates forward for a long time (haven't
broken anything yet). But yes, a nicely set up Finale template would be a
Good Thing.

Has that been done in the latest version? I once again moved my template
forward, so I don't know.

Dennis


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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[David W. Fenton]

On 22 Jul 2005 at 13:28, Tyler Turner wrote:

> --- "David W. Fenton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> 
> > 
> > So, we can actually agree on the premise behind the
> > justification 
> > given for the rule and still see the rule as being
> > WRONG, precisely 
> > because the rule PREVENTS certain singers from
> > singing in their 
> > "normal voice range."
> > 
> 
> Yes. I don't want to go too far into defending the
> effectiveness of the rule. I just think it's a
> plausible alternative explanation for why they made
> the rule instead of the explanation that some of these
> news articles are giving (that Texans are close-minded
> about gender roles).

Well, I think it's sexist thinking and old-fashioned historically 
uninformed musical thinking that allows them to cling to the bogus 
justification for the rules.

> If I had to defend the rule's validity, my initial
> GUESS would be that it helps a greater number of
> people than it hurts. . . .

But it's by definition inequitable to countertenors. It's 
historically pretty much unnatural for women to sing tenor, but 
there's nothing historically or physiologically unnatural about men 
singing alto. For those who can do it, there is also absolutely no 
damage to the voice (I think that singing falsetto does no damage to 
anyone, to be honest, but I recognize that countertenor is a lot more 
than mere falsetto; the point is that someone who doesn't have a 
natural countertenor range can quite often since falsetto in the same 
range).

> . . . It seems likely to me that there
> were a greater number of girls being assigned to tenor
> parts for the sake of covering the part rather than
> the number who were assigned because their voices
> warranted it. But I don't know this for a fact, and I
> certainly won't claim the rule hurts no one.

If everyone is being auditioned, I don't see the issue.

> Perhaps if Texas is really serious about the issue,
> they should hire some professional "vocal inspectors"
> that go around to the various schools.

???

Seems to me the rule applies to all-state choir, which has nothing 
direct to do with what's going on in the schools.

All they need is audition judges who can make musical decisions about 
appropriateness.

To me, the choice of whether countertenors and female tenors should 
be accepted into all-state choir should be left up to the choir's 
conductor, on a year-by-year basis, based on appropriateness to the 
repertory.

And maybe they could have a different kind of audition for those who 
sing outside the conventional voice ranges. That would mean handling 
the exceptions individually while not damaging the hampering the 
general rule.

I really do think that the female tenor rule is justifiable on 
musical grounds and the countertenor exclusion rule is not. People 
may complain about apparent gender inequity, but you can't change 
history nor can you change physiology.

But in any event, the real equitable rule is that everyone should be 
allowed the opportunity to try out for parts in their natural voice 
range, even when that range is not the conventional one.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[Tyler Turner]

--- "David W. Fenton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


> 
> So, we can actually agree on the premise behind the
> justification 
> given for the rule and still see the rule as being
> WRONG, precisely 
> because the rule PREVENTS certain singers from
> singing in their 
> "normal voice range."
> 

Yes. I don't want to go too far into defending the
effectiveness of the rule. I just think it's a
plausible alternative explanation for why they made
the rule instead of the explanation that some of these
news articles are giving (that Texans are close-minded
about gender roles).

If I had to defend the rule's validity, my initial
GUESS would be that it helps a greater number of
people than it hurts. It seems likely to me that there
were a greater number of girls being assigned to tenor
parts for the sake of covering the part rather than
the number who were assigned because their voices
warranted it. But I don't know this for a fact, and I
certainly won't claim the rule hurts no one.

Perhaps if Texas is really serious about the issue,
they should hire some professional "vocal inspectors"
that go around to the various schools.

Tyler




Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page 
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs 
 
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Re: [Finale] notation program comparison

[David W. Fenton]

On 22 Jul 2005 at 12:37, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:

> It seems to me that the power of a program resides not in its defaults, but
> in its flexibility in solving frequent notational challenges

Well, I think that if what you're trying to test is flexibility, 
that's correct.

But if you're trying to test ease of use and good results with very 
little work, then I think the defaults ought to be used.

Both classes of issues are important.

And I think Finale falls down on the defaults, and that's what the 
vast majority of users will end up with.

-- 
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David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[David W. Fenton]

On 22 Jul 2005 at 10:51, John Howell wrote:

> Our (very good) community chorus has 
> one (count them, ONE!) female tenor, and yes, that is her natural and 
> healthy voice range.  She dresses as the women do, and stands at the 
> border between the tenors and the altos.  No physical distraction, 
> and nobody who doesn't actually know her would notice that she was 
> singing with the tenors rather than the altos.  If we had an alto 
> countertenor (which we don't), he would stand in about the same place.

And not all choruses stand in sections. The Oberlin College Choir 
under Daniel MOe always stood in quartets, SATB, so that everyone had 
to know their parts and blend with all the others, rather than 
depending on their section mates to carry them.

And even standing in sections, how hard is it to place the women 
tenors on the boundary between men and women. If you're on risers you 
probably have lots of leeway for placing the singers where you want 
and even with no non-standard singers (i.e., no women singing tenor 
and no men singing alto), you may still have unbalanced numbers of 
singers in the sections and end up with a couple of women standing in 
a row that is otherwise all men.

I just don't see it as a very important issue in choral singing, as 
long as the musical results are satisfactory.

And believe me, I've seen plenty of male altos who blended better 
with the women than some of the women blended with each other, 
especially in the cases of early music repertories where you are 
sometimes fighting against the modern operatic sound of some of the 
sopranos.

The countertenor soloist here (all on one line; and no, I'm playing 
neither of the viol parts here):



would blend much better with the soprano here (all on one line):



than he does with this soprano (all on line):



(sorry about the horrid URLs)

Unfortunately, those two singers never got to work together.

(and, interestingly enough, the countertenor is a Texan, though he 
had never sung countertenor before joining our group about 6 months 
before the Buxtehude was recorded)

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[Dan Carno]

At 10:13 PM 7/21/2005, you wrote:

It is the belief of many professionals that singing
out of one's normal range is bad for the voice.
Whether we agree or disagree is not the issue here.
The issue is the motivation for the rule.


Exactly. If the motivation is to protect *en masse* all those who choose 
this path, it implies that the teaching all the way up & down the line is 
incapable of the necessary individual guidance.  It seems more likely to me 
that the motivation is to protect the strict line between "guys and dolls", 
to paraphrase Frank Loesser.


And looking at the other end of the "protection" spectrum: David Daniels, 
Bejun Mehta, Drew Minter, Jeffrey Gall, Michael Chance, Andreas Scholl and 
Brian Asawa are all having great careers "ruining their voices".  It's too 
bad someone didn't stop them before it was too late.  Now we all have to 
put up with Handel's Julius Caesar, Rinaldo, etc. being played by men.


