--- 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 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
