What’s a countertenor?
Typically talking, music ranges are break up between soprano, alto, tenor and bass, with the soprano vary containing the very best notes and bass containing the bottom. As males’s voices are usually naturally decrease than girls’s, grownup male singers typically fall throughout the tenor and bass ranges (although almost definitely tenor). Nonetheless, males who’re in a position to manipulate their vocal cords to sing within the larger registers – i.e., these above the vary of a tenor – are often known as countertenors.
What vary does a countertenor sing?
Countertenors are, give or take, in a position to sing the identical vary of notes as feminine contralto and mezzo-soprano singers. Contralto falls throughout the alto vary and is the bottom vary of feminine voices, whereas mezzo-sopranos are someplace between altos and sopranos, not having the ability to hit the bottom notes of the previous vary nor the very best notes of the latter.
So, how do the completely different ranges evaluate? Roughly talking, a tenor’s vary runs from C3 (an octave under center C) to G4 (the G above center C). A countertenor’s vary goes from round G3 to E5, whereas an alto ranges from F3 to D5, a mezzo-soprano from A3 to F5 and a soprano from C4 (center C) to A5.
Prime picture: Polish countertenor Jakub Jozef Orlinski by Getty Photographs
