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The most comfortable range of a voice or instrument — the register where it sounds its best and can sustain passages without strain.
Writing within the tessitura ensures your music sounds good and is playable. Every instrument has extreme high and low notes, but the tessitura is where it sounds characteristic. A clarinet's chalumeau register, a trumpet's middle register, a soprano's passaggio — know these and write for them.
Puccini was a master of vocal tessitura — his arias sit in the range where the human voice sounds most expressive and effortless.
Tessitura is one of 228 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary, where every definition is written around how composers actually use the word.
Browse the full dictionary →