Dan Carno


Daniel Carno
Music Engraving Services
Quality work in Sibelius, Finale, and Score
4514 Makyes Road
Syracuse, New York 13215
(315) 492-2987
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 


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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State

[David W. Fenton]

On 22 Jul 2005 at 1:42, Neal Schermerhorn wrote:

> Phil Daley wrote:
> 
> > It would be discrimination if there are no classical guitarists
> auditioned.
> 
> Well, guess what. No parts exist in these ensembles for classical guitar. So
> why would they audition classical guitarists?
> 
> My guess is they auditioned him mistakenly thinking he was a tenor. (I never
> read the article, BTW, but so what. Feel free to pull the straw man.)
> Whatever he auditioned for, they should have realized early on he was not
> delivering what they were after.
> 
> > To say he could "play viola" doesn't even deserve a comment.
> 
> Oh, sure it does. Because a countertenor asking to sing a soprano part or
> alto part is no different than a guitarist claiming to be able to playa
> viola part. "I can read the clef, I can match the tone really closely. Why
> not let me?"
> 
> Would YOU allow a classical guitarist to play viola parts in an All-State
> orchestra? After all, you'd never hear his unique tone diference in the
> amalgamation of all the players.

None of this makes the slightest bit of sense to me.

The Texas policy of rejecting a countertenor singing alto (I don't 
know if he was auditioning as alto or sopranto) makes no sense if the 
repertory performed would have originally been performed by all men.

It would be like auditioning players for an orchestra playing Baroque 
music and rejecting any harpsichordists to play the continuo part in 
favor of pianists. Sure, piano is fine if it's all you've got, but if 
you've got a decent harpsichordists, why not use her?

Now, choral music is rather different, and likely the all-state 
program would include music from various repertories, not just 
limited to older music. But if there *is* older music that was 
written for male singers, then it's the *female* altos that are the 
ones singing the wrong parts, and the Texas rule makes a fetish of 
this modern performance practice at the expense of incorporating 
someone singing with the original voice type.

So, if you're talking about transcription of a part for a different 
instrument, it's the normal modern performance practice in many 
repertories that is the transcription.

Last of all, these all-state choirs in my experience tend to have 
100s of singers in them. One lone countertenor is not even going to 
begin to change the overall blend of an alto section with 20-50 
members, especially given the wide variety of vocal quality and 
control among that many *girls* of high school age.

But that's a determination best left to the conductor and the 
audition judges. It shouldn't be made by a flat rule.

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.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[David W. Fenton]

On 21 Jul 2005 at 22:14, Tyler Turner wrote:

> --- Richard Yates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> > > It is the belief of many professionals that
> > singing
> > > out of one's normal range is bad for the voice.
> > 
> > The question was whether or not it causes injury.
> 
> Injury to the voice, right? Every "vocal authority"
> I've spoken to about the subject has told me that it
> does. There is medical evidence to support the claim. 

I'd like to hear it. What I know of the "experts" in vocal technique 
is that they are full of BS in many cases (and I'm an Oberling 
product and include the very prominent just-retired head of the voice 
department among those who espouse obviously bogus ideas).

[]

> > Well, I guess I don't know who you are talking about
> > here. Your were
> > responding to my questions but all I have done is
> > ask for evidence and a
> > clearer rationale for the decision. If you don't
> > have it then why are you
> > responding to my questions about it?
> 
> My point was in part to say that it wasn't necessary.
> But if you're interested, there are many articles on
> the subject. Here's one:
> http://www1.wfubmc.edu/voice/nodules/singer.htm

Oh, puh-leaze. That article doesn't address the topic at all. It 
doesn't say that singing outside your natural range causes nodules. 
It does say that some people who are not vocally trained develop 
nodules (and ignores that fact that some people who *are* trained 
develop them as well), and tries to argue that the training is what 
makes the difference.

There is nothing in there about singing outside one's natural range, 
except the suggestion that it contributes to vocal fatigue.

In any event, one doesn't need to refute such assertions in order to 
show the Texas rule to be bad in the way it seems to be enforced, 
because the Texas rule seems not to allow for males and females whose 
natural vocal range falls outside the conventional ranges for male 
and female voices. A blanket rule prohibiting women from singing alto 
means that some low-voiced women would *not* be able to participate 
singing in their normal range, and that a countertenor singing in 
*his* natural range cannot sing, except in a section that sings in a 
range that is *not* normal for *his* particular voice.

So, whether or not singing outside one's normal range is damaging or 
not is really not the issue. Indeed, if it *is*, then the rule should 
ensure that no one is forced to sing outside their normal range by 
rules that prohibit countertenors from singing in the alto section 
and low-voiced women from singing in the tenor section. Forcing the 
countertenor to sing tenor is going to be putting him in a non-
natural range, as is forcing the low-voiced woman to sing alto.

The rule is too rigid because it ignores the variation in actual 
human voices.

I say, trash the rule, and let the judges of the audition decide 
whether a girl ought to be singing tenor or a boy, alto.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[David W. Fenton]

On 21 Jul 2005 at 21:57, Mark D Lew wrote:

> That's why the whole business of auditioning blind seems a little 
> fanciful to me.  We talk about fairness as if every child should be 
> judged on his or her voice and musical talent alone, but that's already 
> unrealistic. 

I have no opinion on the blind audition, but the rule as it stands 
prohibits any judgment call on the part of the judges of the 
audition, blind or not.

Discretion is messy, but music is messy, too -- it's not objective 
and cut and dried, so I don't see why they think you can have such 
ironclad rules without cutting out many opportunities for unusual and 
memorable musical results.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[Phil Daley]

At 7/22/2005 02:44 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:

>On 21 Jul 2005 at 19:13, Tyler Turner wrote:
>
>> It is the belief of many professionals that singing
>> out of one's normal range is bad for the voice.
>> Whether we agree or disagree is not the issue here.
>> The issue is the motivation for the rule. This is a
>> valid possibility. The burden of proof does not fall
>> to me to show that this can hurt the voice. It doesn't
>> even fall on me to show that TMEA members used this as
>> part of their reasoning. The integrity of these
>> individuals has been called into question. Before
>> anyone is bold enough to do this, it should fall on
>> them to disprove all plausible doubts before making
>> accusations. It's not my job to show their explanation
>> is genuine. It's the accuser's job to show their
>> explanation is unquestionably a lie.
>
>You're missing the point. The rule is unnecessarily rigid.
>
>So, we can actually agree on the premise behind the justification
>given for the rule and still see the rule as being WRONG, precisely
>because the rule PREVENTS certain singers from singing in their
>"normal voice range."

I agree.  What about teachers who force basses to sing tenor because they 
are short of tenors?


Isn't that the same problem?  I don't see them outlawing that.

I really think it is a gender discrimination thing.

Phil Daley  < AutoDesk >
http://www.conknet.com/~p_daley



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Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has

[David W. Fenton]

On 21 Jul 2005 at 23:46, Craig Parmerlee wrote:

> On 8 Jul 2005 at 9:18, Johannes Gebauer wrote:
> 
> >I think they are going to have to abandon the yearly upgrades. I 
> >think it's a really bad business practice in the first place, because 
> >it places a schedule on development that is artificial -- a software 
> >development schedule should be determined by the goals of the 
> >projects currently on the table for implementation/revision/fixing.

