Doubts about tessitura (and voice types) (3,865 views)

[sunshine]

I'm new here, I've been looking at people's ranges to learn more about voice types. I have been looking specifically at tessitura.

In threads, "significantly high notes" and "significant low notes" are respectively above and below the specific singer's tessitura, right? It seems obvious but I want to be sure.

Assuming this is true, I figured that women's (at least sopranos and mezzos) tessitura start on the lower side of the ranges stereotypically associated to them and consist of about one octave for both genders (some have more, some have less): mezzos have it roughly at A3-A4 (sometimes G♯3-B♭4, B♭3-B♭4, I think the rule is generally give or take one note/semitone, sometimes two) and sopranos at C4-B4. Not too complicated, but it starts to get when I study male singers.

Tenors' tessitura doesn't start at C3, it often starts at F3/F♯3, up to E4/F4/F♯4/G4/G♯4 (higher than this is rare, but I saw tenors who had a higher side comparable to a mezzo or even a soprano, I believe Pablo Vittar is an example of the latter, and I might have seen it lower than E4).

Baritones' often starts at E♭3 (not A2), sometimes anywhere between B2 to D3 (maybe E3). It tends to end before F4, sometimes in the lower 4th octave.

Basses' go from the beginning or the middle of the second to the beginning of the fourth. There's a significant difference between a baritone and a bass.

And contraltos... oh boy, don't get me started on contraltos. I expected their tessitura to start at E3-F3-F♯3, but even singers who are typically considered contraltos have a mezzo tessitura (Cher, for example), I saw cases of operatic contraltos that even have a Fach with a mezzo or even soprano tessitura. Does it happen because their timbre and tessitura are not consistent? Or they were just misclassified?

And even if it fitted what I expected, there would be no difference between a contralto and a tenor. I saw a few cases of women with actual low tessituras, even lower than F3, like, in the baritone range, such as ContraPoints, Dot-Marie Jones, Galina Baranova (even though the latter doesn't have a thread here) and these two tessituras (tenor & baritone) make me wonder whether contralto is a fully distinct thing or it's just an umbrella term for women with a male tessitura.

Some say that contraltos are expected to sound masculine - ContraPoints doesn't, her voice is feminine though it has a slightly androgynous tone, when I thought about different voice types I imagined that we shouldn't expect contraltos to sound masculine any more than we expect tenors to sound feminine, but from what I saw, even male singers with very high tessituras are called tenors, gender matters the most, right? I heard the term "countertenor" but it refers more to a technique than to a voice type and it's not specific, the range assigned in operas is E3-E5, however a man will be called a countertenor whether he sings contralto, mezzo or soprano.

So... are tenors just male contraltos? Are contraltos women with male tessituras? Why are men assigned roles in operas lower than their tessitura? It's more complicated than that? The unlisted notes between "significant high notes" and "significant low notes" are not the singer's tessitura? Please let me know.

[IhateMana]

hey so, I tried explaining this to you in another thread, but when we decide on note thresholds, we are not taking into account a singer's tessitura. Any relationship the thresholds might have to tessitura is completely accidental. To reiterate, we are not measuring tessitura anywhere.

[sunshine]

Sept 2, 2023 22:37:18 GMT IhateMana said:

hey so, I tried explaining this to you in another thread, but when we decide on note thresholds, we are not taking into account a singer's tessitura. Any relationship the thresholds might have to tessitura is completely accidental. To reiterate, we are not measuring tessitura anywhere.

Oh. I just understood that the voice type thing was controversial.
But then, how are low notes and high notes chosen?

[ellie]

It’s a vibes based market

[Steingrim]

Someone's best and most easily sung note is probably right in the middle of their chest range. About G3 or G#3 for me. The ones further down or further up aren't quite as good. Especially when one hits the primo passaggio. So maybe one should include the notes up to and not including the primo passaggio and then a corresponding number down from the middle. Beyond that, argue away. I don't think that "tessitura = 1 octave" is anywhere near convention, but never mind.

[PerhapsXarb]

If straining/comfort on a given note is considered "tessitura", then it would be worth looking at for a thread right? Not just "where are the boundaries that produce an equal number of 'High' and 'Low' notes", since many threads are quite asymmetrical based on how much singers choose to utilize their high and low ranges.

But beyond that, vibes indeed, as I for one don't know any of this classical opera-ish voice type stuff

[sunshine]

Sept 3, 2023 7:57:59 GMT Steingrim said:

Someone's best and most easily sung note is probably right in the middle of their chest range. About G3 or G#3 for me. The ones further down or further up aren't quite as good. Especially when one hits the primo passaggio. So maybe one should include the notes up to and not including the primo passaggio and then a corresponding number down from the middle. Beyond that, argue away. I don't think that "tessitura = 1 octave" is anywhere near convention, but never mind.

I went to search something when I was reading about singers' ranges to confirm it, and found this:

> The human voice, on average is anatomically capable of singing across three to three and a half octaves. This being said I think most voices spend the majority of their time singing across one and a half to about two octaves. Another term we can apply to this sweet spot, one-octave range is Tessitura.
( www.djarts.com.au/singing-tips/tessitura/#:~:text=The%20human%20voice%2C%20on%20average,one%2Doctave%20range%20is%20Tessitura. )

However, I've also heard that the stereotypical opera ranges are tessituras, even though individual voices are unique. To add to my confusion, the notes are not very distant from each other (contraltos start at F3, mezzos at A3, merely two notes (or four, if the sharps count), just like the variety and things get worse when I read about Fachs, there's a certain baritone Fach that is just like the tenor Fach, contralto and mezzo too and in the same voice type has two identical Fachs, the only difference is style. Fachs are less about the singer and more about the role, right?

[Steingrim]

They talk about the tessitura of the song, role etc. Tessitura means texture in Italian. Perhaps where the fabric is strong or has character ?

I find it ridiculously easy to sing in chest voice from about C3-E4. That's from where my voice doesn't think that it's a low note to about the middle of my break zone. My voice is clearly stronger there than it is from A2-G4 or from F2-Bb4. Some would argue that my low notes are, by nature, slightly better than my corresponding high notes.

You might gain some kind of impression from something like that, but quantifying stuff can become a matter of being very opinionated.