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

On 23 Jul 2005 at 17:02, Mark D Lew wrote:

> On Jul 23, 2005, at 3:14 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
> 
> >>> I can't think of any where the castrato is specified for a young
> >>> man's role.
> >>
> >> Idamante in Mozart's Idomeneo (original version) is one example,
> >> but I think you're on to something. . . .
> >
> > Idamante is not a teenager. He's a young man, no? In his early 20s?
> 
> Right.  A young man.  That's what you asked for, I thought.

I thought you were talking about teenagers, like Cherubino. 

I think the difference is between young man as pre-adult and young 
man as young adult. The former were never, so far as I know, sung by 
castrati (at least, by design), because the former would never have 
been heroic roles (at least in none of the seria conventions I'm 
aware of).

Castrati were rare. They were stars (mostly). I don't think they 
would have been used in secondary roles of the type you're 
describing.

-- 
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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


On Jul 23, 2005, at 2:37 PM, John Howell wrote:

If Mark is correct, then Andrew's equating youthfulness with vocal 
range makes sense, even though WE would think of a treble (or mezzo) 
voice as representing an unchanged boy's voice.  It is not, then, a 
literal statement that the character has or has not gone through 
puberty


Certainly not.

Richard Strauss's Rosenkavalier opens with the Marschallin in bed with 
Octavian, and the music of the prelude makes it pretty clear what they 
were doing there before the curtain is raised.  If Octavian has not 
been through puberty, that's a sick libretto.


mdl

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


On Jul 23, 2005, at 3:14 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:


I can't think of any where the castrato is specified for a young
man's role.


Idamante in Mozart's Idomeneo (original version) is one example, but I
think you're on to something. . . .


Idamante is not a teenager. He's a young man, no? In his early 20s?


Right.  A young man.  That's what you asked for, I thought.


I think your original formulation was mistaken, then, no?


I don't think so.  I didn't save my post, but I was answering Andrew's 
comment which went:



1) In Baroque opera, [...]

2) In later operas, pant roles represent prepubescent boys. [...]


I was answering point 2.  I know 19th (and 20th) century opera very 
well.  My knowledge of baroque opera is somewhat sketchy.  I welcomed 
your contribution that shed additional light on the baroque era.


mdl

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

On 23 Jul 2005 at 18:13, John Howell wrote:

> At 2:26 PM -0700 7/23/05, Mark D Lew wrote:
> 
> >Castrati sang minor roles, too.  Most of the Handel operas have
> >multiple castrato roles.  In Rinaldo, for instance, in addition to
> >the title role, Eustazio was also a castrato originally.  (I think
> >the part is cut altogether in later edition.)
> 
> I think the typical cast in the 27 Metestasian libretti was 2 female
> sopranos (prima donna and seconda donna), 2 male sopranos (primo uomo
> and secondo uomo, presumeably castrati), a tenor, and 1 to 3 other
> characters.  Small casts, and pretty darned soprano-heavy!  (The opera
> ain't over 'til the fat castrato sings??)  Whether Mozart followed
> that tradition in his Italian operas I don't know, but it was
> definitely the Italian tradition.

Well, by "Italian operas" I think you mean his seria operas. Mozart 
probably had little say in the casting of those (with the exceptions 
of, perhaps, Idomeneo and, probably, Titus), since he was just a kid, 
fulfilling commissions for, mostly, pre-chosen libretti that already 
had a relatively fixed set of roles (though each time, a librettist 
was making revisions).

The rules for opera buffa, are, of course, entirely different.

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

On 23 Jul 2005 at 14:22, Mark D Lew wrote:

> On Jul 23, 2005, at 2:03 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
> 
> > I can't think of any where the castrato is specified for a young
> > man's role.
> 
> Idamante in Mozart's Idomeneo (original version) is one example, but I
> think you're on to something. . . .

Idamante is not a teenager. He's a young man, no? In his early 20s?

Secondly, if I'm remembering correctly, Idamante is one of the lead 
roles, not a secondary role, as is usually the case with the young 
male/teenage roles that I thought you were speaking of.

> . . . The association of the treble voice
> with male youth seems to start right about when the baroque era is
> coming to an end, so that the main examples of such roles were created
> by female singers rather than castrati.  In the baroque era, when
> castrati were still common, castrato roles were generally any hero
> regardless of age -- Orfeo, Giulio Cesare, etc.

I think your original formulation was mistaken, then, no?

-- 
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

2005-07-23 Thread John Howell


At 2:26 PM -0700 7/23/05, Mark D Lew wrote:

Castrati sang minor roles, too.  Most of the Handel operas have 
multiple castrato roles.  In Rinaldo, for instance, in addition to 
the title role, Eustazio was also a castrato originally.  (I think 
the part is cut altogether in later edition.)


I think the typical cast in the 27 Metestasian libretti was 2 female 
sopranos (prima donna and seconda donna), 2 male sopranos (primo uomo 
and secondo uomo, presumeably castrati), a tenor, and 1 to 3 other 
characters.  Small casts, and pretty darned soprano-heavy!  (The 
opera ain't over 'til the fat castrato sings??)  Whether Mozart 
followed that tradition in his Italian operas I don't know, but it 
was definitely the Italian tradition.


John


--
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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

2005-07-23 Thread John Howell


At 1:08 PM -0700 7/23/05, Mark D Lew wrote:

On Jul 23, 2005, at 8:29 AM, Andrew Stiller wrote:

1) In Baroque opera, vocal range was a function of the age of the 
character more than its sex. The young hero was a soprano, and so 
was his love interest. Her duenna was a tenor. The 
king/philosopher/father was a bass.


2) In later operas, pant roles represent prepubescent boys. If you 
assume (as was in fact the case) that any significant operatic role 
must be performed by an adult, then the role of a little boy must 
be played by an alto or soprano. And if (as was again the case) 
countertenors no longer were recognized, then it follows 
automatically that the part must go to a woman.


