tessitura

American  

[tes-i-toor-uh, tes-see-too-rah] / ˌtɛs ɪˈtʊər ə, ˌtɛs siˈtu rɑ /

noun

plural

tessituras, tessiture

1. the general pitch level or average range of a vocal or instrumental part in a musical composition.

   an uncomfortably high tessitura.

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tessitura British  

/ ˌtɛsɪˈtʊərə /

noun

1. the general pitch level of a piece of vocal music

   an uncomfortably high tessitura

2. the compass or range of a voice

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Etymology

Origin of tessitura

1890–95; < Italian: literally, texture < Latin textūra; texture

Example Sentences

After singing Caláf, which is a pretty hard tessitura, it’s very demanding.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 5, 2024

The thing that works for me is that the phrases have separation between them, so you’re not really stuck in a high register or a challenging tessitura consistently.

From New York Times • Sep. 9, 2022

Instead, voice type is a function of tessitura and vocal weight — a woman singing low almost always sounds like a woman singing low, not like a tenor.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 25, 2021

She and the musicologist Beth Glixon describe it as “neither excessively virtuosic nor especially demanding as far as range or tessitura is concerned.”

From New York Times • Dec. 20, 2019

This smaller range is called the tessitura of the part.

From "Understanding Basic Music Theory" by Catherine Schmidt-Jones and Russel Jones