Quote:
Originally Posted by alexeimartov
anyone that is singing is a singer. that's all there is to it. everything else is a matter of opinion.
I remember in college I had an argument with a roommate where he took a similar position with regard to "appreciation of jazz". Specifically he put forth that he had as much ability to "appreciate jazz" as did I, at the time a semi serious student of the genre. This was before I had acquired a robust etymological understanding of the word appreciate. But my point was that he was wrong, although my arguments to that end were at the time technically flawed.
Your contention that anyone singing is a singer and that degrees of skill are a matter of opinion are easily dismissed. Singing is a skill (much) more easily quantifiable than poker because there is no random element. Piano is still more easily quantifiable.
I play the piano. You also play the piano if we adopt similar standards by which to judge what constitutes a piano player, or at least you could also rise to that status by the mere act of striking keys in any order or none in particular. So would you admit that inexpert opinion notwithstanding there exists a test by which I could quickly prove my skill advantage over you on the keys? If you say no then I would respectfully inform you of your error and state my willingness to disprove you. If you concede then I would ask what differs beyond the superficial between a specified instrument and any other. Do the underlying skills not share a root facility, innate yet requiring refinement as the work of yeast? That is not a rhetorical question but a dichotomous one.