National Youth Choir rebrands to include non-binary voices
NewsFrom the NYC’s revised website:
The National Youth Choir (15-18 Years) – for female, male and non-binary singers – sits at the heart of the National Youth Choir and provides a training ground for singers to develop their vocal and musicianship skills in diverse and demanding repertoire. We welcome talented first-time members as well as graduates of our 9-15 Years choirs.
We passionately believe that choral singing is for everyone and strongly encourage all talented young singers from all backgrounds and musical styles to audition.
Was that really necessary?
Castratos
Of course it was necessary. Any decent SSA choir desperately needs basses.
I’m sorry, where’s the rebrand? What has changed? Adding two words is a “rebrand”, now?
A good question. Here is hopefully a good answer. The old name was National Youth Choirs of Great Britain, the new one National Youth Choir. Less canny is the marketing decision to advertise e.g. one ensemble amongst many as for Female and Non-Binary Voices.
The change from NYCGB to NYC is over a year old.
The next step under National Woke Religion:
Symphony Chorus of Sodom and Gomorrah.
A voice range is a voice range, regardless of the sexual organ attached to the person producing that voice range.
If a voice, that produces that voice range, passes an audition behind a screen, that’s all that matters.
For instance, some insist that boy sopranos have a distinct sound from girl sopranos, well if in a blind audition you can’t tell the difference, then you are just left with your prejudices.
In that sense, it is redundant to specify “nonbinary” singers, because it is irrelevant even with respect to “binary” singers.
Absolutely! It’s the voice that counts! Lot of fuss about nothing!
What a load of utter woke nonsense
Look, I’m sorry to break it to you but the world is changing. It isn’t “woke”, this is just being scientifically accurate and being democratically inclusive. I’m sure all this isn’t easy to take at your age, but you can choose to either live your last years in bitterness and resentment, or embrace the progress.
Maybe I can put it in perspective: your stance, to the rest of the world, is akin to someone crying about the abolishment of slavery couple hundred years ago. Now slavery used to be normal back then, and a lot of people didn’t want it to end, but it did, and we are all happy about it. You presumably agree with it as well. Now don’t you think people back then against the abolishment would’ve been better off had they recognized this eventuality? They would’ve lived happier lives if they just accepted it right?
Again, as much as you want to resist it, the world will move on with or without you. If you’re not careful, you will find yourself beneath the wheel of progress.
Yours is a Swiss cheese argument: full of holes. But let’s name just a few so-called logistic fallacies that mar it.
First, by comparing singers to slaves you commit the fallacy of moving the goalposts. You also introduce the red herring fallacy.
Secondly, your reasoning that the slave trade was bad and therefore non-binary voices are good is simply non sequitur.
Thirdly, you equate in your reasoning, for want of a better word, those who were against the abolition of the slave trade with those who do not accept the need for a particular term to describe kinds of voices. This is the fallacy of false equivalence.
Finally, (I could, but shall not, go on), by purporting to know the age of other contributors to the topic and offering them the choice either to accept your argument or live their last years in bitterness you indulge in the ad hominem fallacy, the lowest of the low.
Agreed – or to put it another way, what a silly chappy David is. I’m sure he’s jolly nice though, just not very good at constructing an argument.
The only thing that can make PC nonsense worse is when it’s “rebranded” as “scientifically accurate”. The chromosome pairing is what it is, all the rest ranges from personal issues to personal choices. But, more importantly, it has nothing to do with choirs and voices (what on earth is an “inclusive repertoire”??).
Even more important, your reference to slavery is offensive: have you ever seen non-binary people (whatever that means) not having the right to vote and forced to inhuman labours? Woke people should study a little history and learn to put things in context…
Love how you think you can interpret the ‘changing world’ for everyone else. One day’s news is tomorrow’s fish and chip wrapper, as we used to say. What nonsense.
Yours is a Swiss cheese argument: full of holes. But let’s name just a few so-called logical fallacies that mar it.
First, by comparing singers to slaves you commit the fallacy of moving the goalposts. You also introduce the red herring fallacy.
Secondly, your reasoning that the slave trade was bad and therefore non-binary voices are good is simply non sequitur.
