At 5:49 PM -0700 9/18/11, Mark D Lew wrote: > >I find alto voice parts in 8vb much more >confusing than tenor voice parts in 8vb.
As in most notation questions (as in the difference bewteen jazz and classical interpretations), what matters is communication and what your singers are used to. Classical editions wouldn't normally put an "alto" part in tenor G-clef. But in some editions of renaissance music, originally intended for men's voices, a modern editor may put the countertenor line, originally in tenor, alto, or mezzo-soprano clef, into tenor G-clef. It's then up to the conductor to decide whether to use women's or men's voices on that line, so altos who sing that repertoire do read the tenor G-clef without much problem. The modern SATB choir is a different instrument from the renaissance or baroque choir of men or men and boys, and that's true up through Mozart as far as sacred music goes. The Catholic Church still wouldn't allow women to sing, although he snuck his wife in as a soprano soloist for the C Minor Mass. But the sound he expected was choirboys and men. John -- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music School of Performing Arts & Cinema College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences 290 College Ave., Blacksburg, Virginia 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:john.how...@vt.edu) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html "Machen Sie es, wie Sie wollen, machen Sie es nur schön." (Do it as you like, just make it beautiful!) --Johannes Brahms _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
