I am a bit confused here, When we are talking about a whistle in the standard key of ‘D’, or ‘G’, or what have you, what are we talking about? A Tenor / Alto / Soprano / etc.
What are the differences between all of these, I grew up in a family devoid of music, so my knowedge in this area is that of 17 year old german shepard on steroids humping a goat… I just don’t know the difference. I tried looking up this stuff for whistles, but sadly to no avail.
The reason I am asking this, is I have recently been looking at ordering some whsitles from online, but realized I had absolutely no Idea what I was looking for. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Terms “Soprano”, “Tenor” etc. are not so often used. When used, however they usually refer to whistles in:
“High” G to F = “sopranino”
“High” E to C = “soprano”
“High” B to A = “mezzo soprano”
“Low” G to F = “alto”
“Low” E to D = “tenor”
“Low” C to B = “baritone”
And everything lower than this should be “bass”
However, some might use these names bit differently and normally they are just called “high”, “low” and perhaps “really low”.
You can think of it as human voices…if the whistle were human, what voice or vocal range would it sing? The highest human voice is called soprano and is usually a woman’s voice, but there are rare men who can sing this high (they’re called counter tenor but don’t let that confuse the issue). The next voice down for women is alto – considered a more ‘sultry’ sound. The highest of the standard male voices is tenor, then baritone and bass (pronounced with a long A).
Now you see, Mary Bergin plays a coloratura
Tyg
defn: Coloratura [It.] A soprano who sings elaborate ornamentation containing improvised or written out running passages and trills.