Thirdly, you equate in your reasoning, for want of a better word, those who were against the abolition of the slave trade with those who do not accept the need for a particular term to describe kinds of voices. This is the fallacy of false equivalence.
Finally, (I could, but shall not, go on), by purporting to know the age of other contributors to the topic and offering them the choice either to accept your argument or live their last years in bitterness you indulge in the ad hominem fallacy, the lowest of the low.
He does not compare singers to slaves. He is comparing the attitudes of people who refuse to admit that non-binary people exist to the attitudes of people who thought that blacks were an inferior race and that slavery should not be abolished.
Really, do you need lessons in elementary logical reasoning?
What he insinuates is that singers today are enslaved within a system of voice descriptions.
PS: It might behoove you to read my post more carefully. I wrote “you equate . . . those who were against the abolition of the slave trade with those who do not accept the need for a particular term to describe kinds of voices.”
Do please find non-binary chromosome couplings and then we’ll talk about science. Beyond being born male or female, the rest is in people’s psyche. As far as I’m concerned, you can create a choir made only of people with tattoos on their forehead, with the first name beginning with X, born the 29th of February or identifying themselves as trees … But voices are voices, and everyone will fit into one of the traditional voicing. Therefore a choir is a voice ensemble, as simple as that.
The rest is woke nonsense and a clear desire to make headlines.
David, Can you explain what nonbinary means, please? Does it mean bisexual or asexual, perfectly understood by us?
Whatever it denotes though, how on earth is it of relevance to voices in a choir?
Rik, non-binary refers to gender identity, not sexual preference. A non-binary person might well be bisexual or asexual, to use your examples, or, as in the case of one non-binary person of my acquaintance, they might be sexually attracted to just one gender. Their personal gender identity is still non-binary.
What are the implications for choir membership? As some have pointed out, the physical range of the voice is what it is is, regardless of personal identity, but for a choir to be more welcoming to all, even small adjustments can make a huge difference. Frequently it boils down to language choices rather than musical ones For example, referring to “sopranos” in rehearsal rather than “girls” or “ladies” when your soprano section might include boys, men and non-binary people. It’s not difficult to be inclusive and welcoming and the NYC is to be applauded for choosing to do so.
Re.: “Scientifically accurate”.
Please, develop that.
Slavery is more normal now that at any other time in human history.
The gender confusion era is neither scientifically accurate or particularly inclusive: if you disagree with any of its tenets – and I literally mean any – then you are banished to the “neo-Nazi right wing extremist fascist” room forever.
Anyway, who cares what a young person calls him/her/zhe/themself? If a young person can sing well enough and meet whatever other criteria for making the ensemble, go ahead and join up.
What is scientifically accurate about it?
No kidding. If they can’t even be grammatically accurate (“themself”?) one can hardly hope for scientific accuracy.
David, I’m shocked and sorry that your excellent post got so many downvotes. How could anyone disagree with your logic.
What on earth is a “non-binary” voice?
Serious answer: a voice which belongs to a non-binary person. It can be many things, in the same way as bass, tenor, countertenor and even male soprano are all “male voices”. Bryn Terfel, Philippe Jaroussky, and Bruno de Sa are all male, and “male voices”.
Less serious answer: come on, as if classical music always rigidly abided by gender constructs and tessitura. In a single opera season you can see Julius Cesar (woman) one day, Cherubino (woman) the next, Mamma Agatha (man) after that, Octavian (woman), and Prince Orlovsky (any!). The tenor line in my choral society is half women, Bach passions and oratorios have male countertenors singing from the perspective of mothers all the time, and the plot of Beethoven’s whole opera is literally about how no one can tell a woman and a hot young man apart. Music, by definition and by practice, is “non-binary”.
Perhaps, a voice without an echo?!
Good question. No idea. It seems that some people believe that within a new norm called nonbinary a person’s gender identity may be seen as neither discretely male nor discretely female. As applied to voices, they use apparently this umbrella term, one which includes identities not falling exclusively on either end of the gender spectrum, in order to signify singers whose voices may or indeed may not identify them as bigender, gender-fluid, and/or agender. Any clearer now?
It doesn’t say non-binary voices. It says non-binary singers.
I was responding to the headline. I should know better by now!