Excellent summary, Andrew.  I would quibble with only one word.  In 
later operas, pants roles represent male youths, but they are not 
"prepubescent".  In some cases, their pubescence is very much a part 
of the story.  Octavian is most certainly not prepubescent. 
Cherubino and Siebel are young, but their behavior is clearly that 
of pubescent teenagers.


I'm honored to have two such knowledgeable people replying to and 
debating my question!  If Mark is correct, then Andrew's equating 
youthfulness with vocal range makes sense, even though WE would think 
of a treble (or mezzo) voice as representing an unchanged boy's 
voice.  It is not, then, a literal statement that the character has 
or has not gone through puberty (which I assume was associated with 
voice change in boys in the 18th and early 19th centuries just as it 
is today, but which typically did not hit boys until about age 17 
rather than age 12 as it does today).  Thus a 15 or 16 year old boy 
(a real one, not an operatic character) could still be speaking in an 
unchanged voice, but would also not be sexually mature.  (Which is 
not to say that he wouldn't have been interested!!)  But of course it 
is the character, as limned by the librettist, that has to determine 
how each role is played.


The young couple in Monteverdi's "Poppea," who provide both comic 
relief and a wonderfully innocent contrast with the pure ambition 
dripping from both Nerone and Poppea, seem to be right on the cusp of 
puberty, with Damigella clearly looking forward to learning more as 
soon as possible and the boy not quite so sure!  My knowledge of 17th 
century Venetian opera is not deep enough to guess what gender or age 
the actors of those parts might have been.  There were no actresses 
in Shakespeare's England, correct?  But I don't know about 
Monteverdi's Italy.  I can't imagine Poppea not being a woman, and a 
damned sensual one at that.  Didn't Strozzi and the Caccini sisters 
perform in operas?


On the few occasions when a character in an opera really is supposed 
to be a prepubescent boy, the score generally calls for it to be 
played by a boy whose voice has not yet changed -- eg, the genii in 
Magic Flute, the shepherd boy in Tosca, Yniold, Miles, Amahl, 
Griffelkin.  These roles are sometimes cast as women simply because 
a suitably talented boy cannot be found, but that's not the same as 
the trouser-role tradition.


Opera--perhaps theater in general--certainly has some strange traditions!

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


On Jul 23, 2005, at 2:03 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:


I'm anaware of any opera roles written for castrati that are anything
other than major, adult male roles.


Castrati sang minor roles, too.  Most of the Handel operas have 
multiple castrato roles.  In Rinaldo, for instance, in addition to the 
title role, Eustazio was also a castrato originally.  (I think the part 
is cut altogether in later edition.)


mdl

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


On Jul 23, 2005, at 2:03 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:


I can't think of any where the castrato is specified for a young
man's role.


Idamante in Mozart's Idomeneo (original version) is one example, but I 
think you're on to something.  The association of the treble voice with 
male youth seems to start right about when the baroque era is coming to 
an end, so that the main examples of such roles were created by female 
singers rather than castrati.  In the baroque era, when castrati were 
still common, castrato roles were generally any hero regardless of age 
-- Orfeo, Giulio Cesare, etc.


mdl

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


On Jul 23, 2005, at 2:00 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:


So, then, you are *against* the TMEA's rules that prohibit
countertenors, however "abnormal" their vocal production, from
participating in all-state choir?


If I had a vote, yes, I'd vote against the rule.  At the same time I 
think it's something on which reasonable people might differ, so I can 
see why others might support it.



Personally, I think the use of the word "normal" for this is wrong in
the first place. What is meant instead is "normative," i.e., what
*most* people do. "Abnormal" means unhealthy or wrong, whereas
there's nothing unhealthy about countertenor vocal production.


I'll buy that.  Semantics is causing misunderstanding here, 
particularly with regard to "normal" and "natural".


mdl

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

On 22 Jul 2005 at 19:56, Mark D Lew wrote:

> 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.)

I'm anaware of any opera roles written for castrati that are anything 
other than major, adult male roles. 

I can't think of any where the castrato is specified for a young 
man's role.

-- 
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

On 22 Jul 2005 at 19:48, Mark D Lew wrote:

> 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.

Well, it seems to me that the TMEA is making that argument.

I apparently misunderstood you to be defending the use of 
"normal/abnormal" as a criterion for rejecting certain singers.

[]

> 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.

So, then, you are *against* the TMEA's rules that prohibit 
countertenors, however "abnormal" their vocal production, from 
participating in all-state choir?

Personally, I think the use of the word "normal" for this is wrong in 
the first place. What is meant instead is "normative," i.e., what 
*most* people do. "Abnormal" means unhealthy or wrong, whereas 
there's nothing unhealthy about countertenor vocal production. 

-- 
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


On Jul 23, 2005, at 8:29 AM, Andrew Stiller wrote:

1) In Baroque opera, vocal range was a function of the age of the 
character more than its sex. The young hero was a soprano, and so was 
his love interest. Her duenna was a tenor. The king/philosopher/father 
was a bass.


2) In later operas, pant roles represent prepubescent boys. If you 
assume (as was in fact the case) that any significant operatic role 
must be performed by an adult, then the role of a little boy must be 
played by an alto or soprano. And if (as was again the case) 
countertenors no longer were recognized, then it follows automatically 
that the part must go to a woman.


I might add that outside of England there was never, historically, 
much place for countertenors in opera, because their sound was deemed 
too weak for the stage. We use them all the time now to fill castrato 
roles, but back in the day they  preferred to use women if castrati 
were unavailable.


