Dear teachers,
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Dear teachers,
Please STOP IT with the "all girls sing this part, all boys sing that part of the song".
You have trans and nonbinary kids in your classes. Yes, you really do. Not all of them want to be out to you or their classmates. Not all of them feel comfortable with just picking a category at random; not all of them feel comfortable with just being quiet.
And they shouldn't have to.
Just find better categories. PLEASE.
@quidcumque as an added bonus, not routinely segregating by gender removes a tool of misogyny.
Yet another example of how making something better for a minority group also happens to improve it for everyone. There really is no argument against it. -
@quidcumque Yep and there is already a well-established solution.
You probably know, but (Western at least) musical scores have had the soprano/mezzosoprano/treble/alto/contralto/countertenor/tenor/bass/contrabass etc. labels for vocal ranges for centuries.
It's almost as if we knew different people have different vocal ranges and these may change (indeed, most trebles eventually break to tenor or bass)…
…for centuries…
…and yet…
@EdtheChem @quidcumque and still when more of one of those labels is addressed in mixed choirs and they are classically assigned to only one gender it's still customary to address those groups as the "women" or "men"
Even though historically all of those have been sung by men.
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Dear teachers,
Please STOP IT with the "all girls sing this part, all boys sing that part of the song".
You have trans and nonbinary kids in your classes. Yes, you really do. Not all of them want to be out to you or their classmates. Not all of them feel comfortable with just picking a category at random; not all of them feel comfortable with just being quiet.
And they shouldn't have to.
Just find better categories. PLEASE.
@quidcumque
soprano alto tenor bass Don't need gender assigned Hi voice, Low voice as well
No reason to make it a gender thing
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@noodlemaz @quidcumque Also, when we had a more flexible tenor than the one (and a half) we have now, he and I sometimes swapped parts just for fun. Perhaps Current Tenor will learn to do that too.
@irina @quidcumque I've been steadily moving up in the world, tone-wise. Was an alto from school, but went to sop 1 after doing the mezzo parts for a while. Singing teacher says 100% a sop, life was a lie
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Dear teachers,
Please STOP IT with the "all girls sing this part, all boys sing that part of the song".
You have trans and nonbinary kids in your classes. Yes, you really do. Not all of them want to be out to you or their classmates. Not all of them feel comfortable with just picking a category at random; not all of them feel comfortable with just being quiet.
And they shouldn't have to.
Just find better categories. PLEASE.
@quidcumque they make “split these names randomly into even sized groups” tools on the internet for teachers already
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@quidcumque as an added bonus, not routinely segregating by gender removes a tool of misogyny.
Yet another example of how making something better for a minority group also happens to improve it for everyone. There really is no argument against it.@jetlagjen YES. This. If someone tries to do this when I'm around, I usually suggest another, sometimes absurd, categorization: "no, not boys against girls, but shirts with writing against shirts without".
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@EdtheChem @quidcumque I'm in favour of calling all children's voices 'treble' regardless of gender until they mature. Some will break to tenor or bass, some will stay high, some (like mine) will gradually descend to alto.
@irina I also think there not that much systematic difference before puberty, is there?
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@quidcumque Oh yes. So much. And it could be so easy: "This part is suitable for higher voices, that part for deeper voices. Try out which is easier for you to sing." Because, no matter what gender, people just have different voices.
@Sci_Fi_FanGirl mostly, it's not even about pitch, just about having two roughly equal-sized groups (for call-and-response or singing in canon). Young kids' voices won't be that different anyway.
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@Sci_Fi_FanGirl mostly, it's not even about pitch, just about having two roughly equal-sized groups (for call-and-response or singing in canon). Young kids' voices won't be that different anyway.
@quidcumque @Sci_Fi_FanGirl isn't that a situation for the good old left and right hand group. Or if they are too young, the window and door group?
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@irina I also think there not that much systematic difference before puberty, is there?
@quidcumque @EdtheChem AMAB kids might have slightly more range, but it's probably not even a statistically significant difference.
