The notion of tessitura can refer to a person's attitude or state of mind.
Tessitura is the state of mind or the attitude that an individual adopts regarding a certain topic. The etymological origin of the term is found in the Italian word tessitura .
For example: "I warn you that you will not achieve anything with that position: better calm down and try to reflect calmly before making a wrong decision" , "The president maintained his harsh position regarding the matter" , "I always try to advise those who "They are in my position."
Starting from this meaning we can use the concept in many aspects of our life. So, for example, it can be used in sentences like this: "Iván was in a difficult position: stay with his wife and continue living in an unhappy marriage or break up with everything and start a new life with the girl he loved."
Tessitura in music
In the field of music , the idea of tessitura refers to the characteristic pitch of an instrument or a voice. In this sense, tessitura is associated with the range of sounds that can be emitted.
The tessitura, therefore, includes all the notes between the highest and lowest that a voice or instrument can emit. Regarding human voices, the notion of tessitura is usually linked to the area of the voice that offers good quality .
In this way, the tessitura of a voice is related to the interval that can be used in a musical sense thanks to the person's ability to control the sounds they emit and to appeal to the appropriate timbre. This differentiates tessitura from vocal extension , which is formed by all the frequencies that the voice can reach beyond quality and volume.
It is often said that an opera singer must have a range of about two octaves , maintaining volume , vibrato and an appropriate timbre .
In music, tessitura is the range of sounds that a voice or instrument can generate.
Differences with voice extension
In this sense, it must be stated that, on many occasions, the concepts of voice tessitura and voice extension are often used as synonyms and they are not.
The extension refers to the set of notes that anyone can issue. On the contrary, tessitura is the set of sounds that an individual can emit comfortably, without the need to become fatigued and without causing the larynx to suffer.
Classification of voices according to tessitura
Starting from all this, we have to emphasize that, based on the aforementioned tessitura, the voices can be classified as follows:
- In the case of men, the voices can be bass , baritone and tenor .
- In the case of women, the voices are classified as contralto , mezzo-soprano and soprano . The latter is the highest voice that exists within the human register and in choirs and operas it is usually in charge of carrying the melody.
- However, with regard to the soprano voice, it must be stated that within it there are many typologies: light, lyrical, soubrette, dramatic, coloratura, lyrical spinto, falcon, sfogato ...