Baritone
In music, a baritone is a male singer whose vocal range falls somewhere between that of a bass and a tenor. A typical baritone's range will extend from around the A a tenth below middle C to the F above middle C. Many singers in popular music have been baritones, such as Frank Sinatra, Billy Eckstine, and Joe Williams.Some famous operatic baritone include Vladimir RuÃÂđak, Thomas Allen, Pierre Bernac, Geraint Evans, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Robert Goulet, Thomas Hampson, John Shirley Quirk, Titta Ruffo and Gérard Souzay.
The term bass-baritone is sometimes used to mean a singer who has a range just slightly higher than that of a bass.
The word "baritone" is often applied to instruments to indicate their range in relation to other instruments of the same group, for instance the baritone saxophone. There is also a brass instrument called the baritone horn; being a member of the saxhorn family it is not closely related to the French horn. It is distinguished from the euphonium by its bore size and shape (the baritone horn has a smaller and more cylindrical bore, the euphonium a more conical one), and is only found in brass bands. In the US this instrument is known as a tenor horn.
Barbershop baritone
In barbershop music, the baritone part sings in a similar but somewhat lower range to the lead (singing the melody), but has a specific and specialised role in the formation of the four-part harmony that characterises the style. Because barbershop singers can also be female, there is consequently such a singer (at least in barbershop singing) as a female baritone. The baritone singer is often the one required to support or 'fill' the bass sound (typically by singing the fifth above the bass root). On the other hand, the baritone will occasionaly find himself harmonising above the melody, which calls for a tenor-like quality. Because of the nature of barbershop arrangements the baritone part is invariably the most challenging to learn and the hardest to improvise.
See also soprano, alto, tenor, bass, timbre