The range of a particular song is the span from its lowest to its highest note. The term is also used in describing basic types of voice, and the notes that an individual can sing. If a solo song is written in the soprano range, then its highest notes will probably be out of reach for a contralto. This doesnΓÇÖt mean that the contralto canΓÇÖt sing the song at all. She can perform it in her own range, the notes being rewritten in a suitable key. Versions of songs written out in different keys suitable for alternative vocal ranges, are known as transcriptions.
The tessitura (an Italian word meaning texture) of a song is a description of the average position of its notes within the required range. So a song may use a low soprano range, but have a high tessitura, because the composer has clustered a lot of notes at the upper end of the range. Good vocal composition depends upon a sensitivity to tessitura. It is a common complaint amongst singers that many inexperienced composers only take range into account when writing for the voice, and think that all they need to know is that basses can sing bottom FΓÇÖs. It is very tiring, and ultimately impossible, to stay in a tessitura at the extreme of your range over long expanses of notes. Try it yourself by singing your lowest or highest note, and making up a continuous tune from notes very close to it. You canΓÇÖt stay there long, as the whole vocal mechanism is under severe pressure.
Ideally, songs are written with a particular singer and his or her tessitura in mind. This is the ideal way of ensuring that the song will sit naturally in a particular voice.
Your natural tessitura lies around the most common notes in your speaking voice, if addressing two slightly deaf people who are five metres away. If they are very deaf and twenty yards away, the notes you make get higher in your range, out of your natural tessitura, and you get hoarse.
