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In music, a baritone is a male singer whose vocal range falls somewhere between that of a bass and a tenor. A typical baritone's range will extend from around the A a tenth below middle C to the F above middle C.
1 Types
A high baritone, bordering the tenor range, is sometimes called Baritone-Martin, after the French singer Jean Blaise Martin ( 1769- 1837). The roles of Pelléas in Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande and of Ramiro in Ravel's L'Heure espagnole are written for this type of voice.
The term bass-baritone is sometimes used to mean a singer who has a range just slightly higher than that of a bass. Some famous bass-baritones include Walter Berry and Thomas Quasthoff.
2 Baritone instruments
The word "baritone" is often applied to instruments to indicate their range in relation to other instruments of the same group, for instance the baritone saxophone. There is also a brass instrumentBrass instruments A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose tone is produced by vibration of the lips as a player blows into a tubular resonator. Brass instruments are also called labrosones literally meaning "lip-vibrated instruments" (Baines, 199 called the baritone hornA baritone horn in American usage is a bugle in the key of G used in drum corps that is usually played by former trombonists/ euphoniumists. It has 3 valves and a face forward bell and is the middle voice of a drum corps, between the high sopranos and the; being a member of the saxhornBrass instruments The saxhorn family of valved brass instruments was named after Adolphe Sax, who did much to bring it to its present day form. His claim to have invented the instrument was hotly contested by other brass instrument makers during his lifet family it is not closely related to the French horn. It is distinguished from the euphoniumBrass instruments The euphonium is a valved brass instrument, the tenor member of the tuba family. The appearance of a euphonium is very similar to that of a tuba, and many people not familiar with the instrument sometimes incorrectly call it a tuba. by its bore size and shape (the baritone horn has a smaller and more cylindrical bore, the euphonium a more conical one), and is only found in brass band1890 A brass band is a musical group consisting mostly of brass instruments, often with a percussion section. In some traditions other types of instruments like a clarinet or saxophones may be added, but other traditions do not accept woodwinds as part ofs. In the US this instrument is known as a tenor horn.
3 Barbershop baritone
In barbershop musicBarbershop harmony is a style of unaccompanied vocal music characterized by consonant four-part chords for every melody note in a predominantly homophonic texture. The melody is consistently sung by the lead, with the tenor harmonizing above the melody, t, the baritone part sings in a similar but somewhat lower range to the lead (singing the melody), but has a specific and specialised role in the formation of the four-part harmony that characterises the style. Because barbershop singers can also be female, there is consequently such a singer (at least in barbershop singing) as a female baritone.
The baritone singer is often the one required to support or 'fill' the bass sound (typically by singing the fifth above the bass root). On the other hand, the baritone will occasionaly find himself harmonising above the melody, which calls for a tenor-like quality. Because of the nature of barbershop arrangements the baritone part is invariably the most challenging to learn and the hardest to improvise.
