On 23 Jul 2005 at 7:21, dhbailey wrote: > Tyler Turner wrote: > > > --- "David W. Fenton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > >>Of course, if men couldn't have sung it, it wouldn't > >>have been > >>written for them, so, we can see that the issue of > >>discrimination > >>doesn't have anything to do with the determination > >>of the validity of > >>the "singing in the wrong range damages the voice" > >>justification for > >>the Texas rule in regard to countertenors > >>specifically. > > > > Just to be sure, you're not suggesting that TMEA was > > saying that a countertenor singing in the soprano > > range would damage his voice, are you? We're all on > > the same page that this wasn't their rationale, right? > > I think we all understand that the damaging the voices aspect was > about the women singing tenor. > > The ban on the countertenor is from the Texans' desire to be fair in > their ban -- ERA and all that, don't you know -- if we bar the women > from singing cross-gender parts, we have to bar the men also. Fair > is fair.
And we all know perfectly well that this justification is complete BS -- it's fake equality, slavish adherence to an idea of equity that has nothing to do with the actual facts of the case. Which was my point. I could see retaining the no female tenors rule, as it is (arguably) based in a factual concern for vocal health. There is no such justification for the countertenor ban, except a fetish for false symmetry. Discrimination that is based on rational grounds is not illegal. Of course, last time I checked, the ERA was not part of the Constitution. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