Excellent summary, Andrew.  I would quibble with only one word.  In 
later operas, pants roles represent male youths, but they are not 
"prepubescent".  In some cases, their pubescence is very much a part of 
the story.  Octavian is most certainly not prepubescent.  Cherubino and 
Siebel are young, but their behavior is clearly that of pubescent 
teenagers.  Orlofsky is arguably an anomaly, and can be played in many 
ways, but I don't think anyone sees him as a prepubescent boy.  
Nicklausse I don't think does anything that really pins down an age, 
but his relationship with Hoffmann certainly doesn't suggest that he's 
a child.  The various page roles (eg, Oscar) could be played as 
children, but traditionally they are not.


My point is that while you're quite right that the trouser-role voice 
type represents youth, the representation is symbolic and has nothing 
to do with voice change or other characteristics of physical 
development.  A typical trouser-role character is about 15 or 16 years 
old and sexually mature, albeit with more eagerness than experience.


Mezzos who specialize in trouser-roles study to learn a male 
physicality.  (It's often one of the workshops available in a young 
singers' program.)  These women are not practicing to move like boys; 
they are practicing to move like young men.


On the few occasions when a character in an opera really is supposed to 
be a prepubescent boy, the score generally calls for it to be played by 
a boy whose voice has not yet changed -- eg, the genii in Magic Flute, 
the shepherd boy in Tosca, Yniold, Miles, Amahl, Griffelkin.  These 
roles are sometimes cast as women simply because a suitably talented 
boy cannot be found, but that's not the same as the trouser-role 
tradition.


mdl

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

2005-07-23 Thread Dan Carno

Well, last summer I heard Michael Manicaci, who lists himself as "male 
soprano", sing an easily lofted and poised high c that many sopranos would 
envy (I'll bet he has range above that).  His phrasing and tone in Handel's 
Imeneo -- and Orlando the summer before --  were both stunning and beyond 
reproach.  The Imeneo may be heard in a live broadcast on NPR (today in my 
neighborhood -- maybe yours too).

Dan Carno

At 05:06 AM 7/22/2005, you wrote:

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] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

2005-07-23 Thread Andrew Stiller


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

John



Two reasons.

1) In Baroque opera, vocal range was a function of the age of the 
character more than its sex. The young hero was a soprano, and so was 
his love interest. Her duenna was a tenor. The king/philosopher/father 
was a bass.


2) In later operas, pant roles represent prepubescent boys. If you 
assume (as was in fact the case) that any significant operatic role 
must be performed by an adult, then the role of a little boy must be 
played by an alto or soprano. And if (as was again the case) 
countertenors no longer were recognized, then it follows automatically 
that the part must go to a woman.


I might add that outside of England there was never, historically, much 
place for countertenors in opera, because their sound was deemed too 
weak for the stage. We use them all the time now to fill castrato 
roles, but back in the day they  preferred to use women if castrati 
were unavailable.


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

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


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


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


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

2005-07-22 Thread 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] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir



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


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


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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


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


--
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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


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

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] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir


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


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 Choir

2005-07-22 Thread 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


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


--
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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

2005-07-22 Thread 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 Choir

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 Choir


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

2005-07-22 Thread 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

2005-07-22 Thread 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

2005-07-22 Thread 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] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

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.

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

2005-07-22 Thread 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

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

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

2005-07-22 Thread 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
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(315) 492-2987
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 


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

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

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

2005-07-22 Thread 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] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

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] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir


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


--
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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


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


--
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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


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

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.

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

2005-07-22 Thread 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] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir


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] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir- damaging the instrument?


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!  :-)




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


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

2005-07-22 Thread 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] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

2005-07-22 Thread Johannes Gebauer


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

Johannes

--
http://www.musikmanufaktur.com
http://www.camerata-berolinensis.de

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

2005-07-22 Thread 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 
http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs 

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

2005-07-21 Thread Darcy James Argue


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.


- Darcy
-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brooklyn, NY



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

2005-07-21 Thread Mark D Lew


On Jul 21, 2005, at 8:05 PM, Richard Yates wrote:


A lie? Who said anything about lying? I originally asked for possible
rationales for not allowing a male student to sing alto or soprano. 
One of

your suggested explanations was that singing out of range could cause
injury. I asked for evidence of this. If there is no evidence then the 
TMEA

may simply be ignorant.


For me the issue is not that singing low in the range is bad for the 
voice per se.  I don't believe that's true at all.  My concern about 
having women in the tenor section is that it makes it very difficult 
for me to work with the voices in a healthy and educational way without 
encouraging them to hurt themselves.


Forgive me if I get specific, but I'll try to pick examples that are 
reasonably familiar.  Suppose we're working on the Dies Irae movement 
of the Mozart Requiem.  The tenor section has a lot of forte singing up 
around F and G, and then when the "quantus tremor ... quando judex" 
section comes they've got a big gorgeous countermelody that I want to 
bring out.  So I'm going to want to spend some time with the tenors to 
put them in a the right place so that they can make the big sound the 
piece wants without killing themselves and without sounding like a 
bunch of bleating sheep on the big "qundo".  So I'm going to play 
with the sound a bit, and then when I've got them feeling it right and 
healthy I'm going to encourage them to put their bellies under it and 
let 'er rip.


Now if I happen to have a couple of female tenors and I'm doing this, 
I've got a problem.  Unless they're smart enough to ignore everything 
I'm saying (a habit I don't really want to encourage...), they're going 
mess themselves up.  If they do what I ask, they aren't going to sound 
like the male tenors, and if they try to make themselves sound like the 
male tenors, they're going to hurt themselves.  So all the while I have 
to keep stopping myself to say, "oh, but not you, you do this instead," 
at which point I wonder why the hell I've got her in the tenor section 
anyway.


