Being an Alto

In choir, I’m an alto. More specifically, alto two; also known as the lowest female voice part. I love being an alto, and I’ve almost always been one. In sixth grade, I was a soprano. I know it seems like one year wouldn’t make a difference, but most people don’t switch parts. They stay what they were told to be right at the beginning. Boys are different, of course, because their voices change. Interestingly enough, girls’ voices change as well. Some more than others, but everyone’s changes a little bit. My voice especially changed quite drastically. After getting a large part in my eighth musical, I came to the realization that I couldn’t belt the high notes that I used to be able to. I asked my teacher about it, and that’s the first time I found out that girl’s voices can change. I personally think it changed for the better, because although I lost some of my belting notes, my lower notes became stronger. I do sing by myself in my free time, so this is where my not being able to belt certain notes becomes a dilemma. I can’t sing certain songs as well I wish I could due to this problem. This doesn’t necessarily mean I have a minimal range, it just means I have to use my head voice for more notes than soprano does.

            My voice lesson teacher told me that he thinks I could easily be a metso, which is a voice part in between alto and soprano. I was quite shocked at this; for the past five years I’ve always been on the lowest voice part. I took it as a compliment, because I assume that meant the he thought my range was wide enough that I could move up a half voice part. I want to stick with being an alto, though. Some of the notes are so low and thick, it’s exhilarating to sing them. There have been some occasions where the notes are so low that they overlap with the tenor notes, which is the voice part below the alto, and the highest male voice part. If a female is capable of hitting those notes, that’s pretty cool. It’s such a unique sound to hear notes that are in a male range, sung by a female.

            It’s been said that the alto part is the easiest to sing. I beg to differ. They hardly ever get the melody, and some notes are too high for our range, but are still commonly seen in music because after all, we are still female singers. It’s such a fun part to sing; not too high, not to low. Although we don’t have the melody a lot of the time, we do have some pretty cool harmony in there. And when the melody is ours, we nail it.