One of the most wonderful things about human sexual dimorphism, in my view, lies in the difference between adult male and female voices, especially when it comes to singing.
Welsh and indeed other male-voice choirs can indeed produce a truly magnificent sound, but I personally prefer choral groups that have access to the full human range. Can you imagine how Handel’s Messiah would sound without the contribution of women’s voices?
Women’s singing ranges are typically divided into three types in terms of their pitch. They are, ranging from highest to lowest: soprano, mezzo-soprano, and contralto. The soprano range stretches from around middle C up to about two octaves or more above that. The term soprano was borrowed directly from Italian and is derived from Italian sopra meaning “above, over, on top of”.
A mezzo-soprano is often known simply as a mezzo. This is again an Italian word – correctly pronounced “meddzo”, not “mettso” – and translates into English as “half, middle, medium” Its typical vocal range is from the A below middle C to two octaves higher. (Mezzogiorno, where giorno signifies “day”, is the Italian term both for midday and for the geographical region of southern Italy, where the name refers to the intense midday sun in the south of the peninsula.)
The term contralto is again Italian, and was derived from Latin contra “against, opposite”, together with alto “high”. The name comes from the fact that women with contralto voices would often sing alongside or “against” women with higher (“alto”) or soprano voices. The typical contralto range lies between the F below middle C to the second F above middle C.
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Men’s voices are usually divided into four types: from highest to lowest they are counter-tenor, tenor, baritone, and bass. The very high counter-tenor voice is not a normal or “modal” voice type; it is basically a form of falsetto, although experts tell us that the physics are more complicated than that. A countertenor’s range is similar to that of a contralto or mezzo-soprano. It may be that there is no real female equivalent of a counter-tenor – there was a view that women are not physically able to produce falsetto, but surely women who yodel do precisely that?
The word tenor originally had many meanings relating to continuity, such as “the course of meaning which holds on or continues through something written or spoken; the general sense or meaning of a document or speech”. The etymology of tenor in the musical sense is attested from the late 1300s; it is so-called because the tenor’s part carried the sustained melody in medieval choral music. In Medieval Latin, tenor literally meant “chief melody”, and the word was extended to the voice which that part was assigned to.
A baritone is a male singer who has a voice intermediate between a tenor and a bass. The word comes from Ancient Greek baritonos “deep-sounding”, from baris “heavy, deep” plus tonos “pitch, tone”. The baris element is also found in barometer, the instrument used for measuring atmospheric weight or pressure, and bariatrics is the medical treatment of obesity.
The musical term bass comes from Late Latin bassus “short, low”. In Middle English the word also meant “low in social scale or rank”. Applied to voices and musical notes, the meaning “low in tone” dates from the mid-1400s.
Octave
The word octave is ultimately derived from Latin octo “eight” via octavus “eighth”. It refers to the musical note which lies at an interval of seven degrees on the scale from a given note, and in scientific terms “is produced by oscillations of twice or half the frequency respectively”.