Turn it around, suppose we're doing that chorus from the beginning of 
the Polovtsian dances.  Now I've got those big luscious alto lines way 
down below middle C.  I have no problem with having women sing low in 
their range.  The idea that it is somehow unhealthy is poppycock, I 
think.  But in this piece I'm going to spend a lot of time with the 
altos, getting them in the right place to be able to make a full sound 
way down there without straining.


What these examples clearly show is that it really isn't about extreme 
range at all.  The place where I'm worried about hurting the female 
tenors is not low in their range at all.  It's all well within the alto 
range.  The problem is not about anyone singing too low or too high.  
The problem is that the physiology is different so I have use a 
completely different technique.  If I had an entire section of female 
tenors, it wouldn't be a problem (though I wouldn't be very happy with 
that for the Mozart...).


All of this applies equally to the countertenor in the soprano section. 
 I'm not very familiar with the countertenor voice, but if I've got one 
in my chorus, particularly one who is young and impressionable, every 
time I'm working with the soprano section, I'm always going to have a 
nagging voice saying, "uh oh, what's it going to do to him if *he* does 
this too?"  Hopefully your chorus director is conscientious enough that 
he isn't going to ruin some kid's voice out of ignorance, and at the 
all-state level, you're probably fairly safe in that.  If it's me, and 
I get a countertenor in my chorus, the first thing I do is call up a 
trained countertenor colleague and have a talk with him about how the 
voice works and what I need to be aware of.  The second thing I do, 
preferably before the first rehearsal, is have a talk with the kid and 
make sure we have an understanding about how many of the things I say 
to the other sopranos won't apply to him.


In this specific Texas case, it sounds like the countertenor is 
well-trained and he's going to know to take care of himself anyway. I'm 
really not worried about him individually.  I am, however, worried 
about other boys who might sing soprano in another chorus with a less 
knowledgeable chorus director.


mdl

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

--- 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. 

> > 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.
> 
> A lie? Who said anything about lying? I originally
> asked for possible
> rationales for not allowing a male student to sing
> alto or soprano. One of
> your suggested explanations was that singing out of
> range could cause
> injury. I asked for evidence of this. If there is no
> evidence then the TMEA
> may simply be ignorant. That does not call their
> integrity into question.

I didn't mean to suggest that you were saying or even
implying this. Other people contributing to this
thread called the TMEA members' proclaimed motivation
into question. At least one person here said that the
real reason was gender stereotyping - the idea that
Texas was a "Red state" was offered as an explanation.

> Now, if they, or their defenders get all riled up at
> the mere request for
> evidence, then integrity does begin to look a little
> shaky but, as you say,
> we don't know exactly what the TMEA members used as
> their reasoning.

If I'm a "riled up defender," it's just because I get
frustrated when people call other people's intentions
into question without a fair look - in this case
adding in that it's related to the people being from a
"red state." This wasn't you. But it was stated.

> 
> 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

> 
> > > It also does not answer the questions about who
> > > should decide.
> >
> > Actually my suggestion for the motivation does
> cover
> > this. Teachers who allow or encourage their female
> > students to sing in a tenor range for the sole
> purpose
> > of "covering the parts" would have shown
> themselves
> > incapable of the necessary discernment in these
> > matters.
> 
> Actually, no one has suggested this motivation in
> the teachers. And their
> encouraging students for this reason has no logical
> connection to their
> ability to discern injury. that I can tell.

I've suggested that some teachers will allow their
students to sing in "alternate" ranges in order to
cover parts. It's certainly more common with sopranos
singing altos or vice versa, but I've seen it happen
with altos being put on tenor lines (and then tenors
on bass lines). Whether this is because the teachers
don't know better or because they just need to cover
the parts doesn't affect the effectiveness of the rule
- don't let girls sing tenor and you prevent a
majority of the problem situations.

> 
> > Certainly some teachers aren't doing this
> > inappropriately. But when some people do, it could
> > create the need for a simple rule that's easy to
> > enforce.
> 
> This certainly does not answer the question about
> who has the right to
> decide these things.

It answers the question about who should decide these
things. If that's the only way it can reasonably be
done (and I'm inclined to believe it is), then that's
the way it must be done. Parents don't generally have
the knowledge. Students don't generally have the
knowledge. And the teachers who haven't done what's
best for the kids' voices have shown that less than
100% of the teachers will do it - for whatever reason.

Tyler

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

2005-07-21 Thread Mark D Lew



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.

mdl

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

2005-07-21 Thread Mark D Lew


On Jul 21, 2005, at 3:15 AM, dhbailey wrote:

Does that logic apply to the women singing tenor, also?  Remember, 
they are barred as well.


Definitely.  I'd be much more predisposed against a woman singing tenor 
than against a man singing soprano.  I can think of three or four male 
altos I've known whom I would love to have lead my choir because they 
make the sound I'd want to build a section around.  Of the (many) 
female tenors I've heard, a few are ones I could add as another 
supporting voice in a large tenor section, but I've never heard any 
that makes me say, "yes, that's the tenor sound I want".


--

Thanks to all who set me straight about the all-state choir vs the high 
school choir.  That certainly makes a difference, though I still don't 
think it's as cut and dried as some have suggested.


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.


My main concern with taking a countertenor or a female alto would be 
what that voice does to my overall sound and how hard it will be to 
blend with the group as a whole.  My next concern is the related issue 
of how easily it will be to coach them all when I'm probably not going 
to have much chance to work with any of them individually.  It's bad 
enough trying to get results from an entire section when what you 
really need is for *these* girls to sing "brighter" and *those* girls 
to sing "darker", or get *these* guys to have more confidence and sing 
out more while *those* guys need pull back and listen more.  Add on top 
of that one or more singers who are trying to produce the same sound 
with a significantly different vocal instrument, and you've doubled the 
difficulty.  The difference between this and working with two girls 
with entirely different techniques and instruments may not be of a 
fundamentally different nature, as someone pointed out, but it is of a 
different magniturde.