No, Johannes did *not* write those words -- I did!

Why is it so hard for people to properly maintain attributions? What 
kind of email client are you using that doesn't automatically take 
care of it for you?

[]

> Most code being written today is discarded inside of 3 years, . . .

I see absolutely no basis for believing such a statement. Indeed, 
it's illogical on its face. You mean that code written 3 years ago is 
now being discarded and replaced with new code. You seem to be 
suggesting that sometime in the past code was never discarded, or 
only discarded after some period >3 years, and that recently this has 
changed.

I don't know of any such change.

What I do see is a plethora of RAD tools that have entered the market 
over the last 10 years, as well as a move towards lots of application 
programming being done for web sites, which seem to be substantially 
more prone to revision than traditional desktop apps.

But I don't know that the code for those websites is being discarded 
so much as that it's being constantly revised.

That would pretty much be the same as every other software 
development project I've known anything about during the last 10 
years or so of my professional life.

> . . . so I'd 
> definitely not want to see any software vendor do anything less than one 
> major set of enhancements a year.  In my business we are delivering a 
> major release every 60 days or so.

I don't know what your business is, nor how you define "major" but 
it's clearly a very different kind of business than the one MakeMusic 
is in.

> The issue with Finale is not the annual cycle.  The issue is the 
> quantity of enhancements delivered in that annual package.  The sad 
> reality is that these annual enhancements include just a trickle of 
> enhancements that are genuinely useful to the serious composer, 
> arranger, or copyist.  It seems to a be a company working at a 1985 pace 
> when most of the software world is working at 2005 speed. . . .

I think that last sentence is a steaming pile of BS -- it shows 
extraordinarily bad attitudes about the goal of software development. 
It's purpose is not to adapt to some artificial schedule, but to 
produce the product you want successfully.

I know of no application at the level of complexity of Finale that 
deliverse an upgrade more often than once a year.

[]

> As users who have a vested interest in Finale surviving, we cannot solve 
> the software problems for them.  But we can buy upgrades to help them 
> fund the continued development.  Anybody who cares enough to post 
> messages on an Internet board really shouldn't be complaining about 
> paying a hundred bucks a year to keep the thing going.

Ridiculous!

Buying the yearly upgrades trains MakeMusic to think they are meeting 
the needs of their users, that their yearly upgrade strategy is a 
good thing. If the upgrade is not worth the money DON'T BUY IT. 
MakeMusic will get the message.

Buying it anyway means you've sacrificed any ability to send them a 
message about your dissatisfaction with the meager enhancements to 
the current upgrade.

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[David W. Fenton]

On 21 Jul 2005 at 19:13, Tyler Turner wrote:

> It is the belief of many professionals that singing
> out of one's normal range is bad for the voice.
> Whether we agree or disagree is not the issue here.
> The issue is the motivation for the rule. This is a
> valid possibility. The burden of proof does not fall
> to me to show that this can hurt the voice. It doesn't
> even fall on me to show that TMEA members used this as
> part of their reasoning. The integrity of these
> individuals has been called into question. Before
> anyone is bold enough to do this, it should fall on
> them to disprove all plausible doubts before making
> accusations. It's not my job to show their explanation
> is genuine. It's the accuser's job to show their
> explanation is unquestionably a lie.

You're missing the point. The rule is unnecessarily rigid.

Look at your formulation of the justification for the rule:

   singing out of one's normal range is bad for the voice

If you define this as the "normal range for one's gender" then how do 
you determine the difference between tenor, baritone and bass, and 
also and suprano? Obviously, there's got to be a judgment call made 
by someone as to which of those voice parts is most appropriate.

Now, Carol Channing ain't no alto, because that is *not* the natural 
range of her very peculiar voice, and it seems to that a boy who 
sings countertenor is singing in a voice type that has a very long 
history, and however unfamiliar it is to us today, is not unnatural 
at all (at least for those who have the ability to utilize that range 
successfully).

Countertenor *is* his "normal voice range," unless you define 
"normal" as being restricted to certain predetermined voice types.

So, we can actually agree on the premise behind the justification 
given for the rule and still see the rule as being WRONG, precisely 
because the rule PREVENTS certain singers from singing in their 
"normal voice range."

-- 
David W. Fentonhttp://www.bway.net/~dfenton
David Fenton Associateshttp://www.bway.net/~dfassoc

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Re: [Finale] notation program comparison

[Johannes Gebauer]

Oh, I don't mind complex, just not pages and pages of it to try out
every possible situation. Not practical, won't happen.

However, the list you give I am not going to do in full, it's just too 
time consuming. But perhaps one doesn't have to do it all, and various 
people can try their luck on the different tasks.


Johannes

Dennis Bathory-Kitsz schrieb:

At 05:59 PM 7/22/05 +0200, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

There is no possible way any such comparison is ever going to be totally 
objective. Noone is going to enter if it involves doing endless pages of 
complex notation. If I am going to enter the comparison I want it 
limited, and I am not going to time it (that's not the way I work, I am 
too perfectionist for that). But I would write a report on how I did 
what and which things took time/were complicated/had me consult the manual.


3 pages at most. And no limitations like using MakeMusics default files 
(I never use them), or not allowing any tweaking (that's silly) or not 
using any third party additions.



I agree with you, except the complex notation and time issues.

It seems to me that the power of a program resides not in its defaults, but
in its flexibility in solving frequent notational challenges -- whether
it's an ossia or feathered beaming, tablature or chords, plainchant or
graphical inserts -- and solving those challenges both time-effectively and
in a legible, elegant, and stylistically appropriate way.

No program can do it all (in any presentational genre!), so that a program
that offers add-ons, plug-ins, scripts, etc., contributes significantly to
a strong result. (And, of course, there's the question of the effective
demo to accompany the score.)

A proper comparison, it seems to me, would include (as do performance
auditions) music from numerous genres. For me that might include a
comparison of settings of...
...a page of plainchant in appropriate fonts
...a page of Couperin complete with ornaments
...a page of a Bach cantata including figured bass
...the opening page of a tuplet-heavy Chopin prelude such as Op. 28 No. 8
(complete with ossia)
...a snippet of gigunda pages from Gotterdammerung or Gurre Lieder or Sacre
...a page of big band arrangement of Lush Life or a section from Mingus's
Epitaph or Bley's Escalator
...a middle page of Stravinsky's Anthem: A Dove Descending
...part of Berio's Gesti or Cage's Music of Changes
...and the killer, Stockhausen's Nr. 11 Refrain (back cover of the original
edition of Gardner Read)

What program could do them all, and do them well, time-effectively, and
produce a demo? (And I agree with Simon that a showcase might be more
effective than a competition.)

