What is "alto"

Viola \Vi"o*la\, n. [It. See Viol.] (Mus.) An instrument in form and use resembling the violin, but larger, and a fifth lower in compass.

Viola da braccio [It., viol for the arm], the tenor viol, or viola, a fifth lower than the violin. Its part is written in the alto clef, hence it is sometimes called the alto.

Viola da gamba [It., viol for the leg], an instrument resembling the viola, but larger, and held between the knees. It is now rarely used.

Viola da spalla [It., viol for the shoulder], an instrument formerly used, resembling the viola, and intermediate in size between the viola and the viola da gamba.

Viola di amore [It., viol of love: cf. F. viole d'amour], a viol, larger than the viola, having catgut strings upon, and brass or steel wires under, the keyboard. These, sounding sympathetically with the strings, yield a peculiarly soft and silvery sound. It is now seldom used.

high-pitched \high-pitched\ adj.

1. high in pitch or frequency; -- used of sounds and voices. Opposite of low. [Narrower terms: adenoidal, pinched, nasal; altissimo; alto; countertenor, alto; falsetto; peaky, spiky; piping; shrill, sharp; screaky, screechy, squeaking, squeaky, squealing; soprano, treble; sopranino; tenor]

   Syn: high.

2. set at a sharp or high angle or slant; as, a high-pitched roof.

   Syn: steeply pitched, steep.

1784, "man with an alto voice," from Italian alto (canto), from Latin altus "high" (see old). Originally a "high" man's voice, now more commonly applied to the lower range of women's voices (which is more strictly the contralto), an extension first recorded in 1881.\n\nThe alto in a man is totally distinct from the contralto in a woman. The tone is utterly different -- the best notes of the one are certainly not the best notes of the other; and although in certain cases a contralto may sing with good effect music written for a male alto (e.g. in some oratorios), yet the converse is scarcely ever true.

["How to Sing," 1890]

n. 1 A musical part or section higher than tenor and lower than soprano, formerly the part that performed a countermelody above the tenor or main melody. 2 A person or musical instrument that performs the alto part.

1. adj. of or being the lowest female voice [syn: contralto]

2. of or being the highest male voice; having a range above that of tenor [syn: countertenor]

3. (of a musical instrument) second highest member of a group; "alto clarinet or recorder"

1. n. a singer whose voice lies in the alto clef

2. the lowest female singing voice [syn: contralto]

3. the highest adult male singing voice [syn: countertenor]

4. the pitch range of the lowest female voice

Alto is a musical term that has several possible interpretations.

Alto may also refer to:

ALTO is an interbank network in Indonesia. It was founded in 1994.

Alto is a 2015 American-Italian lesbian mob comedy film directed by Mikki del Monico. It stars Diana DeGarmo and Natalie Knepp as two Italian-American girls who develop an unlikely friendship considering one is a mob boss's daughter and the other is a singer in a band. Nicolette develops feelings for Frankie but all Frankie can do is run away from her emotions. The film is light hearted while showing the struggles of coming out to the family.

The musical term alto, meaning "high" in Italian ( Latin: altus), refers to the second highest part of a contrapuntal musical texture and is also applied to its associated vocal range, especially in choral music. More rarely it describes the highest male solo voice type (usually designated countertenor), and it is also the root word of contralto, the lowest standard female voice type. When designating instruments, "alto" likewise can refer either to the corresponding vocal range ( alto flute and alto trombone) or to musical role ( alto recorder and alto clarinet).

ALTO (Analyzed Layout and Text Object) is an open XML Schema developed by the EU-funded project called METAe.
The standard was initially developed for the description of text OCR and layout information of pages for digitized material. The goal was to describe the layout and text in a form to be able to reconstruct the original appearance based on the digitized information - similar to the approach of a lossless image saving operation.
ALTO is often used in combination with Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standard (METS) for the description of the whole digitized object and creation of references across the ALTO files, e.g. reading sequence description.
The Standard is hosted by the Library of Congress since 2010 and maintained by the Editorial Board initialized at the same time.
In the time from the final version of the ALTO standard in June 2004 (version 1.0) ALTO was maintained by CCS CCS Content Conversion Specialists GmbH, Hamburg up to version 1.4.