Secondary in consideration, but not entirely irrelevant, is stage 
presentation.  I'm perfectly happy to put a guy in a tux and let him 
stand among the blouses -- that's fine -- but if you're doing 
repertoire from opera or musical theater, you're liable to run into 
pieces where "the women" sing one text and "the men" sing another.  
Then you've got an interesting challenge.  Does the countertenor sing 
the female text anyway?  Do you try to alter the words for him? If 
you're doing nothing but baroque then this is no problem -- in fact, 
even for opera excerpts I'm probably delighted to have a countertenor 
for Monteverdi, Handel, Rameau, etc. -- but what happens when you do 
the Rodgers & Hammerstein pops half of the concert?


If it were up to me, I'd almost certainly take the countertenor anyway. 
 I like doing interesting things, and it's certainly interesting.  My 
objection is to those people who are acting like a boy singing soprano 
should be exactly like a girl singing soprano, and anyone who says 
otherwise is being gender oppressive.  It's *not* the same.  It's very 
different and it's more challenging to work with.  Me, I like embracing 
differences and challenges, but you can't just say it doesn't matter 
and everyone should be treated the same.  It does matter, and it is 
different.


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.  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.  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.  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.


That's my thinking, anyway.

mdl

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

2005-07-21 Thread Mariposa Symphony Orchestra






  
"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 indeed that particular thread 
of logic could be defended by Amy Lear, would she in fact then bar ANYONE from 
singing in the group because of concerns that a singer was singing in a manner 
consistent with doing his/her voice harm?
 
If so, she'd (one supposes) 
never allow Charlotte Church in the door.
 
Asbestosely yours, 

 
Les
 
Les MarsdenFounding Music Director and Conductor, The Mariposa 
Symphony OrchestraMusic and Mariposa?  Ah, Paradise!!!
 
http://arts-mariposa.org/symphony.htmlhttp://www.sierratel.com/mcf/nprc/mso.htm
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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

> 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.

> 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.

A lie? Who said anything about lying? I originally asked for possible
rationales for not allowing a male student to sing alto or soprano. One of
your suggested explanations was that singing out of range could cause
injury. I asked for evidence of this. If there is no evidence then the TMEA
may simply be ignorant. That does not call their integrity into question.
Now, if they, or their defenders get all riled up at the mere request for
evidence, then integrity does begin to look a little shaky but, as you say,
we don't know exactly what the TMEA members used as their reasoning.

> Calling it into
> question is one thing, but one should be very
> considerate and cautious about doing this. Attacking a
> person's reputation, even if it's not someone we know
> or are speaking in the presence of, should not be done
> without legitimate backing.

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?

> > It also does not answer the questions about who
> > should decide.
>
> Actually my suggestion for the motivation does cover
> this. Teachers who allow or encourage their female
> students to sing in a tenor range for the sole purpose
> of "covering the parts" would have shown themselves
> incapable of the necessary discernment in these
> matters.

Actually, no one has suggested this motivation in the teachers. And their
encouraging students for this reason has no logical connection to their
ability to discern injury. that I can tell.

> Certainly some teachers aren't doing this
> inappropriately. But when some people do, it could
> create the need for a simple rule that's easy to
> enforce.

This certainly does not answer the question about who has the right to
decide these things.

Richard Yates


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



--- Raymond Horton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> John Bell wrote:
> 
> > On 22 Jul 2005, at 01:50, Chuck Israels 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 :-)
> >>
> >
> > Many years ago, a schoolteacher caught me and my
> trombonist friend 
> > playing jazz using the school's prized Steinway.
> He seriously thought 
> > we might have damaged the sensitive instrument by
> exposing it to such 
> > vulgar music.
> >
> > John
> 
> In graduate school, when my friend and I, both
> composition majors, were 
> trying to schedule the main recital hall for our
> composition recitals, 
> the secretary in charge, trying to protect the noble
> Steinway from the 
> dreaded curse of 'modern music', said "No banging?".
>  We both nodded and 
> replied, with all appropriate seriousness "No
> banging."   
> 
> 
> RBH
> ___

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.

Tyler


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

2005-07-21 Thread Raymond Horton


John Bell wrote:


On 22 Jul 2005, at 01:50, Chuck Israels 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 :-)



Many years ago, a schoolteacher caught me and my trombonist friend 
playing jazz using the school's prized Steinway. He seriously thought 
we might have damaged the sensitive instrument by exposing it to such 
vulgar music.


John


In graduate school, when my friend and I, both composition majors, were 
trying to schedule the main recital hall for our composition recitals, 
the secretary in charge, trying to protect the noble Steinway from the 
dreaded curse of 'modern music', said "No banging?".  We both nodded and 
replied, with all appropriate seriousness "No banging."   



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

--- Richard Yates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> > With
> > Texas music education being among the most
> competitive
> > in the country, there are certainly cases of
> teachers
> > going with whatever works, regardless of where a
> > singer's natural voice lies and should be
> developed.
> 
> This does not answer the question as to whether or
> not it hurts their
> voices, and it does not give evidence.
> 
> It also does not answer the questions about who
> should decide.
> 
> Richard Yates
> 

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. Calling it into
question is one thing, but one should be very
considerate and cautious about doing this. Attacking a
person's reputation, even if it's not someone we know
or are speaking in the presence of, should not be done
without legitimate backing.

> It also does not answer the questions about who
> should decide.

Actually my suggestion for the motivation does cover
this. Teachers who allow or encourage their female
students to sing in a tenor range for the sole purpose
of "covering the parts" would have shown themselves
incapable of the necessary discernment in these
matters. Certainly some teachers aren't doing this
inappropriately. But when some people do, it could
create the need for a simple rule that's easy to
enforce.

