The Italian word duet came to our language as a duet. The concept is used in the field of music to name a duo: a group of two voices or two instruments.
According to abbreviationfinder, a duet, therefore, consists of the interpretation or execution of a musical work by a group with the aforementioned characteristics. There are an infinite number of possible combinations when forming a duet.
In popular music, mixed voice duets (one female and one male) are very common. Ike and Tina Turner, for example, formed a very famous blues-funk-rock duo in the ‘ 60s and ‘ 70s. Roxette, on the other hand, is a Swedish pop duo made up of Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle that has more than three decades of experience.
And to these we must add other very famous ones such as Pimpinela, Pet Shop Boys, Fangoria, Modern Talking, Amaral, Dynamic Duo or Eurythmics.
There are also duets that are formed especially to perform a song. In 1988, Montserrat Caballé and Freddie Mercury came together to sing “Barcelona”. Closer in time, Carlos Baute and Marta Sánchez developed a duet on the song “Hanging in your hands”.
In the same way, in that list of memorable duets we cannot forget Beyoncé and Shakira to interpret the song “Beautiful liar”; David Bowie and Freddie Mercury with the composition “Under Pressure”; or that of Marc Anthony and Jennifer López to interpret the song “Don’t love me”.
Madonna and Britney Spears, Juanes and Nelly Furtado, Lionel Richie and Diana Ross or Donna Summer and Barbra Streisand are other artists who have given rise to great duets in the history of music.
In addition to the above, although all of these were successful, there are other duets that are considered to have been a real fiasco or simply a bad idea. Among those we find those formed by Sylvester Stallone and Dolly Parton who performed “Sweet Lovin’ Friends”, Raphael and Tom Jones with the song “Ghost riders in the sky” or David Bisbal and Miley Cyrus who sang together “The last song”.
Duets have also become very relevant elements now thanks to social networks and different applications. Thus, for example, there are apps designed especially for music lovers, such as Tik Tok or Musical.ly, which allow their users not only to perform a song but also to do it as a duet. Song that they will perform and then share on networks.
Duets, in classical music, can be created with different voices: two tenors, tenor and baritone, tenor and soprano, two sopranos, soprano and baritone, etc. The various associations allow dissimilar results to be obtained.
As for instrument duets, string duets are frequent. Among the most common combinations appear viola and cello and viola and violin.
It should be noted that the idea of a duet is sometimes used in other fields beyond music. Two soccer coaches can form a duet and take over the management of a team together, to name one case.
