Video Lesson

Discovering the countertenor voice

the term for my voice type was called. I got to college and I sang for my teacher and she says, "Well, you're a countertenor." And I said, "Oh, that's the word for it." When we...

Course: Behind stage and screenSection: Life as a countertenorSubtitles: en

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28 subtitle cues

1:29

know what

1:29

the term for my voice type was called.

1:33

I got to college and I sang for my

1:35

teacher and she says, "Well, you're a

1:36

countertenor."

1:38

And I said, "Oh, that's the word for

1:40

it."

1:52

When we talk about male voices, we are

1:54

talking about voices that range from the

1:56

lowest voice, which would be the bass,

1:59

bass baritone,

2:01

baritone, high lyric baritone, and you

2:05

have a tenor,

2:06

haute contre, which is a high tenor,

2:09

and then you have a countertenor.

2:14

For some countertenors, it is a

2:15

falsetto, and for some of us, we're

2:17

singing with our real voices.

2:19

For me, I'm singing with the fullness of

2:22

my range. My voice sits very high, and

2:26

it's most comfortable when it's high.

2:30

A lot of the music that I sing today is

2:33

repertoire that comes from music that

2:35

was originally written for castrati. The

2:38

castrati were males who were castrated,

2:42

which means that they were not allowed

2:44

to go through puberty, so that they

2:46

wouldn't lose

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