What is the difference between a high pitch voice and a tenor timbre?

What is the difference between a high pitch voice and a tenor timbre?

• Answer:

  Keep in mind a few things when comparing the range (how high someone can sing) and timbre (their vocal quality) of different singers. Men and women both have particular ranges in which they sing. I high voiced man (a tenor or counter tenor) may actually be singing lower than a low voiced woman (a contralto or mezzo-soprano). Keep in mind, also, that the quality of a singers voice can mask how high they're actually singing. The timbre, quality, or color, of a voice (these terms all mean approximately the same thing) refers (in somewhat technical terms) to the formants/overtones present in a specific sound, and their relative intensities. The practical upshot is this: you can have a baritone, a tenor, a saxophone, and a piano all playing/singing the same pitch, but you can tell them all apart because of the "quality" of the sound. The baritone might even "sound" like he's singing a higher note than the tenor, because it sounds higher and more difficult (possibly) for the baritone. Or, it might sound higher in the tenor's voice, if he has a particularly "bright" sound. It all depends on the quality of the voice. So, what we perceive as a "high voice" or "low voice" has to do somewhat with their range, but also somewhat with their quality. And finally, always remember that people may have not heard all of the singers you have, or they may have heard many more. They may not be judging on an absolute scale, no one singer is the measure of "high singing" or "low singing." Even if you've heard a higher singer than the one someone else describes as singing high, they might still both be high voiced singers. I hope you found this helpful.