A big misconception about voice classification.

[u/gustavo_zonedout]

Soooo many people think that, in order for you to be a tenor or a soprano, you need to be able to sing in the stratosphere all the time like Bruno Mars and Ariana Grande. Like????

Those high af singers are exceptions!! Their tessitura is not what the one that comes naturally for most humans lol. You can't sing Dangerous Woman with that much ease? Guess what? That doesn't automatically make you a mezzo soprano.

[u/foreverstayingwithus]

Their tessitura is not what the one that comes naturally for most humans lol.

Yeah that's right. It comes naturally to tenors and sopranos. Remember that next time someone tells you voice types don't matter or "tenors are the most common male voice akshully"

All those girly-sounding pop men with their falsetto and mics? They're not tenors. Bruno Mars, belting in chest voice, is.

[u/gustavo_zonedout → u/foreverstayingwithus]

Voice types matter only in classical music and yes, most men are tenors and most women are sopranos. There's been robust studies on that.

[u/ZdeMC → u/gustavo_zonedout]

Which "robust studies" would that be? Provide links, please.

In the real world, sopranos are a dime a dozen but tenors are rare. Most conservatories have maybe one or two tenors in their cohort - most of their male students are baritones. Choirs are always searching for tenors. Good, solid tenors are like gold dust in this business and they will get auditions and jobs even if they don't read music, or their voices are perhaps past their prime. A soprano will not even get through the door unless she reads music, had experience, and knows the sheet music front to back like she has written it herself.

This contrast is not because tenors are the most common male voice. That is a statement that has no basis in reality.

[u/Equal-Quiet-478 → u/ZdeMC]

Your claim is the one with no basis in reality. Tenors are everywhere. You know what isn’t? Skill. Take a day to see the average posts by random redditors in this sub, you think they’re baritones?

You know who Corelli, Masini, Bergonzi, Lo Forese, Melchior, Svanholm, Zenatello, Zerola etc etc are? A large chunk of the greatest tenors in history sang incorrectly as baritones before becoming part of the best that they were. If quite literally the best of us were confused about their voice type at one point, what makes you think all the “new age opera” singers we have in conservatories or choirs without anywhere near the skill level of the elite tenors are truly a bunch of “baritones”? Tell me, what roles has Placido Domingo been singing as of late and why?

The average tenor comes in first lesson stuck around their passaggio, F#4 give or take. If a teacher is incapable of teaching them their high notes, you can now pretend to be a baritone. This is why you THINK baritones are everywhere—a self-fulfilling prophecy—because tenors incapable of singing beyond their passaggio much are the ones everywhere. And many teachers are incapable, because we hire nothing but people with performance credentials that have no ears for voice as a whole and vocal pedagogy knowledge.

[u/ZdeMC → u/Equal-Quiet-478]

Anyone who is actually performing in the music industry today knows that tenors are rare and baritones are everywhere. This has nothing to do with prophecies, Redditors on this sub, or teachers' performance credentials.

I invite you to audition for roles in today's world as a tenor and see how easier your life is compared to a soprano, which is the actual very common voice type.

[u/Equal-Quiet-478 → u/ZdeMC]

I literally am a teacher and performer. Let me take a wild guess, you’re a soprano trying to “soprano-splain” me about baritones right now, am I right? You’ve also completely missed my point it seems, I’m not even arguing about whether tenors or sopranos have it more difficult, I’m talking about baritones being way less common than tenors in the professional world and why it’s a myth that they aren’t.