Tyler

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

2005-07-21 Thread John Bell

On 22 Jul 2005, at 01:50, Chuck Israels wrote:"Association spokeswoman Amy Lear said the groupenacted the rule two years ago because of concernsthat girls auditioning for tenor parts were hurtingtheir voices by singing too low.If these old wives tales were true, more of us would be blind :-)Many years ago, a schoolteacher caught me and my trombonist friend playing jazz using the school's prized Steinway. He seriously thought we might have damaged the sensitive instrument by exposing it to such vulgar music.John___
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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

> With
> Texas music education being among the most competitive
> in the country, there are certainly cases of teachers
> going with whatever works, regardless of where a
> singer's natural voice lies and should be developed.

This does not answer the question as to whether or not it hurts their
voices, and it does not give evidence.

It also does not answer the questions about who should decide.

Richard Yates


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

2005-07-21 Thread Chuck Israels

On Jul 21, 2005, at 5:24 PM, Richard Yates wrote:"Association spokeswoman Amy Lear said the groupenacted the rule two years ago because of concernsthat girls auditioning for tenor parts were hurtingtheir voices by singing too low. If these old wives tales were true, more of us would be blind :-)Chuck Chuck Israels 230 North Garden Terrace Bellingham, WA 98225-5836 phone (360) 671-3402 fax (360) 676-6055 www.chuckisraels.com  ___
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Re: [Finale] OT: Countertenor barred from Texas All-State Choir

--- Richard Yates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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?
> 
> Does the concern justify a blanket policy or is
> there a way to judge such
> risk, if there really is any, individually?
> 
> 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?
> 
> Richard
> 

This is what I believe as well. It all comes down to
this. And yes, there is good reason to believe this
was the logic.

The female to male ratio in high school choirs is
often extremely skewed, with a lot more girls than
boys being the typical case. I've personally seen
teachers ask that some of their female students switch
over to the tenor parts to help solve this issue. With
Texas music education being among the most competitive
in the country, there are certainly cases of teachers
going with whatever works, regardless of where a
singer's natural voice lies and should be developed.

I would say that it's very likely that a majority of
the cases of females taking tenor parts is because of
the lack of male singers to cover the parts - not
because their voices fall in this range.

Texas is not the only state that does this. Tennessee
also prevents females from trying out as tenors, and
Vermont strongly discourages it. I don't know the
policies in other states.

Tyler

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

> "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?

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

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?

Richard


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

2005-07-21 Thread Andrew Stiller

On Jul 21, 2005, at 1:34 PM, John Howell wrote:

A countertenor is a male alto, or more rarely a male soprano. Therefore any piece of music that has an alto and/or a soprano part is suitable for countertenor. Q.E.D.

Though I totally agree with the overall argument from which this is snipped, I must say that this particular bit of reasoning is semantic gobbledegook.

Just because a countertenor is called a male alto does not make him physiologically or acoustically--or musically--the same as a female alto. With rare exceptions (Russell Oberlin comes to mind) countertenors are falsettists with some reinforcement from the chest. Altos sing primarily from the chest, w. reinforcement from the head voice (which, very significantly, is not considered a "false" voice in the female). The two sound different, and (again w. rare exceptions) are immediately identifiable to the ear as one or the other. Thinking it over, it seems to me that the only times I have heard a male voice and mistaken it for a female have been from certain pop tenors who would never be considered either altos or countertenors.

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. For almost all the choral repertoire of the Renaissance and Baroque, the countertenor is perfectly appropriate; for most 19th - 20th c. music it is not. I wouldn't want to hear that sound, for instance, in Schoenberg's Friede auf Erden or Brahms' German Requiem, any more than I'd want to hear recorders on those composers' flute lines.

On the third hand, though, there's also the question of what you can get away with. If a chorus has 8 (female) altos, the inclusion of one countertenor in addition is not going to spoil the sound. Common sense IMO must be the final arbiter in all such matters. And by the same token, if you're going to sing a Renaissance mass w. women on the altus and cantus lines, you can hardly object to countertenors showing up for Schubert or Debussy!

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

2005-07-21 Thread Phil Daley


At 7/21/2005 02:17 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:

>And it wouldn't surprise me if there were repertory on the all-state
>choir's program that was originally written for all men, with no
>women at all (you realize that women were mostly prohibited from
>singing in church at all until the 18th century or so?).

Texas just wants to play catch up (or is that down?) with Kansas, "the 
no-evolution state" ;-)


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



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

2005-07-21 Thread David W. Fenton

On 21 Jul 2005 at 17:17, keith helgesen wrote:

> No-one would surely claim that a counter-tenor sounds the same as a female
> soprano- nor would they want to. 
> One often hears of the shock-horror of purists at the news of 'femsops'
> singing parts written for countertenors.
> Quite right too.
> 
> A good clarinet or sop sax player could easily handle any trumpet concerto,
> and Horn Concertos have been transcribed for all sorts of instruments. Good
> fun for the performers- but not really that good to listen to. Except to
> admire the technical ability of the performer.
> 
> Sorry- while the politics stinks- the decision is IMHO correct.

At the high school age there is as much variation in the vocal 
quality of female voices as there is between a countertenor and a 
female voice.

And it wouldn't surprise me if there were repertory on the all-state 
choir's program that was originally written for all men, with no 
women at all (you realize that women were mostly prohibited from 
singing in church at all until the 18th century or so?).

-- 
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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

2005-07-21 Thread John Howell


At 9:33 AM -0700 7/21/05, Tyler Turner 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.


Hi, Tyler!  You are certainlly entitled to your opinion, and your 
defense of it is very well written.  I just don't happen to share it. 
The above remark is nothing but political weasling, since it is based 
on the pre-judgement (otherwise known as prejudice) that all girls 
singing low are hurting their voices.  In fact that is not true, as 
I've pointed out previously.



