Composing For The Voice: Suggestions and Guidelines
Robert Paterson
What follows is not meant to replace the myriad of helpful instrumentation and orchestration resources that discuss vocal writing (and there’s a list of a few of those at the bottom of the page) but more as a brief set of suggestions and guidelines to remember as you write vocal parts, and particularly operatic vocal parts.
Get to know the different voice types. In many ways, composing for the voice is quite different than composing for instruments such as strings, winds, brass, and percussion, but there are a few similarities. Just like you should understand how each orchestral instrument works before writing for it, it’s a good idea to make sure you understand each voice type to the best of your ability. This means not only knowing the basic differences between sopranos, mezzo-sopranos (or altos, many composers aren’t aware that the word ‘alto’ has a different meaning than mezzo-soprano), tenors, baritones, and basses but also fach, which is a method of classifying singers, primarily opera singers, according to the range, weight, and color of their voices. For example, a lyric soprano is different than a dramatic soprano. One singer might work better for a particular role or hall based on fach. You would not usually cast a light, lyric soprano to sing an extremely loud part over a giant orchestra in a large hall, just as you wouldn’t normally ask a heavy, dramatic soprano to sing in an intimate art song concert in a small recital hall. Of course, most professional singers will temper their voices to each situation to the best of their ability, but certain singers will naturally shine more than others in roles and even performance spaces that fit their voice types.
One of the best ways to get to know the different voice types is to spend time listening to operas, art songs, and choral works. It’s surprising how many composers don’t actually listen to classical vocal music and dig deeply into pre-existing scores. Many composers come from non-classical music backgrounds and aren’t really familiar with the classical vocal tradition. Merely sitting down and studying a handful of excellent scores and recordings (or even better, attending live rehearsals and performances with scores) can be highly informative.
Human vocal range is not the same as an instrument’s range. Unlike some instruments that have a more uniform sound from low to high, like a violin, piano, or clarinet, each vocalist’s voice is different, not only between voice types like lyric, dramatic, or coloratura but also between individual singers. Some singers prefer to leap up to high notes, while others like to approach high notes in a more scalar fashion. Of course, great singers will do what’s necessary to sing any part that’s humanly singable, but composers are wise to try and make their vocal parts as singable as possible. This brings up one of my favorite composer sayings: composers should work with singers, not against them.
There is a difference between tessitura (the most acceptable and comfortable vocal range for singers) and range (high and low possibilities) in vocal writing. Just because you read that notes are technically possible by some singers in an instrumentation book, that doesn’t mean every singer can sing them. It’s wise to be realistic about what most singers can do. If you write for a specific singer who happens to be able to sing very high or low notes, that’s fine, just know that future performances may be very limited.
Here at Mostly Modern Festival, we work hard to give composers as much information as possible about our singer’s voices, so we have each singer fill out a Singer Profile, so composers can see what each singer can do, what they like to sing, what their strengths and limitations are, and so on.
Writing a specific part for a specific singer doesn’t mean other singers won’t be able to sing it amazingly well. Even though each singer is unique, usually, if one singer can sing a part, others will also be able to. There are, of course, exceptions, like parts with extremely large ranges (think Abagaille from Nabucco by Verdi, with one aria that goes from C6 to C4 in one single passage, or Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King, with a vocal range of over five octaves!), but generally, most vocal parts are written in more or less standard ranges so the piece can be done more than a handful of times by more than a handful of singers over one’s lifetime.
As an aside, note that it is possible to create vocal parts that are non-gender specific; just make sure to note the range you need at the beginning of the work and any other notes with regard to the quality of voice you are looking for.
Know where the singer’s passagio is. The passagio is the transition area between a singer’s vocal registers, such as the chest voice, where singers can produce a powerful sound, the middle voice, and the head voice, where a penetrating sound is accessible but usually only through vocal training. Most singers work hard to blend their registers, so you can’t tell where their passagio is (and some singers even have multiple passagios!), but knowing where their passagios are can be helpful in composing great vocal parts that fit singers’ voices as perfectly as possible.
Consider high notes: how they are approached, duration, frequency, and vowels. Two of the biggest mistakes composers make when writing for voice are A) asking singers to sing too many high notes at once, or even in one evening, and B) asking singers to hang out in their upper register for too long.
Singers don’t usually mind a few high notes; just keep in mind that they like to approach high notes in particular ways. Some singers like to approach them by step, others by leap, and if we’re being honest, some singers don’t like to sing high notes at all. Just because you can write them doesn’t mean singers want to sing them! Some singers excel at upper register pyrotechnics, while others would rather focus their energy on clarity, expression, and tone quality.