Dennis




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Re: [Finale] notation program comparison

[Phil Daley]

At 7/22/2005 12:37 PM, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:

>A proper comparison, it seems to me, would include (as do performance
>auditions) music from numerous genres. For me that might include a
>comparison of settings of...
>...a page of plainchant in appropriate fonts
>...a page of Couperin complete with ornaments
>...a page of a Bach cantata including figured bass
>...the opening page of a tuplet-heavy Chopin prelude such as Op. 28 No. 8
>(complete with ossia)
>...a snippet of gigunda pages from Gotterdammerung or Gurre Lieder or Sacre
>...a page of big band arrangement of Lush Life or a section from Mingus's
>Epitaph or Bley's Escalator
>...a middle page of Stravinsky's Anthem: A Dove Descending
>...part of Berio's Gesti or Cage's Music of Changes
>...and the killer, Stockhausen's Nr. 11 Refrain (back cover of the original
>edition of Gardner Read)
>
>What program could do them all, and do them well, time-effectively, and
>produce a demo? (And I agree with Simon that a showcase might be more
>effective than a competition.)

I agree  that one person would not be familiar with all of these styles.

Have people submit entries to whatever and how many categories they want to.

I think it would be really interesting to see the results.

Phil Daley  < AutoDesk >
http://www.conknet.com/~p_daley



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Re: [Finale] notation program comparison

[Dennis Bathory-Kitsz]

At 05:59 PM 7/22/05 +0200, Johannes Gebauer wrote:
>There is no possible way any such comparison is ever going to be totally 
>objective. Noone is going to enter if it involves doing endless pages of 
>complex notation. If I am going to enter the comparison I want it 
>limited, and I am not going to time it (that's not the way I work, I am 
>too perfectionist for that). But I would write a report on how I did 
>what and which things took time/were complicated/had me consult the manual.
>
>3 pages at most. And no limitations like using MakeMusics default files 
>(I never use them), or not allowing any tweaking (that's silly) or not 
>using any third party additions.

I agree with you, except the complex notation and time issues.

It seems to me that the power of a program resides not in its defaults, but
in its flexibility in solving frequent notational challenges -- whether
it's an ossia or feathered beaming, tablature or chords, plainchant or
graphical inserts -- and solving those challenges both time-effectively and
in a legible, elegant, and stylistically appropriate way.

No program can do it all (in any presentational genre!), so that a program
that offers add-ons, plug-ins, scripts, etc., contributes significantly to
a strong result. (And, of course, there's the question of the effective
demo to accompany the score.)

A proper comparison, it seems to me, would include (as do performance
auditions) music from numerous genres. For me that might include a
comparison of settings of...
...a page of plainchant in appropriate fonts
...a page of Couperin complete with ornaments
...a page of a Bach cantata including figured bass
...the opening page of a tuplet-heavy Chopin prelude such as Op. 28 No. 8
(complete with ossia)
...a snippet of gigunda pages from Gotterdammerung or Gurre Lieder or Sacre
...a page of big band arrangement of Lush Life or a section from Mingus's
Epitaph or Bley's Escalator
...a middle page of Stravinsky's Anthem: A Dove Descending
...part of Berio's Gesti or Cage's Music of Changes
...and the killer, Stockhausen's Nr. 11 Refrain (back cover of the original
edition of Gardner Read)

What program could do them all, and do them well, time-effectively, and
produce a demo? (And I agree with Simon that a showcase might be more
effective than a competition.)

Dennis




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Re: [Finale] Copying measure Fin 2005

[Chuck Israels]

Cher Pierre,

This is new behavior in 2005 and has been the subject of considerable  
on-list discussion/complaint for the last year.  The solution (until  
we see how things are done in 2006) is to use shift/command/C to copy  
instead of simply command/C  This will bring up a dialog which allows  
the elimination of measure attached expressions from the copying.   
Unfortunately, it also eliminates measure attached smart shapes  
(hairpins, etc.) that are often needed in the copying process so, in  
my opinion, the implementation is still faulty.  But this method may  
solve at least part of the problem.


Bonne chance,

Chuck

On Jul 22, 2005, at 8:04 AM, Pierre Bailleul wrote:


Dear list,

I was working on fin 2003 and now working on fin 2005.
Something strange : When I copy a measure by Ctrl+ C and paste Ctrl 
+V in another measure, all the measure expressions attached in the  
other staves are copied?
But copying by dragging selected measure to another place is  
working fine?


Thanks for your responses.

Pierre.
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Re: [Finale] notation program comparison

[Robert Patterson]

this is a crucial element of any useful comparison

Johannes Gebauer wrote:

 But I would write a report on how I did 
what and which things took time/were complicated/had me consult the manual.




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Robert Patterson

http://RobertGPatterson.com
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Re: [Finale] notation program comparison

[Simon Troup]

> There is no possible way any such comparison is ever going to be
> totally objective. Noone is going to enter if it involves doing
> endless pages of complex notation.

I think Jari's idea of a more selective gallery of well engraved Finale work 
deserves more attention. I never liked the "Hall Of Fame" title, but there 
should be a repository for engraving work that really shows off what Finale can 
do.

I'm not a "loony" Finale advocate (in the same way as all those guys who buy 
"think different" socks), and the whole "competition" idea doesn't really 
appeal - but a really good showcase that doesn't have all the crap that the 
official showcase has would be a great thing.

Simon Troup
Digital Music Art

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Re: [Finale] notation program comparison

[Johannes Gebauer]

There is no possible way any such comparison is ever going to be totally 
objective. Noone is going to enter if it involves doing endless pages of 
complex notation. If I am going to enter the comparison I want it 
limited, and I am not going to time it (that's not the way I work, I am 
too perfectionist for that). But I would write a report on how I did 
what and which things took time/were complicated/had me consult the manual.


3 pages at most. And no limitations like using MakeMusics default files 
(I never use them), or not allowing any tweaking (that's silly) or not 
using any third party additions.


Johannes

Michael Cook schrieb:
If anyone is interested in organising this sort of competition, it's 
important to work out what the purpose is. Do we want to test:


- the capacity of the software for producing complex notation?
- the capacity of the software for producing clear, readable notation?
- the capacity of the software for producing notation that complies to 
certain editors' parameters?
- the capacity of the software for reproducing a given printed piece in 
all details?

- the time it takes to create a given score?
- the difficulty of producing the desired effects?
- the amount of tweaking necessary to produce the desired effects?

In all cases, it's difficult to find a way of objectively testing the 
software itself. With any one of the major engraving programs a person 
who is a real expert of that particular program should be able to 
produce just about any desired effect. Of course there will be different 
amounts of tweaking going on in each case, ranging from simple 
adjustments to full-blown workarounds, but there's no way to have really 
accurate information about that, and in matters of ease of use its hard 
to make meaningful comparisons between programs that work in such 
different ways.


The quality of the finished piece will be more dependent on the 
engraver's care and skills than on the actual tools he or she is using. 
At the end we will always be judging the engraver more than the software.


