Talk:Sopranista
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Who in the world uses this term? What are these "special vocal techniques"? --Camembert
- On reading your comment, my first thought was that "sopranistas" were probably leading high-pitched rebellions in Latin America.... But according to this page on voice ranges (http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/misc/voices.html), "sopranista" was at least used as part of a classification of castrati (sopranistas, mezzo-sopranistas and altistas). It would be nice to know how people called this today (presumably with testicles?) differ from countertenors. -- Someone else 01:23 3 Jul 2003 (UTC)
-- There certainly are people (men) who can sing very high up into the soprano range. Some of these effectively have some abnormality, possibly genetic, possibly hormonal or both, and there may be other reasons for some. Some are considered as endocrinological castrati - so that although they haven't been physically castrated, their makeup is such that the overall effect is very similar. Others are claimed to be normal, but employ unusual vocal techniques. I have no idea what sort of vocal techniques these might actually be, but firstly I should point out that really singing is not all that "natural", and secondly that there is clear evidence that many of us can produce a remarkable range of sounds if we put our minds to it - examples being provided by the throat singers of Tuva (Mongolia etc.) I think it is at least plausible that there are people who are able to cultivate and exploit unusual techniques in order to achieve successful renditions of pieces in the highest registers.
I have heard one of the sopranistas in the list - Radu Marian, and he certainly was able to go stratospheric, though he does not have a very strong voice at the top, but it is generally very clear. He apparently is considered to be an endocrinological castrato, so I have yet to hear anyone who would use the claimed unusual vocal techniques - though his performances were certainly unusual.
The term is used, but since there are very few people who are able to sing in this range, only occasionally. The Male Soprano Page listed has details of more of them. -- David Martland 21:48, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)
According to the Male Soprano page, a sopranist may use falsetto to sing above the normal male range. However, in both the Sopranist page and the Counter Tenor page here on Wikipedia it is implied that a sopranist does not use falsetto whereas a counter tenor does. I don't think that's correct-- perhaps there is no strict difference between a sopranist and a counter tenor, but "soparnist" is a more general category than "counter tenor"?--anon.
That is absolutely correct though, counter-tenor uses falsetto, and a sopranista does not.
"Sopranistas are very rare, and do not have the power of voice which a castrato would have had." = Why so?