THE YOUNG PERSON'S GUIDE TO THE SATB CHOIR
In any chorus, there are four voice parts: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass.
Sometimes these are divided into first and second within each part, prompting
endless jokes about first and second basses. There are also various other parts
such as baritone, countertenor, contralto, mezzo soprano, etc., but these are
mostly used by people who are either soloists, or belong to some excessively
hotshot classical a cappella group (this applies especially to countertenors),
or are trying to make excuses for not really fitting into any of the regular
voice parts, so we will ignore them for now. Each voice part sings in a
different range, and each one has a very different personality. You may ask,
"Why should singing different notes make people act differently?", and indeed
this is a mysterious question and has not been adequately studied, especially
since scientists who study musicians tend to be musicians themselves and have
all the peculiar complexes that go with being tenors, french horn players,
timpanists, or whatever. However, this is beside the point; the fact remains
that the four voice parts can be easily distinguished, and I will now explain
how.

THE SOPRANOS are the ones who sing the highest, and because of this they think
they rule the world. They have longer hair, fancier jewelry, and swishier skirts
than anyone else, and they consider themselves insulted if they are not allowed
to go at least to a high F in every movement of any given piece. When they reach
the high notes, they hold them for at least half again as long as the composer
and/or conductor requires, and then complain that their throats are killing them
and that the composer and conductor are sadists. Sopranos have varied attitudes
toward the other sections of the chorus, though they consider all of them
inferior. Altos are to sopranos rather as second violins to first violins -
nice to harmonize with, but not really necessary. All sopranos have a secret
feeling that the altos could drop out and the piece would sound essentially the
same, and they don't understand why anybody would sing in that range in the
first place - it's so boring. Tenors, on the other hand, can be very nice to
have around; besides their flirtation possibilities (it is a well known fact
that sopranos never flirt with basses), sopranos like to sing duets with tenors
because all the tenors are doing is working very hard to sing in a low-to-medium
soprano range, while the sopranos are up there in the stratosphere showing off.
To sopranos, basses are the scum of the earth - they sing too damn loud, are
useless to tune to because they're down in that low, low range - and there has
to be something wrong with anyone who sings in the F clef, anyway.

THE ALTOS are the salt of the earth - in their opinion, at least. Altos are
unassuming people, who would wear jeans to concerts if they were allowed to.
Altos are in a unique position in the chorus in that they are unable to complain
about having to sing either very high or very low, and they know that all the
other sections think their parts are pitifully easy. But the altos know
otherwise. They know that while the sopranos are screeching away on a high A,
they are being forced to sing elaborate passages full of sharps and flats and
tricks of rhythm, and nobody is noticing because the sopranos are singing too
loud (and the basses usually are too). Altos get a deep, secret pleasure out of
conspiring together to tune the sopranos flat. Altos have an innate distrust of
tenors, because the tenors sing in almost the same range and think they sound
better. They like the basses, and enjoy singing duets with them - the basses
just sound like a rumble anyway, and it's the only tim!
e the altos can really be heard. Altos' other complaint is that there are
always too many of them and so they never get to sing really loud.

THE TENORS are spoiled. That's all there is to it. For one thing, there are
never enough of them, and choir directors would rather sell their souls than let
a halfway decent tenor quit, while they're always ready to unload a few altos at
half price. And then, for some reason, the few tenors there are always really
good - it's one of those annoying facts of life. So it's no wonder that tenors
always get swollen heads – after all, who else can make sopranos swoon? The one
thing that can make tenors insecure is the accusation (usually by the basses)
that anyone singing that high couldn't possibly be a real man. In their usual
perverse fashion, the tenors never acknowledge this, but just complain louder
about the composer being a sadist and making them sing so damn high. Tenors have
a love-hate relationship with the conductor, too, because the conductor is
always telling them to sing louder because there are so few of them. No
conductor in recorded history has ever asked for les!
s tenor in a forte passage. Tenors feel threatened in some way by all the other
sections - the sopranos because they can hit those incredibly high notes; the
altos because they have no trouble singing the notes the tenors kill themselves
for; and the basses because, although they can't sing anything above an E, they
sing it loud enough to drown the tenors out. Of course, the tenors would rather
die than admit any of this. It is a little-known fact that tenors move their
eyebrows more than anyone else while singing.

THE BASSES sing the lowest of anybody. This basically explains everything. They
are stolid, dependable people, and have more facial hair than anybody else. The
basses feel perpetually unappreciated, but they have a deep conviction that they
are actually the most important part (a view endorsed by musicologists, but
certainly not by sopranos or tenors), despite the fact that they have the most
boring part of anybody and often sing the same note (or in endless fifths) for
an entire page. They compensate for this by singing as loudly as they can get
away with - most basses are tuba players at heart. Basses are the only section
that can regularly complain about how low their part is, and they make horrible
faces when trying to hit very low notes. Basses are charitable people, but their
charity does not extend so far as tenors, whom they consider effete poseurs.
Basses hate tuning the tenors more than almost anything else. Basses like altos
- except when they have duets and the!
altos get the good part. As for the sopranos, they are simply in an alternate
universe which the basses don't understand at all. They can't imagine why
anybody would ever want to sing that high and sound that bad when they make
mistakes. When a bass makes a mistake, the other three parts will cover him, and
he can continue on his merry way, knowing that sometime, somehow, he will end up
at the root of the chord.

hmmm.....
Baker