Michael Cook

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Re: [Finale] notation program comparison

[dhbailey]

ronan wrote:


I don't know about "staging", but didn't Daniel Spreadbury work for Sibelius
at one time? To add insult to injury, Lora Creighton is using an ancient
version of Finale--which leads me to wonder what kind of engraving
experience she has. Or any of them, for that matter. The whole thing is just
too amateurish--both in the people selected to use the programs and in the
organization of it--to take seriously.



Daniel Spreadbury still works for Sibelius.

--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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[Finale] Copying measure Fin 2005

[Pierre Bailleul]

Dear list,

I was working on fin 2003 and now working on fin 2005.
Something strange : When I copy a measure by Ctrl+ C and paste Ctrl+V in 
another measure, all the measure expressions attached in the other staves 
are copied?

But copying by dragging selected measure to another place is working fine?

Thanks for your responses.

Pierre. 


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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[John Howell]

At 10:03 PM -0700 7/21/05, Mark D Lew wrote:

On Jul 21, 2005, at 2:50 PM, Andrew Stiller wrote:

That said, however, the question of whether a countertenor may 
legitimately sing a given alto line (let's leave the sopranos out 
of it--I never heard of a countertenor who could hit a C above the 
treble clef and live to tell about it) [...]


Arno Raunig has famously recorded the Alleluja from Mozart's 
Exsultate Jubilate with its (unwritten but obligatory) soprano high 
C at the end.  (Whether it's beautiful is an interesting question, 
but he certainly sings it.)  Aris Christofellis is also reputed to 
have a usable high C.  There are probably a few others.


I've never heard either singer live.


We had a "counter-soprano" in the Pro Arte ensemble at Indiana about 
30 years ago.  Beautiful voice for both solo and ensemble.  He got 
his training at Christ Church Cathedral in Indanapolis under Jim 
Litton, late of the American Boy Choir, and just happened to have a 
very flexible voice with easy high Bbs and Cs.  He also happened to 
be Black, and I'm convinced that in at least some cases, there are 
fundamental differences between Black voices and Caucasian voices. 
Some of the sopranists in Chanticleer could produce healthy high Cs 
and some could not.  Every voice is individual.


John


--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411  Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[John Howell]

At 9:57 PM -0700 7/21/05, Mark D Lew wrote:

That's why the whole business of auditioning blind seems a little 
fanciful to me.  We talk about fairness as if every child should be 
judged on his or her voice and musical talent alone, but that's 
already unrealistic.


Hi again, Mark.  On the local level the real reason we try to 
audition blind is that there are rivalries among both voice teachers 
and choir directors, and we attempt to avoid those existing 
prejudices by not allowing the judges to know whom they're hearing. 
This really does protect the students as much as possible.  And it 
really does allow you to concentrate on the sound and vocal technique 
and range.  But it's the very real rivalry that's the proximate cause 
for using curtains, not any question of gender roles.  The problem 
with the "Texas Rule" is that it pre-judges classes of people rather 
than individuals.


It is an everyday reality for singers that there will be times when 
you're cast for how you look, how tall you are, what color your hair 
is, how well you compare or contrast with the other guy who is 
already cast, etc, etc.


Of course!  But you're talking about theater or at least 
theatricality, which is a very different art form and has different 
priorities.  I remember the director of the Young Ambassadors at BYU 
telling me that so many students auditioned for the group that if he 
decided one year to pick only blonds, he could!  Our community chorus 
ranges from my wife, who is 4' 10", to a bass who is 6' 9".  And so 
what?!


 Even in a chorus, the singer's physical presence is part of the 
product.  It's not like an orchestra where everyone is hiding in the 
pit wearing black and the only thing that matters is how they sound.


Ah, I can tell that you're theater-oriented!  The average orchestra 
plays from a stage, is quite visible, and yes, their physical 
presence IS part of the product.  (Sez me, getting ready to plunge 
into the pit with mine viola for this summer's production of 
"Oliver!")  But the object in choral singing is to reduce 
individuality so that physical blend joins vocal blend.  That's why 
tuxes and long black dresses.


The fact of being a boy singing soprano is significant.  Sometimes 
it will be a plus, sometimes it will be a minus, but it's almost 
never going to be something that everyone is blind to, nor should it 
be.


OK, here's a practical answer.  Our (very good) community chorus has 
one (count them, ONE!) female tenor, and yes, that is her natural and 
healthy voice range.  She dresses as the women do, and stands at the 
border between the tenors and the altos.  No physical distraction, 
and nobody who doesn't actually know her would notice that she was 
singing with the tenors rather than the altos.  If we had an alto 
countertenor (which we don't), he would stand in about the same place.


As to the concern about whether you need to change the words for a 
single off-gendered singer, men have been singing "women's" words and 
women have been singing "men's" words for literally centuries.  Much 
of the renaissance madrigal and chanson literature has gendered 
poetry, but it doesn't really matter, and there was no church 
prohibition against women singing that literature with men.  It's 
simply a non-issue in a choral context, whereas for solo voices it 
might well be something to consider.



That's my thinking, anyway.


And I do respect it.

John


--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411  Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
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Re: [Finale] notation program comparison

[Rick Neal]

I believe Daniel Spreadbury is the Sibelius programmer/employee who is 
very active on the Sibelius list.


Rick


ronan wrote:


I don't know about "staging", but didn't Daniel Spreadbury work for Sibelius
at one time? To add insult to injury, Lora Creighton is using an ancient
version of Finale--which leads me to wonder what kind of engraving
experience she has. Or any of them, for that matter. The whole thing is just
too amateurish--both in the people selected to use the programs and in the
organization of it--to take seriously.

Best,

Ron

Ronald J Brown
PO Box 138
Newboro ON K0G 1P0
(613) 272-3181
http://www.RonaldJBrown.com

-Original Message-
From: Johannes Gebauer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: July 21, 2005 5:00 PM

To: finale@shsu.edu
Subject: Re: [Finale] notation program comparison

The comparison does make me wonder though: Wouldn't a real comparison 
where experts with each software work by strictly copying one or more 
sources of real published music be long overdue?


Some time ago (years I guess) we had this kind of thread as well, where 
I believe Sibelius staged a kind of competition, but ended up with a 
rather poor result for their own software and quickly withdrew the results.


I don't think cautionary accidentals have anything to do with this, by 
the way.


I'd volunteer to do this kind of competition, if it is limited to no 
more than two or three pages.


Johannes

 



--
Rick Neal
Teacher, Composer, Bassist, Guitarist
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


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RE: [Finale] notation program comparison

[ronan]

I don't know about "staging", but didn't Daniel Spreadbury work for Sibelius
at one time? To add insult to injury, Lora Creighton is using an ancient
version of Finale--which leads me to wonder what kind of engraving
experience she has. Or any of them, for that matter. The whole thing is just
too amateurish--both in the people selected to use the programs and in the
organization of it--to take seriously.

