A register is the "height" or range of a note, set of pitches or pitch classes,

melody A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combina ...

, part, instrument, or group of instruments. A higher register indicates higher pitch. *Example 1:

Violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

s are in a higher register than

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

s. In

woodwind Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and ...

and brass instruments, the word register usually distinguishes pitch ranges produced using different normal modes of the air column, with higher registers produced by overblowing. Often the

timbre In music, timbre ( ), also known as tone color or tone quality (from psychoacoustics), is the perceived sound quality of a musical note, sound or tone. Timbre distinguishes different types of sound production, such as choir voices and music ...

s of different woodwind instrument registers tend to be markedly different. *Example 2: The

Western concert flute The Western concert flute is a family of transverse (side-blown) woodwind instruments made of metal or wood. It is the most common variant of the flute. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist (in British English), flutist (in Ame ...

plays approximately three and a half

octave In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...

s and generally has three complete registers and one partial register. The musical note C4 (corresponding to

middle C C or Do is the first note and semitone of the C major scale, the third note of the A minor scale (the relative minor of C major), and the fourth note (G, A, B, C) of the Guidonian hand, commonly pitched around 261.63 Hz. The actual fre ...

on the piano) would be in that instrument's first register, whereas C5 (one octave higher) would be in its second register. However, on the clarinet the notes from ( written) G4 or A4 to B4 sometimes are regarded as a separate "throat register", even though both they and the notes from F4 down are produced using the instrument's lowest normal mode; the timbre of the throat notes differs, and the throat register's fingerings also are distinctive, using special keys and not the standard tone holes used for other notes. The register in which an instrument plays, or in which a part is written, affects the quality of sound or timbre. Register is also used structurally in

musical form In music, ''form'' refers to the structure of a musical composition or performance. In his book, ''Worlds of Music'', Jeff Todd Titon suggests that a number of organizational elements may determine the formal structure of a piece of music, suc ...

, with the climax of a piece usually being in the highest register of that piece. Often, serial and other pieces will use fixed register, allowing a pitch class to be expressed through only one pitch. A "register" of the human voice is a series of tones of like quality originating through operation of the larynx. The constituent tones result from similar patterns of vibration in the

vocal folds In humans, vocal cords, also known as vocal folds or voice reeds, are folds of throat tissues that are key in creating sounds through vocalization. The size of vocal cords affects the pitch of voice. Open when breathing and vibrating for speech ...

, which can generate several different such patterns, each resulting in characteristic sounds within a particular range of pitches. The term has wide application and can refer to any of several aspects of the human voice, including the following: * A particular segment of the

vocal range Vocal range is the range of pitches that a human voice can phonate. A common application is within the context of singing, where it is used as a defining characteristic for classifying singing voices into voice types. It is also a topic of st ...

; * A resonance area such as chest voice or head voice; * A phonatory process; * A certain vocal

; or * A region of the voice set off by vocal breaks. Speech pathologists and many vocal pedagogues recognize four vocal registers: the vocal fry, modal,

falsetto ''Falsetto'' (, ; Italian diminutive of , "false") is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentou ...

, and

whistle A whistle is an instrument which produces sound from a stream of gas, most commonly air. It may be mouth-operated, or powered by air pressure, steam, or other means. Whistles vary in size from a small slide whistle or nose flute type to a lar ...

. To delineate these registers, pathologists specify vibratory pattern of the vocal folds, sequential pitches, and type of sound.

See also

References

Further reading