"If you make a rule one way it has to work both ways,"
Lear said, adding that the association does not hold
auditions specifically for countertenors because the
part is rarely included in the group's music.


More half-truth and more political weasling.  A countertenor is a 
male alto, or more rarely a male soprano.  Therefore any piece of 
music that has an alto and/or a soprano part is suitable for 
countertenor.  Q.E.D.  Chanticleer is half countertenors, singing 
soprano and alto.  They don't get involved in terminology wars!  The 
reporter in a Texas newspaper also brought up castrati, which has 
absolutely nothing to do with Mike's situation.



In late May, Rawls asked the association to reverse
its policy and let auditions be non-gender specific,
or to create a new audition category specifically for
countertenors. In his petition, Rawls said the
countertenor is a legitimate voice part that should be
recognized by music teachers, and he argued the policy
amounts to gender discrimination.


I agree totally with making auditions non-gender specific because in 
the real world all singers do not fit into our convenient little 
boxes.  I do not agree with creating a new category, for the very 
reasons you cite later in your post.



Neither Lear nor association president Kerry Taylor
could think of another male who ever wanted to
audition for a traditional girl's part on the
All-State Choir.


And I suppose no girl in Texas has ever tried out as place kicker on 
her high school team, as has happened elsewhere, because "everybody 
knows" that girls are supposed to be decorative cheerleaders!  Once 
again, that particular "tradition" is only a couple of centuries old. 
Someone on the ChoralTalk List came up with a newspaper description 
of an early 19th century civic concert in Boston which all the 
singers were named.  The sopranos included Mrs., Miss, and Master. 
The altos were all male names with Mr.  The choirs Mozart wrote for, 
the choirs Bach wrote for, and the choirs Palestrina wrote for were 
all male; THAT'S the tradition, not what 20th century choirs have 
adopted as standard practice.



Taylor said the policy doesn't amount
to discrimination because Rawls can try out for any of
the more traditional male parts. "


For which his voice is not as well suited, which then puts HIM at an 
unfair competitive disadvantage!



I see TMEA's justification as being completely
legitimate. This boy proposed two solutions, both
which I agree are unacceptable.

1. Create a new countertenor competition category.

Great. You have the elite choir members who work
extremely hard to get where they are and whom are
rewarded with a once in a life-time opportunity. And
then you let a couple of kids into the same group who
can get in because they don't have to compete with
anyone. Furthermore, you're going to limit the music
which can be sung to songs which have unique parts for
this vocal quality. As a former member of a Texas
All-State group, I can tell you this would make me
quite angry, and it would be a slap in the face after
all the work I went through.


As I said above, I don't care for this solution.  Mike should have to 
compete with other sopranos for the available chairs, which would 
again place him at a disadvantage because there are many more 
sopranos trying out than tenors or basses, but if he wins a chair in 
fair competition then he deserves it, and if he doesn't, he doesn't.



2. Allow males to sing alto or soprano parts.

They created a rule 2 years ago to prevent girls from
auditioning as tenors because there were girls who
were damaging their voices. This is why the rule was
created. Letting it go the other way, allowing males
to sing vocal parts, can just as easily be called
gender discrimination. And it's of a worse variety -
it's inconsistent.


No, it's because there might possibly be girls who might possibly be 
singing in too low a range for their voices and who might possibly be 
damaging their voices.  My wife got caught in that trap in high 
school, assigned to sing alto because she could read music well.  She 
didn't discover that she was actually a high soprano until she got to 
college.  Once again, let them compete for chairs in the tenor 
section, if they wish, and let them be excluded on an individual 
basis for reasons of vocal health, not on the basis of a general, 
poorly-t

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

2005-07-21 Thread Phil Daley

At 7/21/2005 12:33 PM, Tyler Turner wrote:

>All-State Choir. Taylor said the policy doesn't amount
>to discrimination because Rawls can try out for any of
>the more traditional male parts. "

He cannot sing those parts. This is stupid.

>I'm sorry, but the world is bigger than this boy. He
>has found success and acceptance as a countertenor,
>and he should go forward with that. But asking for new
>rules to be made for the sake of one person, when
>these rules can make a mess in who knows how many
>other ways, is just selfish.

Again, another person has missed the whole point.  They made these rules 
specifically to exclude him. These rules were not in existence a year ago.

They are purposely being discriminatory.

I suppose you believe in discrimination?

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http://www.conknet.com/~p_daley

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

2005-07-21 Thread Randolph Peters


At 9:33 AM -0700 7/21/05, Tyler Turner wrote:

If you let this boy into the Texas All-State Choir as a soprano,
you must also allow him to be a contender for soprano
solos. It's not fair to any other member of that choir
to have their performance tainted by a vocal quality
or gender role that doesn't fit the music.

I'm sorry, but the world is bigger than this boy. He
has found success and acceptance as a countertenor,
and he should go forward with that. But asking for new
rules to be made for the sake of one person, when
these rules can make a mess in who knows how many
other ways, is just selfish. It's not the nature of
the world to adapt to the needs of one person. I think
in many ways we give kids the impression too often in
our schools that the world works this way.


Yes. As soon as this boy learns that the world is filled with 
unimaginative petty dictators with no common sense who pathetically 
spout the impoverished line "if we change the rules for one person, 
we have to change it for everybody" the better off he will be!


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

--- Richard Yates <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> > No-one would surely claim that a counter-tenor
> sounds the same as a female
> > soprano- nor would they want to.
> > One often hears of the shock-horror of purists at
> the news of 'femsops'
> > singing parts written for countertenors.
> > Quite right too.
> 
> If any particular countertenor does not sound right
> to be in the soprano
> section then that could be a valid reason for
> excluding that person. But
> that is a distinction based on sound quality, not on
> genitals or
> chromosomes.
> 
> Richard Yates
> 

Here's an excerpt from an obviously still biased
article, but one which at least gives a little more
information on TMEA's perspective.