Best,

Ron

Ronald J Brown
PO Box 138
Newboro ON K0G 1P0
(613) 272-3181
http://www.RonaldJBrown.com

-Original Message-
From: Johannes Gebauer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: July 21, 2005 5:00 PM
To: finale@shsu.edu
Subject: Re: [Finale] notation program comparison

The comparison does make me wonder though: Wouldn't a real comparison 
where experts with each software work by strictly copying one or more 
sources of real published music be long overdue?

Some time ago (years I guess) we had this kind of thread as well, where 
I believe Sibelius staged a kind of competition, but ended up with a 
rather poor result for their own software and quickly withdrew the results.

I don't think cautionary accidentals have anything to do with this, by 
the way.

I'd volunteer to do this kind of competition, if it is limited to no 
more than two or three pages.

Johannes

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[John Howell]

At 5:24 PM -0700 7/21/05, Richard Yates wrote:

 > "Association spokeswoman Amy Lear said the group

 enacted the rule two years ago because of concerns
 that girls auditioning for tenor parts were hurting
 their voices by singing too low.


This, then, is the crux of the reasoning. These questions about the claim
then follow:

Are such concerns valid?  Is there evidence for this claim?


I've argued that some girls' voices really do function healthily in 
that range, but by the same token the "average" girl's voice should 
not be attempting to sing low Cs and Ds.  Not to pull a Bill Clinton 
here, but the real crux is what the meaning of "hurting their voices" 
is.  If one is invoking physical damage, rather than simply not 
meeting some arbitrary standard, then any such damage pales in 
comparison with the damage done by cheerleading without excellent 
vocal habits.  About 30 years ago, one of the appropriate departments 
at Indiana University examined the vocal mechanisms of a large number 
of cheerleaders who were on campus for cheerleading camps during the 
summer.  They found some physical damage in 100% of the subjects they 
examined, and permanent damage in a frighteningly large percentage. 
Trying to sing tenor will NOT produce such results!  Much more damage 
can be done by asking young, partially-trained singers to sing opera 
arias that are beyond their present technique!  Yes, I've heard it 
done, and shuddered to hear the results.  Another sure-fire danger is 
smoking.  Many "basses" in women's barbershop have been smoking for 
20+ years.



Does the concern justify a blanket policy or is there a way to judge such
risk, if there really is any, individually?


Of course.  Every applicant sings before at least one, and perhaps a 
panel of judges.  If those judges know their business, they can hear 
individual problems.  I've judged such auditions and so has my wife 
several times, usually with the singers behind a screen.



Is it the TMEA's legitimate role to judge this risk or is it more properly
the school's or the parents' or even (gasp) the student's?


By and large the students don't know enough about their voices to 
judge, nor do the parents, and if by "the school's" you mean the 
choir teachers, it's hard to trust them completely because in too 
many cases they are the very people who put girls improperly into the 
alto or tenor sections because they need more voices in those 
sections.  Once again it is a very legitimate role for those judging 
the auditions.


John


--
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Virginia Tech Department of Music
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Vox (540) 231-8411  Fax (540) 231-5034
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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[dhbailey]

Phil Daley wrote:


At 7/22/2005 12:57 AM, Mark D Lew wrote:

 >I agree with John Howell that any individual can be rejected for
 >specific reasons which might be correlated with his sex, without the
 >need for a blanket rule banning the sex outright.  The idea of
 >auditioning the voices blind is interesting, but I think it's
 >ultimately unrealistic.

I am surprised that any states do not use blind judging.

How do they eliminate the possibility that a judge would know a student 
and then use that information in the resulting rating?


The states I have worked in all used blind judging.



New Hampshire did away with blind judging several years ago.

I asked a teacher about that issue of the teacher knowing the student 
and therefore judging on overall knowledge of how the student could 
perform vs. a one-shot, first-impression audition with students the 
teacher didn't know.


His reply was interesting -- the logic behind it was that since they 
were already using New Hampshire teachers as judges, an inordinate 
number of particular teachers' were making it in anyway, since the 
interpretation they were looking for at the audition would have been the 
interpretation they taught their students, so other interpretations 
would have gotten lower grades.  Additionally, he felt that in general 
the teachers would be as impartial as any human being could be, knowing 
them personally and trusting their integrity.  So doing away with the 
screens made it easier to set up for auditions and apparently was less 
unnerving for the students.


Besides, even with a blind audition, a teacher knows his/her own 
students' tones, techniques, which mistakes they always make, and if 
anybody wanted to ensure their own students make it in without any 
doubt, all that teacher has to do is to give them a short, unmistakable 
warm-up riff to play before playing the selections.  So a student plays 
that riff just to ensure valves are working, reed is in place, nothing 
anybody would question, and then plays the selections and the teacher 
knows to give them a higher score, if that teacher were bent on cheating.


The only way to have truly effective auditions is to have 3 judges for 
each audition, all from out of state, and that's something most state 
music teacher associations can't afford.


--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State

[Phil Daley]

At 7/22/2005 01:42 AM, Neal Schermerhorn wrote:

>Phil Daley wrote:
>
>> To say he could "play viola" doesn't even deserve a comment.
>
>Oh, sure it does. Because a countertenor asking to sing a soprano part or
>alto part is no different than a guitarist claiming to be able to playa
>viola part. "I can read the clef, I can match the tone really closely. Why
>not let me?"
>
>Would YOU allow a classical guitarist to play viola parts in an All-State
>orchestra? After all, you'd never hear his unique tone diference in the
>amalgamation of all the players.

I could be wrong, but I don't think a guitarist can use a bow.

Phil Daley  < AutoDesk >
http://www.conknet.com/~p_daley



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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[Phil Daley]

At 7/22/2005 12:57 AM, Mark D Lew wrote:

>I agree with John Howell that any individual can be rejected for
>specific reasons which might be correlated with his sex, without the
>need for a blanket rule banning the sex outright.  The idea of
>auditioning the voices blind is interesting, but I think it's
>ultimately unrealistic.

I am surprised that any states do not use blind judging.

How do they eliminate the possibility that a judge would know a student and 
then use that information in the resulting rating?


The states I have worked in all used blind judging.

Phil Daley  < AutoDesk >
http://www.conknet.com/~p_daley



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Re: [Finale] notation program comparison

[Dennis Bathory-Kitsz]

At 04:10 PM 7/22/05 +1000, Matthew Hindson Fastmail Account wrote:
>Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
>> 
>> The Graphire font (Revere) is not even the same character order, and it has
>> some sort of zero-width parameter, so it can't be used as text in other
>> documents -- characters appear one on top of the other. I'd experimented
>> unsuccessfully with using it in Finale ...
>
>What you'd do in this case (using Fontographer or whatever) is to clear 
>the characters in the Maestro font, but not the widths.  Then paste in 
>the characters from Revere into what's left of Maestro (using the 
>Maestro character slots), also carefully preserving the Maestro widths. 
>Tedious for an hour to be sure.
>
>It would of course be illegal to do this most likely - what is the 
>status of 'abandonware' these days?

