Old voice names
The voices listed in the scores are:
- cantus=soprano?
- septimus
- altus=alto?
- quintus
- tenor=tenor(modern one)?
- octavus
- nonus
- decimus
- sextus
- bassus=bass?
Does anybody know if they correspond to some of the modern ones (S,A,T,B,Bar,ecc) so they can be tagged properly? jeko89 21:32, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
- The old part names are usually numerical after the first four (e.g. decimus = tenth voice). With Renaissance music, first of all you should collect all of the clefs that are being used. For four-part music, there are often two kinds of common clef combinations for SATB music, called high clefs (or chiavette) and low clefs. The high clefs:
- G2 = soprano
- C2 = alto
- C3 = tenor
- C4 or C5/F3 = bass
- The low clefs:
- C1 = soprano
- C3 = alto
- C4 = tenor
- F4 = bass
- Music of the period tried to minimise the use of leger lines, which is why the clef usually (but not always) prescribes the range of a vocal part (and often the tessitura also). It is normal to then follow a rule to assign voices based on where they fit into the high or low clef combination. Parts cleffed as C2 and C5 in low clefs may be equivalent to mezzo-sopranos and baritones, but it is usually preferable to lump these together into soprano and bass parts respectively, since mixed-voice choirs are normally divided by default into four-part divisions, not six-part. Philip @ © talk 01:07, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
