Haven't these people ever heard of Frankie Valli? Brian Wilson? Eddie Kendricks?

A Texas high-schooler has been denied a place in the Texas all-state choir.

Not because he can't sing. But because, using his falsetto range, he sings soprano.

And boys can't be sopranos, don't you know.

Somebody better tell Frankie Valli that.

Story is here.

I'm a trained singer. I don't buy this whole 'it'll damage your voice' crap. Plenty of people have made great careers singing in falsetto--and, when I was this young man's age, I could also sing any soprano part in my college chorus by using my falsetto. Not well, mind you--my pitch control in falsetto is a sometimes thing :-)--but I could hit the notes.

Moreover, my natural 'chest' voice, at that age, straddled tenor/alto. I could sing second alto without going into falsetto. (I still can, mostly, though I've lost a couple notes on the top end of my range since then.) There are plenty of successful male singers--Steve Perry of Journey comes to mind--who could sing a choral alto without a hitch.

This goes both ways. One of my friends in my old college chourus, a female alto, could sing tenor quite well. (We had a joke--we kept saying we were going to someday sing "I've Got You Babe" with me doing Cher and her doing Sonny. And we could've <G>.) In fact, sometimes she did sing tenor--we had a shortage of tenors. If there was a tenor-only passage, she chipped in.  Evidently, in Texas she wouldn't have been allowed to.

When I was a regular karaoke-goer, there were female altos whose stuff I sang regularly: Chrissie Hynde, some of Linda Rondstadt. There was a women named Oleta Adams who had a hit called "Get Here"--I won a hundred bucks singing that song. And I sang male stuff--and not falsetto, either--that was higher. Steve Perry is higher. The middle eight of my 'big song', the Beatles' "Oh Darling", goes higher than Chrissie Hynde ever did. That's the highest non-falsetto thing I ever sang. And Paul McCartney is a guy.

Even in my band days: we did the Pretenders' "Talk  Of The Town" regularly. I had no trouble singing it. "Lights", by Journey, which we also did, is far higher.

This, to me, is just another manifestation of the urge to divide us into male-is-this, female-is-that, in every sphere of life. As a TG person, it pisses me off. And, as a singer with a high voice, this particular manifestation of it pisses me off even more. But the whole phenomenon is stupid and damaging.

Little gender boxes. I HATE little gender boxes.

•  Coldplay n/t

  by seesdifferent on Thu Jun 23, 2005 at 06:40:56 AM PDT

•  All good points ...however

  Why doesn't he just not use his falsetto and sing tenor?
  I am also a trained singer and I have sung all my life as a soloist and in choral groups.  I can't imagine a falsetto soprano blending well with the rest of the soprano section which will have a much richer sound than a falsetto.

  by TeresaInPa on Thu Jun 23, 2005 at 06:43:00 AM PDT

  •  read the story

    Is he a counter tenor or is he singing falsetto.  He claims it is the same thing, but I don't think it really is.
    Most males stop singing soprano at puberty.  Counter tenor is a different animal.  I'd like to hear him to be able to judge.

    BTW I sang tenor in HS when I was needed to lead the tenors in a difficult part.  I can sing most baritone parts easily...but I can't imagine why anyone would want to hear me do so.  I am a contralto with three octaves starting at the top with a high A.

    by TeresaInPa on Thu Jun 23, 2005 at 06:49:14 AM PDT

  •  If my falsetto...

    ...had any kind of pitch control, I could've blended <G>.

    We did one piece that started with the sopranos for quite a few measures. I used to sing along, to everyone's merriment. On the days that my pitch decided to cooperate, I blended right in. It was only when I went painfully sharp that I didn't blend.

    by ChurchofBruce on Thu Jun 23, 2005 at 10:06:52 AM PDT

•  Smokey Robinson= best falsetto, imho

  and you are right. Paul McCartney is a guy. But John Lennon was THE man.

  by Donkeytale on Thu Jun 23, 2005 at 06:46:51 AM PDT

  •  I'd have Smokey third

    behind Valli and Wilson. With Eddie Kendricks a very close fourth.

    Smokey (and Kendricks to some degree) aren't as pertinent to the point of the story, though--because Smokey Robinson's falsetto never hits the soprano range. I can sing most of Smokey's falsetto parts in my chest voice.

    I can't sing a note of Frankie Valli's falsetto in my chest voice. In fact, I can't sing half of them in my falsetto :-)

    by ChurchofBruce on Thu Jun 23, 2005 at 09:54:10 AM PDT

    •  How about Lou Christie

      "Lightening is striking again and again and again"....?

      by Donkeytale on Fri Jun 24, 2005 at 06:36:29 AM PDT

•  hey

  As long as he doesn't go castrati, let him do what he wants.

  by Adam B on Thu Jun 23, 2005 at 06:52:38 AM PDT

•  Don't these Texans know

  that Roy Orbison was from Texas?

  by jazzmaniac on Thu Jun 23, 2005 at 06:53:39 AM PDT

  •  Oh, God, Roy Orbison

    ..the one guy who was as equally spine-tingling in chest voice as in falsetto. Only Valli, whose chest voice is cool, comes close.

    Brian Wilson's chest voice is ordinary. If a non-falsetto vocal by the Beach Boys makes your spine tingle--"God Only Knows", for instance--that's Carl Wilson singing, not Brian.

    by ChurchofBruce on Thu Jun 23, 2005 at 10:18:34 AM PDT

•  I Guess

  They don't emulate the great "make your spine tingle" Mavis Staples or Me'Shell Ndegeocello when they practice down there, either.  Either that or they've assigned them both to the "Boy" section of the choir.  

  I also assume Prince is completely banned?  That man is scary when he hits the top of his countertenor/falsetto range - gives Aretha a run for her money.  The song that caused his career to really take off (Soft and Wet - years before his music crossed over) had some folks truly confused for a while.

  P.S.  Extra props to the diarist for mentioning the extraordinary Oleta Adams :)

  by shanikka on Thu Jun 23, 2005 at 07:16:45 AM PDT

  •  Mavis Staples

    can go far lower than I can :-)

    As I said, this goes both ways--I can't sing much Elvis in Elvis's key. Elvis was a baritone. I used to do "It's Now Or Never" and I'd have to raise the key three steps. Same with a lot of Sinatra--most of his stuff is OK, but the bottom of his range is lower than I can go. If you think of the song "I've Got You Under My Skin"--when he sings the title at the end of each verse, I can't hit the 'under my skin'. To sing that song, I need to raise it a couple steps to hit that passage. And, in his key, when he goes 'up'--the second pass through "Every time I do just the thought of you makes me stop--", that's in the middle of my range. I could raise that part close to an octave and still hit it.

    by ChurchofBruce on Thu Jun 23, 2005 at 10:14:14 AM PDT

•  I used to work in an independent

  book store/record store. We actually had a copy of this

  Castrati were a unique phenomenon in Western musical history, lasting from the late 16th c. to the mid-19th century. The practice of castrating young boys and training them for singing was never approved by the Church but authorities turned a blind eye; only the conquest of the Papal States by Italy in 1870 put an end to the practice. Alessandro Moreschi (1858-1922) entered the Sistine Chapel in 1883 and became conductor of the Choir in 1898. He is the only castrato to have ever been recorded; he retired in 1913.

  This had to be some of the worst stuff I ever heard in my life. Although Leo Sayer would was pretty bad.

  by f furney on Thu Jun 23, 2005 at 07:44:45 AM PDT