Are you a choir member?

In any chorus, there are four voice parts: soprano, alto, tenor, and
bass. Sometimes these are divided into first and second within each
part, prompting endless jokes about first and second basses. There are
also various other parts such as baritone, countertenor, contralto,
mezzo soprano, etc., but these are mostly used by people who are either
soloists, or belong to some excessively hotshot classical a cappella
group (this applies especially to countertenors), or are trying to make
excuses for not really fitting into any of the regular voice parts, so
we will ignore them for now.

Each voice part sings in a different range, and each one has a very
different personality. You may ask, "Why should singing different notes
make people act differently?", and indeed this is a mysterious question
and has not been adequately studied, especially since scientists who
study musicians tend to be musicians themselves and have all the
peculiar complexes that go with being tenors, french horn players,
timpanists, or whatever. However, this is beside the point; the fact
remains that the four voice parts can be easily distinguished, and I
will now explain how.

THE SOPRANOS are the ones who sing the highest, and because of this
they think they rule the world. They have longer hair, fancier jewelry,
and swishier skirts than anyone else, and they consider themselves
insulted if they are not allowed to go at least to a high F in every
movement of any given piece. When they reach the high notes, they hold
them for at least half again as long as the composer and/or conductor
requires, and then complain that their throats are killing them and
that the composer and conductor are sadists. Sopranos have varied
attitudes toward the other sections of the chorus, though they consider
all of them inferior. Altos are to sopranos rather like second violins
to first violins - nice to harmonize with, but not really necessary.
All sopranos have a secret feeling that the altos could drop out and
the piece would sound essentially the same, and they don't understand
why anybody would sing in that range in the first place - it's so
boring. Tenors, on the other hand, can be very nice to have around;
besides their flirtation possibilities (it is a well-known fact that
sopranos never flirt with basses), sopranos like to sing duets with
tenors because all the tenors are doing is working very hard to sing in
a low-to-medium soprano range, while the sopranos are up there in the
stratosphere showing off. To sopranos, basses are the scum of the earth
- they sing too damn loud, are useless to tune to because they're down
in that low, low range - and there has to be something wrong with
anyone who sings in the F clef, anyway.

THE ALTOS are the salt of the earth - in their opinion, at least.
Altos are unassuming people, who would wear jeans to concerts if they
were allowed to. Altos are in a unique position in the chorus in that
they are unable to complain about having to sing either very high or
very low, and they know that all the other sections think their parts
are pitifully easy. But the altos know otherwise. They know that while
the sopranos are screeching away on a high A, they are being forced to
sing elaborate passages full of sharps and flats and tricks of rhythm,
and nobody is noticing because the sopranos are singing too loud (and
the basses usually are too). Altos get a deep, secret pleasure out of
conspiring together to tune the sopranos flat. Altos have an innate
distrust of tenors, because the tenors sing in almost the same range
and think they sound better. They like the basses, and enjoy singing
duets with them - the basses just sound like a rumble anyway, and it's
the only time the altos can really be heard. Altos' other complaint is
that there are always too many of them and so they never get to sing
really loud.

THE TENORS are spoiled. That's all there is to it. For one thing,
there are never enough of them, and choir directors would rather sell
their souls than let a halfway decent tenor quit, while they're always
ready to unload a few altos at half price. And then, for some reason,
the few tenors there are are always really good - it's one of those
annoying facts of life.. So it's no wonder that tenors always get
swollen heads - after all, who else can make sopranos swoon? The one
thing that can make tenors insecure is the accusation (usually by the
basses) that anyone singing that high couldn't possibly be a real
man.. In their usual perverse fashion, the tenors never acknowledge
this, but just complain louder about the composer being a sadist and
making them sing so damn high. Tenors have a love-hate relationship
with the conductor, too, because the conductor is always telling them
to sing louder because there are so few of them. No conductor in
recorded history has ever asked for less tenor in a forte passage.
Tenors feel threatened in some way by all the other sections - the
sopranos because they can hit those incredibly high notes; the altos
because they have no trouble singing the notes the tenors kill
themselves for; and the basses because, although they can't sing
anything above an E, they sing it loud enough to drown the tenors out.
Of course, the tenors would rather die than admit any of this. It is a
little-known fact that tenors move their eyebrows more than anyone
else while singing.

THE BASSES sing the lowest of anybody. This basically explains
everything. They are stolid, dependable people, and have more facial
hair than anybody else. The basses feel perpetually unappreciated, but
they have a deep conviction that they are actually the most important
part (a view endorsed by musicologists, but certainly not by sopranos
or tenors), despite the fact that they have the most boring part of
anybody and often sing the same note (or in endless fifths) for an
entire page. They compensate for this by singing as loudly as they can
get away with - most basses are tuba players at heart. Basses are the
only section that can regularly complain about how low their part is,
and they make horrible faces when trying to hit very low notes. Basses
are charitable people, but their charity does not extend so far as
tenors, whom they consider effete poseurs. Basses hate tuning the
tenors more than almost anything else. Basses like altos - except when
they have duets and the altos get the good part. As for the sopranos,
they are simply in an alternate universe which the basses don't
understand at all. They can't imagine why anybody would ever want to
sing that high and sound that bad when they make mistakes. When a bass
makes a mistake, the other three parts will cover him, and he can
continue on his merry way, knowing that sometime, somehow, he will end
up at the root of the chord.