Music with large vocal ranges.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Watching the playing of The Star Spangled Banner on BBC News 24, I was reminded of the large vocal range of the US anthem: a 12th. The similarly large vocal challenge of "You'll Never Walk Alone" doesn't stop Liverpool F.C. fans attempting it. Recently, I was asked to transpose downwards Parry's Jerusalem, with its slightly smaller range (an 11th), which I did, but suggested that a few vocal exercises might have been better.

Putting aside the huge ranges demanded in some coloratura arias, and the bass part in Andrew Carter's arrangement of "The 12 Days of Christmas" (which includes falsetto), which well-known songs have the widest ranges?

When I did Grade 8 singing in 2008, I chose "Ol' Man River" because it appeared to be very easy for this grade. I suspect it was included in the syllabus because of the very wide range demanded (a major 13th).

[Pulcinella]

Watching the playing of The Star Spangled Banner on BBC News 24, I was reminded of the large vocal range of the US anthem: a major 12. The similarly large vocal challenge of "You'll Never Walk Alone" doesn't stop Liverpool F.C. fans attempting it. Recently, I was asked to transpose downwards Parry's Jerusalem, with its slightly smaller range (a major 11th), which I did, but suggested that a few vocal exercises might have been better.

Putting aside the huge ranges demanded in some coloratura arias, and the bass part in Andrew Carter's arrangement of "The 12 Days of Christmas" (which includes falsetto), which well-known songs have the widest ranges?

When I did Grade 8 singing in 2008, I chose "Ol' Man River" because it appeared to be very easy for this grade. I suspect it was included in the syllabus because of the very wide range demanded (a major 13th).

Beim Schlafengehn, by your beloved Strauss, might be in the running: from a D flat (just above middle C) on Nacht nearly two octaves up to the B flat in tausendfach, some four bars later, is quite something!

[jayne lee wilson]

Thanks to Gerry and Bill, "You'll Never Walk Alone", YNWA, belongs to us in Liverpool now. Always will. However badly we try to sing it....

The rest of you can borrow it sometimes if you like.....without permission...... we're a generous-spirited lot....but all football fans know whose anthem it truly is.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Anything You Can Do from ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ . In particular the section I Can Sing Any Note Higher Than You ....
Any standard sung by Cleo Laine ....

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Thanks to Gerry and Bill, "You'll Never Walk Alone", YNWA, belongs to us in Liverpool now. Always will. However badly we try to sing it....

The rest of you can borrow it sometimes if you like.....without permission...... we're a generous-spirited lot....but all football fans know whose anthem it truly is.

Jayne, you know perfectly well that the song in question was stolen from the Americans.
A few years ago, I met an Everton supporter in Tesco, with a t-shirt that said “I always walk alone”.

[crb11]

The Londonderry Air is another with a major 12th.

[cloughie]

The Londonderry Air is another with a major 12th.

Yes our little group sing a song to the Londonderry Air - with a three part a cappella harmony - bass line no problem - tune, fine provided pitching low enough to not run out of notes at the top, but the third voice has to be above the tune for the first half and below for the second half - then it works fine!

[jayne lee wilson]

Jayne, you know perfectly well that the song in question was stolen from the Americans.
A few years ago, I met an Everton supporter in Tesco, with a t-shirt that said “I always walk alone”.

Great background........courtesy Wiki....

"According to former player Tommy Smith, lead vocalist Gerry Marsden presented Liverpool manager Bill Shankly with a recording of his forthcoming cover single during a pre-season coach trip in the summer of 1963. "Shanks was in awe of what he heard. ... Football writers from the local newspapers were travelling with our party and, thirsty for a story of any kind between games, filed copy back to their editors to the effect that we had adopted Gerry Marsden's forthcoming single as the club song." The squad was subsequently invited to perform the track with the band on The Ed Sullivan Show with Marsden stating, "Bill came up to me. He said, 'Gerry my son, I have given you a football team and you have given us a song'."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go-jJlGd1so

[rauschwerk]

The Londonderry Air is another with a major 12th.

Erm... a perfect 12th actually.

[BasilHarwood]

It’s not choral music, but Handel’s ‘Fra l’ombre e gl’orrori’ for bass from Aci, Galatea e Polifemo (HWV 72) is crazy - bottom D to a high A flat.

PDF here: https://www.ibiblio.org/mutopia/ftp/...l_ombre-a4.pdf

[Keraulophone]

Henry Purcell's writing for his favourite bass John Gostling, Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, comes to mind.

Jehova quam multi sunt hostes mei, includes a bass solo colloquially known as Aunty Mabel [Non timebo], one of my favourites, that leaps almost two octaves at confregisti [broken the teeth of the ungodly] from middle D down to bottom E within two bars, while They that go down to the sea in ships begins with a plunging two-octave scale in D major and then depicts those unfortunates being "carried up to heav'n [to top/middle D] and down again to the deep" [bottom D] and immediately repeated a tone higher [top E to bottom E].

Contemporary accounts describe the close friendship between Gostling and Purcell and some of the musical japes they got up to, which one can almost hear in the music.

[Miles Coverdale]

It’s not choral music, but Handel’s ‘Fra l’ombre e gl’orrori’ for bass from Aci, Galatea e Polifemo (HWV 72) is crazy - bottom D to a high A flat.

PDF here: https://www.ibiblio.org/mutopia/ftp/...l_ombre-a4.pdf

It's actually high A natural in bar 25, and in this performance, Christopher Purves goes down to low B flat in the repeat of bar 8 (all at A415); almost three octaves.

[gurnemanz]

I have noticed a potential pitfall lurking in the octave leap on the third birthday of Happy Birthday To You. If the initiator of the singing starts too high many participants won't achieve that leap comfortably. I bear that in mind when it falls to me to get it going - seems to happen quite often - and start off low.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I have noticed a potential pitfall lurking in the octave leap on the third birthday of Happy Birthday To You. If the initiator of the singing starts too high many participants won't achieve that leap comfortably. I bear that in mind when it falls to me to get it going - seems to happen quite often - and start off low.

Yes you are right ...it’s one moment of humour in quite possibly one of the worlds moSt boring tunes .

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Erm... a perfect 12th actually.

Oops! Yes! It’s my fault. I started the ball rolling with this.