Revere and Music Press aren't abandoned -- they're just no longer being
developed. It's my understanding that the Graphire product was being
transferred to another company. But since Graphire is a privately held
company, I'm not privy to the behind-the-scenes. There is a user support
group and listserv that continues to work on it, and is even now trying to
develop a patch to make Midi work on the newer Mac operating system.

The Revere font has never been released separately and in fact was fiercely
protected by the original programmer. Now that I've been successful
modifying other fonts, I would Fontographer-ize it for my own use in Finale
-- except that I have handed over my copy of Graphire to another engraver
and no longer have the right to use it.

Indeed, I think Graphire's high price, wacky licensing terms (you could buy
it by number of hours) and dongle-based protection scheme (which as the
documentation author I fought and got nowhere in having changed) were
responsible for its demise. It was never competitive in price, and the
investment required to re-learn music entry (if you were coming from
Finale, the only real alternative at the time) meant it really had to
shine. And it did. In terms of printed results -- badly revealed by the
comparison pages that started this thread -- it was unparalleled, requiring
almost no fussy adjustments once a house style had been set up. House
styles really had meaning in Graphire, too, with master pages and several
levels of layered control in the manner of Pagemaker. I can't praise enough
how logically it worked design-wise ... no matter how I disliked its
engraver-style approach to music entry and difficulty in post-entry editing.

Dennis



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Re: [Finale] notation program comparison

[dhbailey]

Matthew Hindson Fastmail Account wrote:


Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:



The Graphire font (Revere) is not even the same character order, and 
it has

some sort of zero-width parameter, so it can't be used as text in other
documents -- characters appear one on top of the other. I'd experimented
unsuccessfully with using it in Finale ...



What you'd do in this case (using Fontographer or whatever) is to clear 
the characters in the Maestro font, but not the widths.  Then paste in 
the characters from Revere into what's left of Maestro (using the 
Maestro character slots), also carefully preserving the Maestro widths. 
Tedious for an hour to be sure.


It would of course be illegal to do this most likely - what is the 
status of 'abandonware' these days?


Matthew




"Abandonware" is still protected by copyright -- there is a series of 
hearings and testimony is being taken by the copyright office concerning 
such things as how to handle the copyright issues, how much of a search 
is sufficient to protect an individual should he/she use copyrighted 
materials without permission.  The copyright office is aware of the 
problem and is trying to sort it out, but under the law, the full 
copyright still is in effect even for what is apparently abandonware.


Of course, it may not be abandonware at all, it may just be dormantware, 
which is something that may rise out of the ashes of its former existence.


Witness the Notion program being developped these days -- it is clearly 
trying to be a Phoenix rising from the ashes of MusicPrinterPlus, even 
though there has been a 10-year (at least) dormancy, during which time 
MusicPrinterPlus could easily have been viewed as abandonware.


--
David H. Bailey
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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[dhbailey]

Tyler Turner wrote:
[snip]

My point was in part to say that it wasn't necessary.
But if you're interested, there are many articles on
the subject. Here's one:
http://www1.wfubmc.edu/voice/nodules/singer.htm

[snip]

Thanks for that link -- it seems very good.  While there is a statement 
that singing "out of range" may cause nodules, it doesn't define how to 
determine that.  Many females who sing tenor do so because it is their 
natural range.  Many males who sing soprano do so because it is their 
natural range.


I agree with an earlier point that many teachers may be forcing women to 
sing tenor to balance the sections, not because of any concern for a 
person's natural range.  Those teachers should be fired because they are 
obviously not good for the students.  To bar all female tenors (or male 
countertenors) because some students had been forced to sing outside 
their range is an illogical step.  Those students are STILL being forced 
to sing outside their range -- they just are prevented from 
participating in the honor of being in the All-State chorus.  Punishing 
the students because of the actions of the teachers seems silly and 
extremely unfair.


But to return to the link you posted, the actual comparison that they 
seem to make the most of involves two people singing in the same range, 
and discuss how proper vocal training seems to be most important in the 
prevention of nodules.


So if the Texas All-State committee is actually making their ruling 
based on solid research into vocal health, they should bar anyone who 
hasn't had proper vocal training, regardless of range.  Of course, that 
would be jumped on as totally unfair, that only students who have 
demonstrated proper vocal technique could audition for All-State Chorus.


But isn't that what the audition process is for?  I would imagine that 
those with proper vocal technique would sing at a high enough level to 
pass the incredibly competitive audition, and those with improper vocal 
technique wouldn't sing well enough and wouldn't be accepted.  So the 
judging process itself would weed out those who are likely to be harming 
their voices.  That would be regardless of the range, which would remove 
the necessity of separating the voices by sex.


Nowhere in the article you cited does it say that "women singing tenor 
are harming their voices" or "men singing soprano parts are harming 
their voices" as if such an occurence is de facto harmful.


Anybody singing in any range, using improper vocal technique, may be 
harming their voices.  The Texas All-State Committee doesn't address 
that at all, which makes their concern over women singing tenor and men 
singing soprano seem to have another agenda.  Whether that is a sexist 
agenda or simply a "See what we're doing to protect our students' 
voices" while not actually protecting our students' voices agenda 
remains unproven.




--
David H. Bailey
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Re: [Finale] Another thing Sibelius has

[dhbailey]

Craig Parmerlee wrote:

[snip]>
As users who have a vested interest in Finale surviving, we cannot solve 
the software problems for them.  But we can buy upgrades to help them 
fund the continued development.  Anybody who cares enough to post 
messages on an Internet board really shouldn't be complaining about 
paying a hundred bucks a year to keep the thing going.



I don't see your logic here -- what does our posting to a discussion 
group of users helping users (since the program is harder to master 
without such help) have to do with how much discretionary money we have 
available to spend to keep a corporation afloat?


With your major release every 60 days, what sort of marketing model does 
your product have?  Annual subscription, pay a hefty fee every 60 days, 
pay for the product once and get the major releases for free?  What sort 
of product is it -- a product that a major corporation uses across the 
corporation, a product that a single user would purchase?  How many 
developpers are working on your product, that you can push a major 
release out the door every 2 months?


Finale is primarily a single-user product where many of the users are 
hobbyists who can't take the expenditures in Finale (or other music 
software and hardware) as tax deductions.  I was just speaking to a band 
director at a public school yesterday who was bemoaning the release of 
Finale2006.  His comment -- "I just bought Finale2005 a year ago!  And 
now they want me to upgrade? I ordered it, but it's the last one I'll be 
buying for a while."


Sure we have a right to complain, sure we should be voicing our upset. 
The whole marketplace thing is a partnership, and partnerships only work 
when both partners (all partners) get what they feel to be fair returns 
for their investment in the partnership.  We put in the money and the 
suggestions for new features and the requests for bug-fixes.  Finale 
puts in the development time and produces the product.  When either 
partner feels the equality of the partnership has been broken, they are 
faced with a dilemma -- they can continue the partnership, hoping things 
will rectify themselves and a perceived slight will be a one-off 
occurence, or they can dissolve the partnership, feeling that things are 
irrevocably skewed.


