The word “tenor” is from the Latin tenere , “to hold”…and in medieval and Renaissance vocal music, from about 1250 to 1500, the tenor voice was the “holding voice.” It was the voice that held the principal melody, often with long held-out notes, and the voice around which the other voices were composed. The tenor voice, always a male voice, was not necessarily a high voice—or at least not originally. And in fact the meaning of “tenor” actually varied from place to place. But it seems that by the