Instruments

Soprano (Vocal)

The word "soprano" refers both to a vocal range and to performers whose voices lie in that range: the soprano is the highest of the four commonly designated voice types in classical music, above the alto and the usually male bass and tenor. The ideal of four-part choral texture, which gave the four common voice ranges their names, dates to the fifteenth century; the term "soprano" (which derives from the Italian root sopra, meaning "above") gradually replaced an earlier word, "superius" ([voice] on top). Though sopranos today are exclusively female, male sopranos were the norm in classical music of many countries well into the eighteenth century: women were often prohibited from performing, and were replaced by boy sopranos or even by castrati--eunuchs groomed as vocalists.