But we can still talk about it and try to come to some sort of 
understanding of why the company seems to be following the path it is.


And hope that the company is listening and paying attention.



--
David H. Bailey
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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir- damaging the instrument?

[dhbailey]

Tyler Turner wrote:

[snip]>>___



When I was in college, my friend and I snuck into the
recital hall for a chance to play on the Steinway
concert grand. The first note my friend played snapped
a string on the piano.



Ah, was it a jazz note or a classical note, though?  Chances are if you 
were sneaking around it might even have been that no-good rock-and-roll! 
 So all those rumors about non-classical music ruining Steinways were 
correct, after all!  :-)




--
David H. Bailey
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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[dhbailey]

Chuck Israels wrote:


On Jul 21, 2005, at 5:24 PM, Richard Yates wrote:


"Association spokeswoman Amy Lear said the group
enacted the rule two years ago because of concerns
that girls auditioning for tenor parts were hurting
their voices by singing too low.



If these old wives tales were true, more of us would be blind :-)



Maybe there's some truth in those old wives tales -- after all, the 
percentage of middle-aged men needing glasses is rather high.  And the 
prescriptions just get stronger, the older we get, don't they?  We may 
all be going blind and should have listened when we were younger.  ;-)


Now get them women back in the treble clef, where they belong!  :-)

--
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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[Ken Moore]

Andrew Stiller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote

>That said, however, the question of whether a countertenor may
>legitimately sing a given alto line (let's leave the sopranos out of
>it--I never heard of a countertenor who could hit a C above the treble
>clef and live to tell about it) is entirely a matter of what would have
>been considered appropriate at the time and place that the music was
>created.

A friend of mine at college (Selwyn, Cambridge, England) had a reliable 
top C.  He auditioned for a choral scholarship at King's College, but 
despite being amazed, Boris Ord turned him down, possibly because his 
sight reading was not quite good enough.  Also the voice was not 
particularly appropriate for the job: the quality in the alto range was 
good, but not exceptional, and King's has boys for trebles.


--
Ken Moore
Musician and engineer

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Re: [Finale] notation program comparison

[Michael Cook]

If anyone is interested in organising this sort of competition, it's 
important to work out what the purpose is. Do we want to test:


- the capacity of the software for producing complex notation?
- the capacity of the software for producing clear, readable notation?
- the capacity of the software for producing notation that complies to 
certain editors' parameters?
- the capacity of the software for reproducing a given printed piece in 
all details?

- the time it takes to create a given score?
- the difficulty of producing the desired effects?
- the amount of tweaking necessary to produce the desired effects?

In all cases, it's difficult to find a way of objectively testing the 
software itself. With any one of the major engraving programs a person 
who is a real expert of that particular program should be able to 
produce just about any desired effect. Of course there will be 
different amounts of tweaking going on in each case, ranging from 
simple adjustments to full-blown workarounds, but there's no way to 
have really accurate information about that, and in matters of ease of 
use its hard to make meaningful comparisons between programs that work 
in such different ways.


The quality of the finished piece will be more dependent on the 
engraver's care and skills than on the actual tools he or she is using. 
At the end we will always be judging the engraver more than the 
software.


Michael Cook

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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[Johannes Gebauer]

Am I glad I didn't take part in this discussion...

Johannes

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Re: [Finale] notation program comparison

[Darcy James Argue]

On 22 Jul 2005, at 3:00 AM, Johannes Gebauer wrote:

All fine with me, but count me out of it. I doubt there are many 
engravers who have extensive experience in both genres, I certainly 
haven't.


I think a _much_ better idea would be to do this separately.


I agree.  I'd certainly volunteer to do a jazz page.  I'd even 
volunteer to get permission from the people I mentioned to use a page 
from one of their works for the competition.


What I am after is things like beam placement, and as I understand it 
that doesn't matter much with handwritten jazz style.


No, that's not true at all.  (In fact, I was corresponding with Jef 
Chippewa about this very topic earlier tonight.)


What's certainly true is that there is a lot of unbelievably bad jazz 
engraving out there.


Cheers,

- Darcy
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY


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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

[Tyler Turner]

--- Darcy James Argue <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> On 21 Jul 2005, at 10:13 PM, Tyler Turner wrote:
> 
> > It is the belief of many professionals that
> singing
> > out of one's normal range is bad for the voice.
> 
> But the normal range of this student's voice *is*
> the countertenor 
> range.
> 
> According to the rules, he was free to audition as a
> tenor (or even a 
> baritone or bass), which would be out of his normal
> range and thus 
> supposedly bad for his voice.  So this rationale
> doesn't hold up.
> 

The idea was to prevent females who shouldn't be
singing the tenor parts from singing the tenor parts.
This rule wasn't meant to address the countertenor at
all. The rule for him is that because girls can't sing
boys parts, it would be discrimination to allow the
reverse. That's the only logic anyone is claiming to
support his exclusion.

So basically the issue here is that the Texas
All-State ensembles don't include his instrument. They
also don't have parts for guitar (as far as I'm
aware). He has the same option as the guitarists. Play
your favorite instrument where it's supported, but
audition for All-State on tuba.

Seems like the same type of rule I've had to live with
being a euphonium player. I can't play with (most)
jazz groups. I can't play with (most) orchestras. I
knew the rules when I started and chose to live with
the draw-backs. I don't get to play trombone parts on
euphonium with jazz groups just because I can cover
the range and on a bad baritone even imitate the
sound. I can draw the analogy farther. I started out
as a trumpet player, but because of the shape of my
mouth it just turned out that euphonium was best
suited for me and naturally did less damage to my
mouth to play it at a professional level. So
genetically you might say I was eventually pushed
towards an instrument that prevented me from
participating with certain groups.

Big deal. I made it pay for school. And I enjoy
playing where I am allowed to play. I play other
instruments in other types of ensembles.

Tyler




Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page 
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Re: [Finale] notation program comparison

[Johannes Gebauer]

All fine with me, but count me out of it. I doubt there are many 
engravers who have extensive experience in both genres, I certainly haven't.


I think a _much_ better idea would be to do this separately. What I am 
after is things like beam placement, and as I understand it that doesn't 
matter much with handwritten jazz style.


I also don't actually want to test the engraver, I want to see the best 
output of real engraving that the software can possibly produce.


Johannes

Darcy James Argue schrieb:

On 21 Jul 2005, at 5:46 PM, Carl Dershem wrote:

I'd think one page of that, one page of a relatively complex jazz 
piece (perhaps something from Mantooth or Levy or Fedchock) and one 
other piece in a third style.  After all, you want to show the 
flexibility of the program, rather than just one thing it can do well.



Nothing against Mantooth, Levy or Fedchock, but their work isn't 
anything I'd call "relatively complex."  If this is meant to be a 
challenge for the engraver, I'd recommend recent works by people like 
Maria Schneider, Jim McNeely, John Hollenbeck, Django Bates, etc.


[Of course, there are copyright issues to deal with... ]

- Darcy
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY


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