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November 3

Countertenors, male altos, male sopranos: terminology

Exactly what do all these terms mean anyway: singers using mostly falsetto, or mostly modal voice?

Russell Oberlin was often quoted about this distinction for the term "countertenor" (although apparently he later felt uncomfortable about his earlier quote, in which the idea was that only the modal countertenor was a true countertenor). See this book for a discussion: of the two early figures of the countertenor revival, Alfred Deller was a falsettist, whereas Russell Oberlin was a modal countertenor. The author (Ravens) notes that modal countertenors have gone almost extinct, although he also seems to imply that that was the older usage, and speculates that rising human height may be at fault for this – now going far enough according to him to make modal tenors rarer too. He does not mention any modal countertenors today. Yoshikazu Mera might be one, judging by this biography: He used to be criticized by one professor because he was not a real counter-tenor. That is because Yoshikazu had a high voice by nature.

If that's accurate, then that's an interesting shift in the idea of what a true countertenor is that would be really great to find a source for. And what would be interesting to know is: if "countertenor" now means falsetto, then what exactly do you call a male with a modal voice higher than tenor? Here the old term tenore contraltino is maybe relevant. Would a countertenor be asked to sing the tenor-altino role of the Astrologer in Le coq d'or (which goes up to E5)? Rimsky-Korsakov (the composer) accepted falsetto for it, but he seems to have thought that tenor-altino was something different (maybe a modal voice?). I notice that William Matteuzzi (tenore contraltino) and Russell Oberlin (modal countertenor) both sang up to F5 as far as I'm aware on recordings and on stage. Maybe it's not that there are no modal countertenors anymore, but that "countertenor" has shifted in meaning to mean primarily falsetto, and men with a range noticeably higher than tenor are now called leggiero tenors and at the upper extreme put under the classification of tenore contraltino? Is it partly a matter of repertoire? (Arturo in Bellini's I puritani is a tenor role, but it actually goes to F5, higher than the alto cantata Widerstehe doch der Sünde of Bach that tops out at C5.) Then is there a term for someone like Mera who has gone up to G5 (see his recording of Ave Maria)? (And after all, Oberlin sounds like he had a higher tessitura than Matteuzzi.) I see sopranist mentions this kind of debate about whether "male soprano" should include falsettists or only include modal voices.

Sorry for so many questions. I am just very confused and would love to know if reliable sources sort out this mess. Or if it remains a mess just because males with modal voices higher than tenor are now so rare that no one worried about it. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 00:42, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Why is there no bill payment for tuning FM radio channel?

If I want to watch FOX sports channel on my TV , I need to pay money. For FM radio channel, I need not pay any money to listen it. Why so? Man Floor (talk) 15:45, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You're confusing pay TV with free radio. The rough equivalent of pay TV would be something like Sirius XM radio. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:01, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And, of course, there is also terrestrial television. Where one can watch FOX, but not Fox Sports. --Khajidha (talk) 17:33, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

One of the vagaries of English, that wireless TV (the old-fashioned kind, using an antenna) is called "terrestrial", whereas non-wireless telephones are called "land-lines". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:09, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Since all the stations mentioned so far are US based, we can explain it with reference to the idea of "public airwaves". In the US the broadcast spectrum is a resource that basically belongs to the public. The government (via the FCC) issues licenses that the stations pay for to obtain the privilege to broadcast to the public. Anything beyond simple broadcast (cable, satellite, internet, etc) can charge the viewer, but broadcast can't. --Khajidha (talk) 20:44, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It differs elsewhere. In the UK, for example, "any household watching or recording live television transmissions as they are being broadcast (terrestrial, satellite, cable, or Internet) is required to hold a television licence", which they must pay for. HiLo48 (talk) 02:49, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Is that over and above the cost of the cable service? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:18, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In a word, Bugs, Yes. See Television Licence#United Kingdom. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.136.194 (talk) 03:24, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's effectively a tax. Cable TV gets taxed also. No license fees for owning regular TV's in America, but of course there is tax when you buy it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:45, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The benefit of this particular tax in the UK is that we get a world-class free TV and radio service without adverts, which is widely trusted to be broadly politically impartial. See BBC. The downside is that you can end up being a guest of Her Majesty if you choose not to pay. Alansplodge (talk) 14:25, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Any attempt at fully government funded television in the US would probably be seen as highly suspect and likely to be very politically partial. --Khajidha (talk) 17:27, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's only because the BBC is such a long-standing institution which has earned its reputation in war and peace. There are occasional accusations of bias from one party or another but most people here trust it more than politicians. It's known as "Aunty" here. Alansplodge (talk) 09:10, 5 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So FM Channel users need not pay money because those channels don't use satelites to broadcast? Am I correct? Man Floor (talk) 02:40, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As explained above, the users don't have to pay because the government says they don't have to. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:16, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

[Edit Conflict] Any radio (or TV) broadcast (over the airwaves) can be received by anyone within range of it who has the necessary apparatus, i.e. a radio or TV set. How can a broadcaster (a) know who is receiving its signal and (b) charge them for it? There are ways, involving encoding the signal and selling/renting decoding apparatus or data keys, but these are probably too cumbersome for radio.

In the UK (where Marconi developed radio broadcasting), the earliest radio apparatus could both send and receive and was not tunable, so everyone within range had to listen to (all) the sent signals: consequently the government established a monopoly of control (in part to prevent everybody drowning everybody else out) by requiring one to have a government-issued licence to own the radio equipment. This persisted into the era of "receive-only" radio sets, for which one still needed a government licence, and the principal was extended to TV (initially a State-owned monopoly) when that was invented.

After a time a TV licence was deemed to cover radio as well, though a household with no TV still needed a licence for a radio, and eventually the radio licence was scrapped. To this day, a UK Government TV licence (whose administration has devolved to the state-owned BBC who receive the income from it) is actually a licence to own apparatus capable of receiving a TV broadcast (from any broadcaster), and not, as many people wrongly imagine, to watch BBC programmes (so the excuse that "we only watch other broadcasters" or "we never switch it on" does not work – incidentally, any vendor selling a TV has to report the name and address of the purchaser to the authorities, who can then check if that address is covered by a licence and take steps if it isn't).

This historical detour is intended to illustrate the differing contexts of radio listeners in the UK and in the US where there has never been a state TV licence system, let alone one for receive-only radio (as far as I know). Given this context, ask yourself how FM (or other) radio broadcasters in the US could charge listeners for the broadcasts, and what would happen if they tried to. {The poster formerly known as 87.81,.230.195} 90.200.136.194 (talk) 03:20, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

They would probably drop radio like a hot potato. And it's worth pointing out that while there are taxes on cable TV, most of the money goes to the provider... who then, of course, send some portion of it on to the program originators, a process which is based on contracts. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:37, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There are basically three funding models for media of all sorts (TV, radio, internet, whatever). You can either a) have the user pay directly b) have the government pay via taxes or c) have advertisers pay. The US has avoided b) except in limited cases, such as the partially-taxpayer-supported (VERY partially, I must add) Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The UK seems to lean a bit heavier on b) historically for terrestrial broadcast, but less so now for non BBC-related media. --Jayron 32 17:06, 5 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]