Finally, it is critically important to make sure singers are singing words in their upper range that are audible. Certain vowels will sound more or less clear in a singer’s upper range. Mastering the skill of writing high notes can make the difference between your words being understood or being completely unintelligible. The mezzo-soprano and composer Lisa Neher has a very useful page that describes how to compose successful dramatic high notes.
Give singers “target” pitches. There’s nothing more frustrating for a singer than to have to constantly guess their starting pitches, especially after long spans of rests. If you want singers to actually love singing your music, give them a few “target” pitches to help them find their starting pitches once in a while. For tonal music, it’s not as critical, but for music that’s highly dissonant or chromatic, carefully-placed target pitches can be very helpful in ensuring that singers start on the correct pitches. Even if some singers have absolute pitch, others might not, so target pitches are always a good idea.
On that note, here are a few suggestions to keep singers from running for the hills:
This is pretty obvious, but if the singer needs to start the piece alone, the keyboardist will usually discreetly give the first pitch (i.e., the exact same pitch the singer will begin on). Sometimes, if the piece is at the beginning of the concert or after intermission, the starting pitch can be given offstage, but this isn’t always possible. Either way, audiences who attend classical vocal concerts know to expect this, and it’s part of the tradition of classical vocal concerts, especially song recitals.
Find clever or subtle ways of giving singers target pitches. This could be the top note of a chord right before the singer comes in, the last pitch of a previous section of music, a bass note in the cellos or bassoons, and so on. Target pitches do not necessarily need to be in the same octave; they can be one or maybe two octaves up or down as long as they are audible and not completely buried in a chord or texture.
Target pitches don’t need to be extremely obvious, but if your music is very dissonant, chromatic, or complex, it’s might be helpful to give the singer a music or text cue in their vocal part to indicate which instrument will be playing a target pitch. It’s rare that a composer will need to do this, but sometimes it might be necessary.
Consider writing instrumental parts around the voice and not always on top of it. One of the most difficult tasks for singers is to try and project over notes or lines that are right on top of the notes they sing. Singers with bigger voices (think dramatic rather than lyric) are better at this, but it’s still challenging. Rather than doubling what a singer is singing with another instrument or group of instruments, consider composing instrumental parts around their vocal lines. This will enable your singers to project more easily.
Operatic or solo voices are not choral voices. There are significant differences between these styles of writing. Of course, there are choruses in operas and solos in choral music, but generally speaking, operatic writing is more concerned with projection and distinction. Operatic singers are trained to reach the back of the hall by themselves as soloists. Choral singers, on the other hand, are trained to blend and reach the back of the hall and blend together as a sound mass. Choral singers are not meant to stick out unless they have solos. As a simplified metaphor, think of a choir more like a string orchestra, one in which each section is usually meant to blend together as a sonic whole, while solo operatic voices are more like wind and brass soloists and are meant to have a distinctive sound on their own.
Acoustic, operatic voices are not amplified voices. With amplification, you can get away with certain subtle colors that are more difficult for voices that are more concerned with un-amplified projection. Of course, you can amplify operatic voices, but most classical operas are not amplified. Half the fun of classical singing is the thrill of hearing trained voices that are able to project to the back of a hall, unaided, or even over a full tutti orchestra.
Know the type of hall you are writing for. The size of your piece usually dictates the size of the hall in which your piece will most likely be performed. For example, the Metropolitan Opera generally does not perform chamber operas with a string quartet and two singers on its main stage. If you write a super loud part for the lowest fifth of a lyric soprano’s range, they might have a more difficult time projecting in a large hall than in a small hall.
At Mostly Modern Festival, vocal concerts are performed in the Helen Filene Ladd Concert Hall at the Arthur Zanel Music Center, which is a fairly large hall that seats 600. Despite its size, it is a fairly intimate hall, so singers don’t usually need to over-project.
Be realistic about how much rehearsal time you’ll have. Singers and instrumentalists will practice as much as possible before rehearsals begin, but you also need to consider how much rehearsal time they’ll have together as an ensemble, both on and off stage. A conductor will obviously help if there are difficult passages, but there’s a limit to how much can be accomplished with a few rehearsals and a dress rehearsal. A general rule of thumb is that if something can be composed more simply to achieve the same or a very similar result, it probably should be.
Hopefully, these suggestions and guidelines will prove helpful. When in doubt, always try to work with singers as much as you can. The more you care about wanting singers to sound fabulous, the more they will care about wanting your music to sound fabulous, and the more they will love singing your music.