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@irina @quidcumque I've been steadily moving up in the world, tone-wise. Was an alto from school, but went to sop 1 after doing the mezzo parts for a while. Singing teacher says 100% a sop, life was a lie
@noodlemaz @quidcumque I have a decent high register but can't keep it up for long (if I have to sing a whole liturgy, hour and a half, at mezzo pitch, I'm *exhausted*, also because most of it is right on a bad register break)
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@quidcumque @Sci_Fi_FanGirl isn't that a situation for the good old left and right hand group. Or if they are too young, the window and door group?
@Zahlenzauberin Canon singing, yes, won't work if you're rehearsing call-and-response things where each group has different lyrics and might not stand in the same place every time. But even then, you can just have the whole group learn the whole song - it's fun to sing different parts of it!
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Dear teachers,
Please STOP IT with the "all girls sing this part, all boys sing that part of the song".
You have trans and nonbinary kids in your classes. Yes, you really do. Not all of them want to be out to you or their classmates. Not all of them feel comfortable with just picking a category at random; not all of them feel comfortable with just being quiet.
And they shouldn't have to.
Just find better categories. PLEASE.
Like soprano, second soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass? They usually dont say it by gender. Never experienced that gender specific call in choir. I was alto.
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Like soprano, second soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass? They usually dont say it by gender. Never experienced that gender specific call in choir. I was alto.
And with young kids I'm guessing the solution is to not pick songs like that cause I remember we didnt sing songs like that.
We sang Sakura, the japanese folk song we sang in English and Japanese. Tingalayo which is from the Caribbean islands but we sang it in English and Spanish. We had this one song where it was left side and right side. And it was Jambo-Hello translated into a lot more languages. XD it was a THING to do multilingual songs for choir!
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@quidcumque @EdtheChem AMAB kids might have slightly more range, but it's probably not even a statistically significant difference.
@irina @quidcumque sounds about right, but exceptions happen and everyone changes at different times. Those who sing elsewhere as well could maintain larger ranges even then. Injuries and illnesses may also force sudden and/or permanent changes.
Best approach is matching individuals to vocal parts more on the basis of their voice and less on their… well… parts.
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Dear teachers,
Please STOP IT with the "all girls sing this part, all boys sing that part of the song".
You have trans and nonbinary kids in your classes. Yes, you really do. Not all of them want to be out to you or their classmates. Not all of them feel comfortable with just picking a category at random; not all of them feel comfortable with just being quiet.
And they shouldn't have to.
Just find better categories. PLEASE.
@quidcumque my cousin have a wedding in a few month and there is a dress code "women wear red, men wear blue (not jeans)" and I'm tempted to just cancel
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@quidcumque my cousin have a wedding in a few month and there is a dress code "women wear red, men wear blue (not jeans)" and I'm tempted to just cancel
@gkrnours agender me would have the options of "yeah, I'll wear black
" and cancel, I guess. Gah. -
And with young kids I'm guessing the solution is to not pick songs like that cause I remember we didnt sing songs like that.
We sang Sakura, the japanese folk song we sang in English and Japanese. Tingalayo which is from the Caribbean islands but we sang it in English and Spanish. We had this one song where it was left side and right side. And it was Jambo-Hello translated into a lot more languages. XD it was a THING to do multilingual songs for choir!
@Energetic_Nova I also remember singing multilingual songs in elementary school, and people adding verses in languages they knew!
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@irina @quidcumque sounds about right, but exceptions happen and everyone changes at different times. Those who sing elsewhere as well could maintain larger ranges even then. Injuries and illnesses may also force sudden and/or permanent changes.
Best approach is matching individuals to vocal parts more on the basis of their voice and less on their… well… parts.
@EdtheChem @quidcumque Of course people should be matched to parts on the basis of their voice! At least if you want (a) everybody to enjoy singing and (b) the music to sound somewhat decent. And (a) is vastly more important than (b), especially when it's children singing.
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@EdtheChem @quidcumque Of course people should be matched to parts on the basis of their voice! At least if you want (a) everybody to enjoy singing and (b) the music to sound somewhat decent. And (a) is vastly more important than (b), especially when it's children singing.
@irina @quidcumque Too true: lose the enthusiasm and their best voice will never come.
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