Editing Countertenor (section)

== Terminology ==
Particularly in the British choral tradition, the terms "male soprano" and "male alto" serve to identify men who rely on falsetto vocal production, rather than the [[modal voice]], to sing in the soprano or alto vocal range. Elsewhere, the terms have less universal currency. Some authorities do accept them as descriptive of male falsettists, although this view is subject to controversy;<ref>{{cite journal|author1=G. M. Ardran|author2=David Wulstan|title=The Alto or Countertenor Voice|journal=[[Music & Letters]]|volume=48|number=1|date=January 1967|pages=17–22|doi=10.1093/ml/XLVIII.1.17 |jstor=733148|postscript=none}} agree with the view of Giles{{incomplete short citation|date=March 2023|reason=Which Giles? 1982 or 2005?}} noted below; others disagree strongly&nbsp;– see, for example, {{cite journal|author=[[Neal Zaslaw]]|title=The enigma of the Haute-Contre|journal=[[The Musical Times]]|volume=115|number=1581|date=November 1974|pages=939–941|jstor=958179|doi=10.2307/958179|postscript=none}}; {{cite journal|last=Cyr|first=Mary|title=On Performing 18th-Century Haute-Contre Roles|journal=[[The Musical Times]]|volume=118|number=1610|date=April 1977|pages=291–295|jstor=958048|doi=10.2307/958048 |postscript=none}}, later reproduced in Cyr, M., ''Essays on the Performance of Baroque Music. Opera and Chamber Music in France and England'', essay no. IX, Ashgate Variorum, Aldeshot (UK)/Burlington, Vermont (USA), 2008, {{ISBN|978-0-7546-5926-6}}; {{cite journal|author=Simon Ravens|title='A Sweet Shrill Voice': The Countertenor and Vocal Scoring in Tudor England|journal=[[Early Music (journal)|Early Music]]|date=February 1998|volume=26|number=1|pages=122–134|doi=10.1093/em/26.1.122 |doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 |jstor=3128554}}</ref> they would reserve the term "countertenor" for men who, like [[Russell Oberlin]], sing in the alto range with little or no falsetto, equating it with ''haute-contre'' and the Italian ''tenor altino''.<ref>Giles,{{incomplete short citation|date=March 2023|reason=Which Giles? 1982 or 2005?}} "liberal" in his use of the word countertenor, proposes this latter term for such voices</ref> Adherents to this view maintain that a countertenor will have unusually short vocal cords<ref name="Stark2003" /> and consequently a higher speaking voice and lower range and tessitura than their falsettist counterparts, perhaps from D<sub>3</sub> to D<sub>5</sub>. Operatic vocal classification, on the other hand, prefers the terms "countertenor" and "[[sopranist]]" to "male alto" and "male soprano", and some scholars consider the latter two terms inaccurate owing to physiological differences between male and female vocal production.<ref name=McKinney />