How to Find Your Vocal Range and Voice Type

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Primer: Notes and Pitches

If you’re brand new to singing, we first recommend reading our complete guide on how to sing (read now).

Before we get into actually finding your range, you need to know how music works – specifically music notes.

If you’re already familiar with basic theory you can skip this section. But if you’re totally new to music spend a 30 seconds to read below.

Pitches (how high or low musical notes are) are denoted in groups of letters from A-G. These are the musical notes used in Western music. The different groupings of these notes (A-G) are denoted by numbers. You can have a note called A1 and a note called E4, etc.

Octaves

An octave is the same note as another note, just higher or lower in pitch. So A1 is an octave below A2 (so it’s lower in pitch). A4 is an octave above A3 (so it’s higher in pitch).

Go look at a piano and you’ll see that the keyboard is made up of the same grouping of 12 notes (5 black notes, and 6 white notes) over and over again. Those are all the same notes, but in different octaves.

Middle C

If you look in the very center of any piano, you’ll see the middle C note. This is denoted as C3.

If you move to the left of the keyboard, the number goes DOWN. If you move to the right, it goes UP.

Why is all this important? Because it’ll help you know exactly which notes your natural voice falls in.

We’ve got a full guide on basic music theory if you’re a complete beginner. Here’s some more music theory if you’re interested.

How it’s Done

So now that you know how this all works, let’s get started with how to do it.

You’re going to be finding your highest and lowest “natural” notes and notes that use “falsetto” or sound “breathy” when you try to sing them.

IMPORTANT: Remember one thing, you can ONLY sing a note if you hit the pitch comfortably (learn more), naturally and without any vocal strain (learn more), cracking, croaking, and without any scratchiness. If you notice any of that, you CAN’T sing that note comfortably (yet…).

Finding Your Range Step-By-Step:

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1) Find Your Lowest Note

The first thing you need to do is find the lowest note that you can naturally sing.

Go to your keyboard/piano or download a free piano app on your phone/tablet/computer. Hit the middle C note and try to match the sound/pitch with your voice.

Now, move down one half step on the keyboard (the note directly to the left of the middle C) and try matching that pitch with your voice.

Easy? Good – keep going.

Move down one half step at a time (i.e. note by note) seeing which notes your voice can match naturally without strain.

Keep moving down the keyboard until you hit a note you notice you’re singing with a “breathy” quality. NOT CROAKY! If your voice is croaking when you try to hit the note, you’ve gone too far outside of your natural range.

Now, write down the absolute lowest note you can hit naturally – without being “breathy” – (ex/ A2) and write down the note right below it that you can hit, but only with a “breathy” voice.

That’s the lower end of your voice.

2) Find Your Highest Note

Next up, you’re going to do the exact same thing as above, but in the opposite direction.

So, go back to middle C, and start singing each note while moving one half step to the right. Move up the keyboard one note at a time, and match the pitch of the piano with your voice.

Again, you should be able to sing the high note normally (learn how). You shouldn’t have to go into a falsetto voice (which is in a higher register than your normal voice, hence the “false” in falsetto – learn more).

Your voice also shouldn’t crack or be breathy.

If your voice goes into falsetto, starts to crack or becomes breathy, you can’t sing that note naturally within your vocal range.

Similar to the last step, write down the highest note you can hit naturally (ex/ E4) and the note where you voice starts to become breathy or switches to falsetto.

That is the higher end of your voice.

3) Plug Notes Into This Formula

Now that you have a few note boundaries, take all 4 of the note numbers you wrote down and fill in this formula:

(lowest breathy note) lowest normal note – highest normal note (highest falsetto note)

That is the magic formula.

So for example, you might have something that looks like this: (C2) D3 – G5 (A6)

The outer numbers are your FULL vocal range, while the inner notes are your tessitura (i.e. your normal/comfortable singing range)

That means you have a range between the D3 pitch and the G5 pitch. You can easily, naturally and comfortably sing any of the notes in that range without strain/crack/breathiness and without going into a different vocal register like falsetto.

But beyond that, you can also sing lower if you use a really breathy voice – all the way down to C2. And if you use a falsetto voice you can hit all the way up to A6.

Now that’s just a random example (and an unnaturally wide range), but you’ll have a range that looks similar.

Count Your Octaves

Next, count the number of notes between the outer numbers in your formula. But only white notes on the keyboard – no sharps/flats.

Then take that number and divide it by 8 to find how many octaves your voice spans.

You should end up with a number or a fraction (ex/ 1.5). That means you can sing within a total of 1.5 or 2 (or whatever) octaves on the keyboard while staying within your range.

4) Translate That Into a Voice Type

You may not need to do this last step, but it’s always a good idea to know this information.

If you sing in choir or plan on being a more professional singer, it’s an important piece of info you’ll be asked at some point.

We’re going to use your general FULL range to determine what kind of singing voice you have.

Here’s that list we saw above, with vocal ranges included this time:

• Soprano: B3 – G6
• Mezzo-Soprano: G3 – A5
• Alto: E3 – F5
• Countertenor: G3 – C6
• Tenor: C3 – B4
• Baritone: G2 – G4
• Bass: D2 – E4

It’s important to know that your actual range won’t fall exactly within these categories. That’s ok, just choose the category you think best fits your actual range when singing.

Finally, if your full vocal range (using the outer numbers in the formula above) extends between MANY different voice types then only use the inner numbers (your tessitura) to help you clarify your voice type.

Ranges, Types and Registers

There are several different voice types that span the range of “singable” pitches in music. Finding this out will help us figure out what type of singing voice we have.

Those are listed above.

Beyond that, there are a few different “vocal registers” you can sing in, no matter what voice type you are. This refers to where in your body you’re singing from.

These registers all have a different timbre – or sound quality/character – and singing in different registers produces different actions in your vocal cords.

The different vocal registers are:

• Modal/Chest Voice
• Head Voice and Falsetto
• Vocal Fry
• Whistle Voice

You can probably imagine what each of those sound like simply by their names. For example, the whistle register is an extremely high register that produces an almost “whistling” style of singing.

If you want to improve your voice check out the best online singing lessons. And if you want to learn to extend your singable range, check out this guide.

More About Singing Abilities

Here’s some more info you might be interested on the topic of singing ability.

Common Vocal Ranges:

The most common vocal range for males is C3 – C5, putting the most common voice type for males somewhere between Tenor and Countertenor.

For females the most common range is C4 – A5, making the most common voice type for females a Soprano.

What about common octave spans? In truth most people possess approximately a 2 octave range, so if your voice spans more than 2 octaves, you’re above average.

Famous Singers’:

• Whitney Houston: A2 – C#6 (more than 4 octaves)
• Ariana Grande: D3 – E7 (more than 4 octaves)
• Michael Jackson: Eb2 – F#6 (more than 4 octaves)
• Beyonce: A2 – E6 (more than 4 octaves)
• Mariah Carey: F2 – G7 (more than 5 octaves!)
• Christina Aguilera: C3 – C#7 (more than 4 octaves)

Interested in seeing where your favorite singer’s vocal range sits? Check out this dope ass tool.

Frequently Asked Questions

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