What's the difference between alto and soprano?

Question

Other than one tends to be deeper than the other.

Answer 1

The only real difference is altos can't sing as high as sopranos.

Also, in choirs, altos usually have the harmony part, whereas sopranos sing the melody.

Answer 2

Soprano:

The highest female voice, normally of the range c′-a″. The term is also used for a boy treble voice (or for a castrato of the same range). Until the early 16th century, the female voice was little used in art music as it was not considered proper for ladies to sing or for gentlemen to make music in ladies presence. The soprano voice, accordingly, did not come into prominence until the mid-16th century (e.g. in Cipriano de Rore's madrigals of the 1540s). Later in the century, at Ferrara, female singing was particularly developed and this helped provoke the composition of many madrigals exploiting the beauty of high voices. In Catholic church music, however, the prohibition on women's voices meant that high parts were sung by castratos or falsettists.

Alto

Term originally used for a high vocal part, lying above the tenor and sung by one or more male voices. It implied, from the 16th century to the 18th, a part roughly of the pitch g-c″, sung by men (falsettists, high tenors or castratos) or by boys, in church music, but sometimes by women in secular music. In English usage, ‘alto’ is usually applied to a male voice, ‘contralto’ to a female one, though the distinction is not rigid. In choral music, ‘alto’ is used for either s*x (it is the ‘A’ in SATB).

Answer 3

Alto and Soprano are both female parts. Alto ranges (though everyone is different) from the E or F below middle C to the E or F an octave above middle C. Sopranos (another category is mezzo-soprano) tend to range from middle C to anywhere between C and A two octaves above middle C.

These terms are all relative to voices and the notes to a piano. On instruments, altos are always deeper than sopranos and the notes on each depend upon the instrument in question.

Answer 4

Altos often have fuller voices, where as sopranos don't have much power in their chest voice.