Soprano

:This article is about singers. For the popular HBO television drama series about the Mafia, see The Sopranos.

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In music, a soprano is a singer with a voice ranging approximately from the A below middle C to the C two octaves above middle C (i.e. A3-C6). In four part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, and will usually take the melody.

Related Topics:
Music - Singer - Middle C - Chorale - Melody

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The word "soprano" generally refers to a female singer of this highest vocal range and to her voice. Male singers whose voices have not changed are known either as "boy sopranos" or, in the Anglican and English Catholic traditions, as trebles. Some adult male singers use a special technique without using falsetto in order to sing in this high range, and they are known as sopranistas.

Related Topics:
Singer - Boy soprano - Treble - Falsetto - Sopranista

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Historically women were not allowed to sing in the Church, so the soprano roles were given to young boys, and later to castrati, who were men whose larynxes had been fixed in a pre-adolescent state through the process of castration.

Related Topics:
Castrati - Castration

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More generally, a soprano is the highest member of a group of similar instruments (for example, the soprano saxophone).

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