SATB stands for Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass, the four voice parts of a standard mixed choir. Soprano is the highest female voice, alto the lower female, tenor the higher male, bass the lowest male. SATB is the default texture for hymn harmonisation in Western and African church music.

What are the typical SATB voice ranges?

Soprano: C4 to A5. Alto: G3 to E5. Tenor: C3 to A4 (sounding an octave lower than written). Bass: E2 to E4. These are 'comfortable' ranges for a community choir; trained voices stretch further.

What's the difference between SATB and a chorale?

A chorale IS an SATB texture, specifically a hymn-tune harmonisation in four parts, usually homophonic (all four voices moving together rhythmically). Bach's 371 chorales are the canonical example. Modern SATB hymnody works the same way.

Can DomiSol harmonize a melody to SATB automatically?

Yes. DomiSol's AI harmonization takes a melody and generates the three additional voices (Alto, Tenor, Bass) with voice-leading appropriate for choir singing. Tweak any voice manually after generation.

7 min read · Updated 2026-05-26

Choral foundations

SATB, the four voices of choral music.

Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass. Voice ranges, harmony rules, voice-leading basics, and a worked example in tonic solfa. The foundation under every hymn arrangement you'll write.

What SATB is

SATB is shorthand for the four-voice arrangement used in Western (and African church) choral music: Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass.

Voice ranges

Voice	Range	Notes
Soprano	C4–A5	Highest female; usually carries the melody
Alto	G3–E5	Lower female; fills inner harmony
Tenor	C3–A4	Higher male; writes one octave above sounding pitch
Bass	E2–E4	Lowest male; anchors the chord root

Note how much the ranges overlap. Alto and tenor share nearly an octave, which is why the two inner voices are the ones that collide if you write them carelessly.

The basic harmony rules

Four voices, four jobs. The soprano carries the melody, so it is the line the congregation will actually hear. The bass takes the root of the chord in most cases, which is what makes the harmony sound settled. The alto and tenor fill in the remaining chord tones, usually the third and the fifth.

Two conventions are worth knowing before you write anything:

Avoid parallel fifths and octaves. If two voices are a fifth apart and both move in the same direction to another fifth, the two lines stop sounding independent and briefly collapse into one. The same applies to octaves. This is the single most-enforced rule in hymn writing.
Voice crossing is legal but discouraged. Letting the alto rise above the soprano is not wrong in theory, but it muddies which line is the tune, and in hymnody the tune needs to stay obvious.

Voice leading in plain terms

Voice leading is just this: when the chord changes, each voice should move as little as possible. If a note is present in both the old chord and the new one, the voice holding it should usually keep it. Everything else moves to the nearest available chord tone.

In solfa the test is quick. Look at one voice across a chord change, if it reads d–t or m–f, that voice is moving by a step and will be easy to sing. If it reads d–s, the singer has to leap, and every leap you write is a place a tired choir can come apart. Leaps are not forbidden, they are just something you should be choosing on purpose.

Where to go from here

Once you can read SATB, the practical next step is SATB hymn arranging in solfa, voice ranges, voice-leading, cadences, worked examples in the African choral tradition.

Arrange your own in DomiSol

DomiSol's one-click harmonization gives you a starting SATB version of any melody; you tweak from there.

Open the free tonic solfa editor →