The National Youth Choir website clearly states non-binary voices. So what are non-binary voices?
Ask Norman, since he’s the one that wrote it. The choir said ‘non-binary singers’.
The Choir website clearly states e.g. “National Youth Choir (9-15 Years) – Female & Non-Binary Voices”. So what then are non-binary voices?
A voice of someone who identifies as non-binary
Ok. So non-binary voices are the same as non-binary singers?
“for female, male and non-binary singers”
Couldn’t they have just said ” for singers”?
It is a choir “for singers”.
The Choir website clearly states e.g. “National Youth Choir (9-15 Years) – Male & Non-binary voices”. Does anybody have any idea what non-binary voices are? Are they voices belonging to non-binary individuals? Or are they voices that are not binary? What then, might binary voices be? It seems the choir itself has no idea.
This is an academic trying to write ad copy. They can’t write a doctoral dissertation in the arts or humanities without padding it with unnecessary verbiage.
Where “singers” would have covered all, “female, male and non-binary” had to be wedged in.
Funny to see this blog, which (rightly) complains about the systematic destruction of music education and opportunities in Britain, turn around and go “no, you don’t get to sing”.
To be absolutely clear for the willfully obtuse: no, basses will not become sopranos. But if you’re a soprano, you’re a soprano, end of story. And if you’re a bass you’re a bass.
As I mentioned above, that’s pretty much standing practice in every choral society in the country since decades. And I’ve sung in concerts with professional orchestras where that was the case.
And if you’re not non-binary, that is not for you! Move along and keep singing. It’s not hard.
Why on earth don’t they use terms like sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses? Or just, as the case may be, use mixed voices, high voices, or low voices?
Indeed, one wonders. It would be clear and to the point.
God help us all.
I’d have thought a person might think of themselves as ” non binary ” but their voices will either be what is right for the choir’s standards and needs or not just as their actual bodies will be one sex or the other.
Ok. So their voices might be binary or non-binary, but their bodies just a single sex or gender?
Solfetto singing can damage your vocal cords.
It is clear that diverse repertoire can only be sung by non-binary voices. Otherwise audiences would draw the wrong conclusions from their listening experience. A majority of listeners will be binary, the poor things, and thus prone to grave misinterpretation.
A great President and philosopher (bigly!) memorably said: “everything woke turns to s… “.
I have no idea why people would be bothered about this when it doesn’t affect you in the slightest. God forbid things change. Lots of these comments talking about this new, so-called “overly sensitive” generation and yet are throwing tantrums about this. We only live for a short bit and this is how you spend your time? Shut off the computer and spend time doing stuff that matters.
Good idea Peter. Turn off your computer.
Yes but it’s difficult if your computer has become gendered after installing an AI programme. Mine says it’s absoutely binary, running on 0 and 1, and it regrets being excluded from modern liberating developments.
After ample reflection I decided I was not binary myself but simply nary, that’s enough for me.
Sally
So, what? They’re not in the same locker room. Choirs have always had voices of different singers. If they can sing well….
Interesting point. Perhaps there are issues with segregation backstage or possibly on retreat weekend courses?
This is such fun.
As a non-binary vocalist, I do not identify with the singing of notes on either the white or the black notes. I sing the notes that express myself, even when other members of my choir express intonation-critical views.
As a trans tonality singer, I feel empowered to share my own intonations as a form of self expression.
I can fully sympathize!
I get often frustrated when I’m being corected for typos while it’s merely my own form of Anglish. WHen they can call themselves them I am allowed my own versions of anything.
Sally
Yes. As the parent of non-binary teens who are brilliants musicians and hope to make a career in music, this simple act of acknowledging their existence affirms and inspires the value of all humans and – bluntly – will help reduce the horrific rates of suicide attempts. Thanks for asking.
“Systematic reviews of evidence conducted by public health authorities in Finland, Sweden, and England concluded that the risk/benefit ratio of youth gender transition ranges from unknown to unfavorable. As a result, there has been a shift from ‘gender-affirmative care’, which prioritizes access to medical interventions, to a more conservative approach that addresses psychiatric comorbidities and psychotherapeutically explores the developmental etiology of the trans identity.”
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11930-023-00358-x