Instruments

Bass (Vocal)

Like the other words denoting European-American voice types, the word "bass" refers both to a vocal range and to performers whose voices lie in that range, The bass is the lowest of the four commonly designated voice types in classical music, below the tenor and the usually female alto and soprano. The ideal of four-part choral texture, which gave the four common voice ranges their names, dates to the fifteenth century; the term "bass" originally derived from contratenor bassus, or "low line written in combination with the tenor." In the compositional systems that governed Medieval and Renaissance music, the tenor was usually preexisting melody, such as a line of chant.