Indeed it is, Murray. I don't know the extent of your musical background, but using terms such as "baritone" or "soprano" does not take the discussion out of the realm of folk music. Take anybody off the street who has never sung other than in the shower, have a good voice teacher or voice coach listen to them sing for awhile, and the teacher or coach can diagnose the person's bare-bones untrained voice. He or she will fall into one of the three catagories for his or her gender. It would take working with the person for awhile to determine some of the refinements, such as "Is she a lyric soprano or a dramatic soprano?" but discussions using these terms in relation to folk music--or any kind of singing for that matter--are relevant.

Examples: Bing Crosby was a baritone. So was Frank Sinatra. Jane Froman was a contralto. Joan Baez is a soprano. Gordon Bok is a bass. Ralph Stanley is a tenor. Leadbelly was also a tenor. One can go through a whole stack of CDs and categorize the voices of the singers. These categories are determined by the tonal quality of the voice and the range that the voice normally feels comfortable singing in. This, in turn, is determined by the length and "gauge" of the vocal folds (just like the differences between strings), the structure of the larynx, and the size and shape of the resonating cavities such as the mouth, sinuses, throat, etc. (same as the differences between the size and shape of a mandolin and a guitar). Whether one is a tenor or not has nothing to do with whether you sing opera, pop, rock and roll, or folk music.

But the fact remains that there is no relationship whatsoever between gender and the musical keys in which one normally sings.    Range, yes. Keys, no.

Don Firth