The etymological origin of the term tessitura It is found in the Italian word tessitura. The concept can be used with reference to mood or to the attitude that an individual adopts regarding a certain subject.
For example: "I warn you that you will not get anything with that situation: better calm down and try to reflect calmly before making a wrong decision", "The president maintained his hard attitude on the matter", “I always try to advise those who are in my position”.
Starting from this meaning we can use it in many aspects of our life. Thus, for example, it can be established in phrases like this: "Iván was in a difficult position: staying with his wife and continuing to live an unhappy marriage or breaking up with everything and starting a new life next to the girl he loved."
In the field of music , the idea of tessitura refers to the characteristic height of an instrument or a voice. In this sense, the tessitura is associated with the range of sounds that can be issued
The tessitura, therefore, includes all the notes between the most acute and the most serious that a voice or an instrument can issue. Regarding human voices, the notion of tessitura is usually linked to the voice zone that offers good quality .
In this way, the tessitura of a voice is related to the interval which can be used in a musical sense thanks to the ability of the person to control the sounds it emits and to appeal to the appropriate bell. This differentiates the situation from the vocal extension , which is formed by all the frequencies that the voice can reach beyond quality and volume.
It is often said that a Opera singer you must have a tessitura of about two octaves , keeping the volume , the vibrato and an appropriate bell.
In this sense, it must be stated that, in many cases, the concepts of voice and voice extension are often used as synonyms and they are. They are not because the aforementioned extension refers to the set of notes that anyone can issue. On the contrary, the tessitura is the concept that is used to indicate the set of sounds that an individual can emit with comfort, without the need of fatigue and without causing his larynx to resent.
Starting from all this, we have to underline that based on the aforementioned position, the voices can be classified as follows:
-In the case of men, the voices can be low, baritone and tenor.
-In the case of women, the voices are classified as high, mezzo-soprano and soprano. The latter is the loudest voice that exists within what is the human record and in choirs and operas is usually responsible for carrying the melody.
However, in regards to the soprano voice, it must be stated that there are many typologies within it: light, lyrical, soubrette, dramatic, coloratura, lyric spinto, falcon, sfogato ...