"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 you make a rule one way it has to work both ways,"
Lear said, adding that the association does not hold
auditions specifically for countertenors because the
part is rarely included in the group's music.

In late May, Rawls asked the association to reverse
its policy and let auditions be non-gender specific,
or to create a new audition category specifically for
countertenors. In his petition, Rawls said the
countertenor is a legitimate voice part that should be
recognized by music teachers, and he argued the policy
amounts to gender discrimination.

Neither Lear nor association president Kerry Taylor
could think of another male who ever wanted to
audition for a traditional girl's part on the
All-State Choir. Taylor said the policy doesn't amount
to discrimination because Rawls can try out for any of
the more traditional male parts. "

I see TMEA's justification as being completely
legitimate. This boy proposed two solutions, both
which I agree are unacceptable.

1. Create a new countertenor competition category.

Great. You have the elite choir members who work
extremely hard to get where they are and whom are
rewarded with a once in a life-time opportunity. And
then you let a couple of kids into the same group who
can get in because they don't have to compete with
anyone. Furthermore, you're going to limit the music
which can be sung to songs which have unique parts for
this vocal quality. As a former member of a Texas
All-State group, I can tell you this would make me
quite angry, and it would be a slap in the face after
all the work I went through.

2. Allow males to sing alto or soprano parts.

They created a rule 2 years ago to prevent girls from
auditioning as tenors because there were girls who
were damaging their voices. This is why the rule was
created. Letting it go the other way, allowing males
to sing vocal parts, can just as easily be called
gender discrimination. And it's of a worse variety -
it's inconsistent.

Opening the door for this one boy to sing soprano
opens the door for a whole gender discrimination
liability mess. How do you as a judge eliminate a boy
soprano because he sounds like a boy? A quality
countertenor does not sound like a female soprano, and
the musical parts they are trying out for were written
specifically for the female voice quality and in some
cases gender roles - not just the range. If you let
this boy into the Texas All-State Choir as a soprano,
you must also allow him to be a contender for soprano
solos. It's not fair to any other member of that choir
to have their performance tainted by a vocal quality
or gender role that doesn't fit the music.

I'm sorry, but the world is bigger than this boy. He
has found success and acceptance as a countertenor,
and he should go forward with that. But asking for new
rules to be made for the sake of one person, when
these rules can make a mess in who knows how many
other ways, is just selfish. It's not the nature of
the world to adapt to the needs of one person. I think
in many ways we give kids the impression too often in
our schools that the world works this way.

Tyler

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

2005-07-21 Thread John Howell


At 5:17 PM +1000 7/21/05, keith helgesen wrote:

No-one would surely claim that a counter-tenor sounds the same as a female
soprano- nor would they want to.
One often hears of the shock-horror of purists at the news of 'femsops'
singing parts written for countertenors.
Quite right too.


Hi, Keith!  No, no one would claim that the sound is the same.  So? 
The sound of the human voice is infinitely variable, and no two 
sopranos, especially with limited training and regardless of gender, 
sound "the same."  But yes, the sound of Chanticleer or the Kings 
Singers is not the same as it would be with female sopranos.  On the 
other hand, Monteverdi's "L'incoronatione de Poppea" calls for both 
Poppea and Nero to be sopranos, one male and one female, and the 
entire effect is lost when Nerone is sung by a tenor, turning it into 
early Verdi!


As for purists, those of us who are involved in early music and 
performance practice questions face a problem that's basically 
insolluable.  Renaissance (and baroque) sacred music was written for 
all male voices, with boys, male falsettists (and you can tell the 
difference by looking at the ranges), and very, very seldom castrati 
on the superius part.  And the boys' voices did not break until 4 or 
5 years later than they do today.  They had existing choirs, and the 
music was written to sound well with those existing choirs.


We, too, have existing choirs, but outside the Anglican tradition of 
choirs of boys and men ours are SATB mixed-gender choirs.  The 
biggest problems are not with the soprano parts (although music 
written for boys' unchanged voices can have a tessitura that strains 
the voices of average female sopranos--especially true in Purcell), 
but the alto parts, which often cover the same range as the tenor 
parts and go too low for healthy singing by female altos.  It's like 
transcribing orchestral music for band:  yes, it can be done and 
often sound quite good, but inevitably it sounds DIFFERENT!  (And 
asking clarinets to play violin figurations is cruel and unusual 
punishment!!)



Sorry- while the politics stinks- the decision is IMHO correct.


Only if you happen to like unthinking gender stereotyping.  A correct 
decision would allow singers to sing the parts for which their voices 
are naturally suited.


John


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

2005-07-21 Thread John Howell


At 6:01 PM -0700 7/20/05, Mark D Lew wrote:

Some of the commentary treats it as if it's a civil rights issue, 
like the state is denying the kid his right to sing countertenor. 
Hogwash.  He can sing countertenor all he likes.  They're just 
saying they don't have a spot for him in the soprano section of the 
school choir.  If he's as good as everyone says, I'm not sure the 
school choir is the best place for him anyway.


Mark, just one correction.  It isn't a school choir.  He's fine in 
his school choir.  It's the Texas All-State Honor Choir, and the 
problem is that it's a pretty damned prestigious credit to have on 
your resume when you go shopping for college scholarships.  It 
certainly is when we have prospective music majors apply with that 
kind of credit!  THAT is what the Texas Music Educators Association 
denied him, which yes, does come pretty close to a civil rights issue 
involving equal opportunity.  It's about his art, his future career, 
and yes, it's about the money as well.


The state of Texas isn't at fault here, nor is the state of music 
eduction in Texas in question.  It's the half-dozen officers in the 
TMEA who made the rule without thinking through its implications, and 
are now stuck with the results.


John


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