Pretentious Classical Student Rants About Voice Parts

[baritonewithtenortendencies]

Posted: 4/21/23 at 12:35pm

Hello, I'm a very, very pretentious classical music student who really likes singing operatically and really hates when people don't know what they're talking about, to a degree that I have thought about potentially bringing to light the real differences between specifically male voice parts for a long time and have chosen not to solely to have more private pretentious thoughts. 

Basically, I've seen forums all over the place that ask about voice parts of certain actors and have fundamental misunderstadnings of what a voice part actually is. 

I saw somebody say-- and I promise you this is true-- that Hamilton was definitely a tenor. Somebody had asked if King George was the only tenor role in Hamilton. And, yeah, I understand why he asked that, cause Laurens sounds like a tenor but isn't at all in a timbre that's unreasonable for a baritone. But the person who answered this question said Hamilton was definitely a tenor and Washington was maybe a tenor. 

Now, I think this is probably because Lin Manuel has claimed to be a tenor and Christopher Jackson has claimed to be a "baritone with tenor tendencies" or some nonsense like that which makes no sense (which I'd never name myself after). 

Christopher Jackson is actually kind of the reason I started thinking about this type of thing with how showy and high his voice often is and yet how heavy his voice is and how dark his general timbre is. 

See, that's me being pretentious again. But here's something I find really interesting... 

People think Christian Borle is a tenor. Now this is a really interesting concept to me because when I hear him singing I always hear a baritone. Don't get me wrong, he can comfortably hit some extremely high notes. He often goes a lot higher than Andrew Rannells. ... And Andrew Rannells is absolutely a tenor. But what's hilarious to me is that people think the notes a person sings determine their voice part.

I can sing up a C#5 in full voice and a C6 in falsetto, so by just range I'd be a countertenor or a soprano or something. 

I can sing down to an A2, and if somebody looked on Wikipedia they'd be like "Oh A2 to C#5 is clearly a tenor range". But it extremely very much super duper isn't. I have a much weightier and darker voice than a tenor has, with a lot more ease in the third and lower fourth octaves than anywhere else in my voice. My voice remains agile as it rises and falls, but on low pitches I find it hard to get out a strong vibrato without getting growly or even frying my voice. On higher pitches, I'll often overdue my vibrato and it'll sound like machine gun fire. Now, of course, I'm working on those ends, but what I'm really getting at here is that this is pretty early evidence that I'm a baritone. I mean, I guess I could be a tenor or a bass since it's hard to know at my age, but what I'm really getting at here is...

Christian Borle is super comfortable all over the place, but probably started in a similar place to me. Andrew Rannells sounds noticably more comfortable and has more ability to vary his tone in the fourth octave than anywhere else based off of what I've heard. Christian Borle can sing comfortably higher than Andrew Rannells, but Andrew Rannells is most able to sing in the generally understood "tenor" range. 

I actually saw somebody say something extremely smart about voice parts in relation to musical theater.

Voice parts really don't apply that much to musical theater unless it's written in a classical/operatic style (think Les Mis). It's better to give the top and bottom of a role's range and notes on where they sing more. 

That being said, voice parts are really good shorthand. But it can be so confusing sometimes. Now I'm really hoping nobody actually reads this. 

If you want me to elaborate on anything, though, I have a lot more to say and this was very disorganized.