Vocal Ranges

The six vocal ranges at a glance

Notes are written in scientific pitch notation: C4 is middle C, C5 is the C above it and C3 the C below. Every range here is approximate — teachers and reference books place the edges a note or two apart, and individual singers regularly go beyond them.

How to find your own vocal range

You need five minutes and something that tells you which note you are singing: a keyboard, a free piano or tuner app, or the vocal range test on this site, which listens through your microphone and does the note-reading for you.

1. Warm up first. Hum or do lip trills for a few minutes. A cold voice will give you a range several notes narrower than your real one.
2. Find a comfortable starting note. Speak “hello” in your normal voice and hold the pitch — that is roughly the middle of your speaking range and a safe place to start.
3. Go down. Sing an open “ah” and step down one note at a time. Your lowest note is the lowest one you can hold for two seconds at a steady, audible volume — not a croak or a whisper.
4. Go up. Do the same upward. Let your voice flip into a lighter head voice if it wants to; those notes count, as long as you can hold them without straining or squeezing.
5. Read the result, not just the ends. Write down your lowest and highest held notes, then the stretch where singing feels easiest. Compare that comfortable stretch with the chart — it says more about your voice type than your extreme notes do.

The most common mistake is counting a note you hit once. A one-off high squeak or low growl is not part of your usable range, and counting it makes most people misjudge their type.

What “vocal range” actually means

Three words get mixed up constantly, and they measure different things:

• Range — every note you can produce, from lowest to highest. It is the widest and least informative of the three.
• Register — a group of notes made the same way, such as chest voice, head voice or falsetto. One range contains several registers, and the points where your voice shifts between them are called the passaggio.
• Tessitura — the part of your range where your voice sounds best and can sing for a long time without tiring. It is usually much narrower than your range, often around an octave.

Tessitura matters more than range when choosing songs or working out your voice type. A mezzo-soprano and a soprano may both reach the same high note; the difference is that the soprano can keep singing up there for a whole aria. Two singers with identical ranges can have different voice types because their tessituras sit in different places. The word is also used for a piece of music: a song with a high tessitura keeps most of its notes in the upper part of the voice, even if its highest note is not extreme.

Ranges for female voices

Soprano — about C4–C6

The highest female voice, running from about middle C up to “high C” two octaves above. Sopranos sound bright and carry easily above the orchestra or choir. How to tell: notes around the top of the treble staff feel easy and ring, and singing low, below middle C, feels weak or breathy.

Mezzo-soprano — about A3–A5

The middle female voice and generally considered the most common one. A mezzo has a darker, richer middle than a soprano and more power in the lower notes. How to tell: you can reach high notes, but you would not want to stay there; your favourite songs sit in the middle of the treble staff.

Contralto — about F3–F5

The lowest female voice, and the rarest. Contraltos have a heavy, dark lower-middle register that stays full right down to the F below middle C. How to tell: F3–G3 is genuinely usable, not just reachable. See contralto voice type for the full self-check.

Ranges for male voices

Tenor parts are often printed in treble clef with a small 8 under it, and they sound an octave lower than written. If you read music, keep that in mind when you compare a song to these ranges.

Tenor — about C3–C5

The highest common male voice, from the C below middle C up to “tenor high C”. Tenors sound bright and ringing at the top of their range. How to tell: you can sustain notes around E4–G4 without shouting, and notes below C3 lose their colour.

Baritone — about A2–A4

The middle male voice and generally considered the most common one. Most men who “just sing” are baritones. How to tell: you are comfortable in the middle of the bass clef, can reach some tenor notes but tire quickly up there, and your lowest notes thin out before you reach a bass’s low E.

Bass — about E2–E4

The lowest voice, with a dark, resonant bottom that baritones cannot match. Unusually low basses who sing well below E2 are called basso profundo. How to tell: notes from E2 to G2 come out full and audible, while singing above D4 is real effort.

Chart: how the ranges overlap

Every voice type shares most of its notes with its neighbours. A mezzo-soprano and a soprano overlap for more than an octave and a half; so do a baritone and a tenor. That is why range alone cannot settle your voice type — if your lowest and highest notes fall in an overlap zone, look at where your tessitura sits and where your voice changes register.

You will also see different numbers of voice types. Choirs use four parts — soprano, alto, tenor, bass. Classical voice teaching uses the six types on this page. Lists of seven add the countertenor, a male voice (about E3–E5) that sings in the alto range using a highly developed head voice. None of these is wrong; they are answering different questions.

Does your vocal range change?

With age, yes. Children’s voices are high and fairly narrow. During puberty boys’ voices drop by around an octave, while girls’ voices drop a little and gain body. Most voices settle in early adulthood and keep maturing into the late twenties or thirties. Later in life, women’s voices often lower slightly and men’s can rise a little.

With training, somewhat. Practice mostly turns notes you can barely reach into notes you can use, and can add a few notes at either end. It does not turn a bass into a tenor.

With health, temporarily. Colds, allergies, fatigue, dehydration and reflux can all take notes off the top or bottom for a few days. If your range shrinks or your voice stays hoarse for more than two or three weeks, see a doctor.

Voice type vs choir part

Choir parts and voice types share names, which causes most of the confusion. Alto is a choir part, not a voice type: it is usually sung by mezzo-sopranos, with the occasional true contralto on the lowest notes. Being placed on the alto line does not make you a contralto — see contralto voice type for the difference.

The same goes for men. Most choirs have only tenor and bass sections, so baritones end up singing bass or the lower tenor line. Singing in the bass section does not make you a bass.

Related

• Vocal range test — find your range and closest voice type with your microphone
• Contralto voice type