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tenor |
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tenor, highest natural male voice voice, sound produced by living beings. The source of the sound in human speaking and singing is the vibration of the vocal cords, which are inside the larynx , and the production of the sounds is called phonation. ..... Click the link for more information. . In medieval polyphony, tenor was the name given to the voice that had the cantus firmus, a preexisting melody, often a fragment of plainsong, to which other voices in counterpoint were added. The cantus was arranged in notes of long duration, hence the term tenor, from the Latin tenere, to hold. In about the 12th cent., when this practice arose, the various parts in polyphonic music were roughly equal in range, and it was some centuries later that tenor came to denote a voice of any certain range. The male alto range is termed countertenor countertenor, a male singing voice in the alto range. Singing in this range requires either a special vocal technique called falsetto, or a high extension of the tenor range. ..... Click the link for more information. . In certain families of instruments the member whose register corresponds to that of the tenor voice is called tenor, e.g., tenor horn and tenor trombone. tenorHigh male voice range, extending from about the second B below middle C to the G above it. In the polyphony of the 13th–16th centuries, the tenor was the part that held (Latin, tenere: “to hold”) the cantus firmus. Tenor voices are often classified as dramatic, lyric, or heroic (heldentenor). In instrument families, tenor refers to the instrument in which the central range is roughly that of the tenor voice (e.g., tenor saxophone). |
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| You are of course aware that every Man has two mouths or voices -- as well as two eyes -- a bass at one and a tenor at the other of his extremities. When the ceremony of plighting troth was over, the beadle spread before the lectern in the middle of the church a piece of pink silken stuff, the choir sang a complicated and elaborate psalm, in which the bass and tenor sang responses to one another, and the priest turning round pointed the bridal pair to the pink silk rug. The necessity of a concurrent jurisdiction in certain cases results from the division of the sovereign power; and the rule that all authorities, of which the States are not explicitly divested in favor of the Union, remain with them in full vigor, is not a theoretical consequence of that division, but is clearly admitted by the whole tenor of the instrument which contains the articles of the proposed Constitution. |
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tenor
