The musical term alto, meaning "high" in Italian, historically refers to the contrapuntal part higher than the tenor and its associated vocal range. In 4-part voice leading alto is the second highest part, sung in choruses by either low women's or high men's voices. In vocal classification these are usually called contralto and male alto or countertenor.
A contralto is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range is the lowest female voice type.
The Guildhall School of Music and Drama is a conservatoire and drama school located in the City of London, United Kingdom. Established in 1880, the school offers undergraduate and postgraduate training in all aspects of classical music and jazz along with drama and production arts. The school has students from over seventy countries. It was ranked the number one UK conservatoire in the 2021 Guardian league tables for music and as the sixth university in the world for performing arts in the 2020 QS World University Rankings.
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music that can be sung with or without accompaniment by musical instruments. Singing is often done in an ensemble of musicians, such as a choir of singers or a band of instrumentalists. Singers may perform as soloists or accompanied by anything from a single instrument up to a symphony orchestra or big band. Different singing styles include art music such as opera and Chinese opera, Indian music, Japanese music and religious music styles such as gospel, traditional music styles, world music, jazz, blues, ghazal and popular music styles such as pop, rock and electronic dance music.
The whistle register is the highest register of the human voice, lying above the modal register and falsetto register. This register has a specific physiological production that is different from the other registers, and is so called because the timbre of the notes that are produced from this register is similar to that of a whistle.
Vocal range is the range of pitches that a human voice can phonate. A common application is within the context of singing, where it is used as a defining characteristic for classifying singing voices into voice types. It is also a topic of study within linguistics, phonetics, and speech-language pathology, particularly in relation to the study of tonal languages and certain types of vocal disorders, although it has little practical application in terms of speech.
Mathilde Marchesi was a German mezzo-soprano, a singing teacher, and a proponent of the bel canto vocal method.
Julie Ann Zahra is a Maltese singer who represented Malta in the Eurovision Song Contest in Istanbul, Turkey, in May 2004. As part of the duo "Julie & Ludwig", their song On Again... Off Again qualified for the final and came 12th out of 36 countries competing. Zahra was also the spokesperson for Malta at the 2015 Contest.
Vera Rózsa OBE was a Hungarian singer, voice teacher, and vocal consultant. She lived in the United Kingdom from 1954.
A voice type is a group of voices with similar vocal ranges, capable of singing in a similar tessitura, and with similar vocal transition points (passaggi). Voice classification is most strongly associated with European classical music, though it, and the terms it utilizes, are used in other styles of music as well.
Vocal pedagogy is the study of the art and science of voice instruction. It is used in the teaching of singing and assists in defining what singing is, how singing works, and how proper singing technique is accomplished.
There is no authoritative system of voice classification in non-classical music as classical terms are used to describe not merely various vocal ranges, but specific vocal timbres unique to each range. These timbres are produced by classical training techniques with which most popular singers are not intimately familiar, and which even those that are do not universally employ them.
Ian Clarke is a British flutist and composer.
Cornelius Lawrence Reid, was a well-known vocal pedagogue in New York City, specialist in the bel canto technique, and author of books on bel canto.
Deborah York is an English classical soprano in concert and opera, teacher and conductor living in Berlin since 1996. She has British and German nationality.
Catherine King is an English mezzo-soprano, best known for her performances and recordings of mediaeval, renaissance and baroque music and also very active in performing classical oratorio, opera and contemporary music. She is the only female member of Gothic Voices and has made over 40 recordings.
Josephine Antoinette Estill, known as Jo Estill, was an American singer, singing voice specialist and voice researcher. Estill is best known for her research and the development of Estill Voice Training, a programme for developing vocal skills based on deconstructing the process of vocal production into control of specific structures in the vocal mechanism.
Estill Voice Training is a programme for developing vocal skills based on analysing the process of vocal production into control of specific structures in the vocal mechanism. By acquiring the ability to consciously move each structure the potential for controlled change of voice quality is increased.
Meribeth (Bunch) Dayme was an internationally known voice consultant/strategist, speaker, author, and founder of CoreSinging®.
The New York Singing Teachers' Association (NYSTA) is an international educational association of singing teachers and affiliated voice professionals based in New York City. It was founded in 1906, and is the oldest such group based in the United States. The association provides worldwide training in the teaching of singing through local events, as well as educational media archives and a highly regarded professional development program available to members worldwide via its website, www.nyst.org
