Is extension part of a singer's technical toolkit?

what I feel quite sure about is that nothing in the voice is a "gift". They are characteristics, but all must be taken, practiced, cultivated, and understood.

Range, first of all, is not a merit in itself. Having an extended range is almost never useful. The "standard" range of every voice, which is about two octaves, is a very common range. Those who cannot cover it almost always fail due to technical problems because they don't know how to do it, not because they don't have those notes. These approximately two octaves of range can vary slightly regarding the extreme notes. I don't know, there are sopranos who have high notes and sopranos who do not have high notes. But the two octaves almost always remain the same, in the sense that sopranos with high notes do not have low notes, and sopranos without high notes have low notes :-) and the repertoire takes these things into consideration, meaning there are millions of pages of music for sopranos with high notes and millions of pages of music for sopranos without high notes.

But what I want to get across is that range must be cared for, studied. It doesn't matter how many notes you can reach, but how you reach them.

Thanks Thallo, but how does this point of yours fit in relation to what you said a little earlier?

thallo wrote:

the choirs I hear in the surrounding area have many sopranos; the problem is that they are sopranos who don't know how to sing across their entire range :-) but it's a problem that even professionals have; it might seem strange, but in the singing classes of our conservatories (and those all over the world, I believe) range is experienced in a somewhat anachronistic way... one studies as a soloist, and if that soloist doesn't know how to hit that note there, then they choose a repertoire in which that note isn't there. This is unprofessional. Singing in a choir teaches you that if the score says C, and you are a tenor claiming not to have that C, you have to manage and do it. At worst, in falsetto, which has never killed anyone

let's distinguish between choral singing and soloism. And let's take a practical example, so we don't get confused.

Let's say I am a lyric soprano. The average range of a lyric soprano is similar to that of a tenor, ranging from the C below the staff to the c above the staff.

If I sing in a choir, I must be able to sing practically all the notes that I am capable of emitting. If I sing as a soloist, I must focus on all the notes that I am able to sing WELL, with control, homogeneity, adequate volume, etc.

If I have a high C in a choral piece, I can sing it solely thanks to my musicality. That is to say, the important thing is that that C is in tune, not that it is loud, well-taken, rich in harmonics. It is an extreme note and the important thing is the overall choral care.

If I have a solo aria with a high C, and I am not able to sing it PERFECTLY, then it makes sense for me not to sing that aria. It is from this perspective that my discourse on this topic is situated; there is no shame in selecting one's solo repertoire based on one's vocal characteristics. But singing in a choir means acquiring such professionalism that one must be able to do practically everything.

Perhaps there are things I am taking for granted...

Every voice has extreme notes that are executable but are not considered beautiful in a solo repertoire. Using falsetto, I can reach the high G with relative ease, and with a thread of voice (fil di voce), I can even execute low baritone notes (more or less down to the F below the staff). If I found myself having to sing extreme ranges in a choir, I could do it, because in that case my timbre doesn't matter but the overall timbre does, and because it is taken for granted that the composer and the choir director know that I am singing extreme notes and therefore can only perform up to a certain point. In the finale written by Alfano for Puccini's "Turandot," there are high Cs for both sopranos and tenors. Is it possible that in the choirs of all the theaters staging Turandot, there are dozens of tenors and sopranos capable of singing high Cs "well"? It is possible if we adapt the adverb "well" to the needs of the choir. In the same way, however, I assure you that the SOLOISTS who venture to sing that note (or, in general, extreme notes) are few, because the capacity for control and the quality required of a soloist are greater than those required of a chorister.

That being said, among the things I haven't fully explained is my awareness of the fact that, generally, those who study vocalism tend to study only solo vocalism. This leads to having a very limited approach to range. There continues to be a widespread prejudice against falsetto, 'falsettone', and light vocalism, which leads to a single consequence: we have crowds of singing graduates with a very short voice, both in the high and low registers, because they are used to singing only in the range they consider "settled."

Among mature people and artists, this can make sense. But too often this is the consequence of technical problems. As I said at the beginning, most range problems are technical problems, and the average range of every voice is two octaves. An octave and a half is LITTLE, it is unrealistic. Most tenors graduating from conservatories around the world work on a range that goes approximately from the E below the staff to the Bb above the staff. It is a meager range, justifiable only in the case where that singer is an established soloist who does not want to risk making a bad impression on the international stage. But during study, ONE STUDIES, and one studies the entire range, precisely because it is through studying that the range increases, improves, and is controlled.

I very often study arias with high C but I would never sing them in an audition. I graduated with arias that reached Bb, but now I bring to auditions, with "relative" confidence, arias that reach B natural. In a choir, I have sung high Cs more than once and I have often found myself reinforcing lines originally written for basses or baritones.