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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