Using an online piano on your laptop or device will give you access to a full simulated keyboard. It will also make it much easier to figure out which notes are your highest and lowest because the app will actually indicate the correct scientific pitch notation for a key as you play it.
Instead of trying to pull your lowest note out of thin air, start by singing a higher note on a consistent vowel sound (like “ah” or “ee” or “oo”) and work your way down the scale into your lowest registers. If you’re a woman, start with an easy C4 (middle C on the piano), and work your way down the keys, matching each note until you hit your lowest. If you’re a man, play a C3 on the piano, and go down one key at a time from there. The goal is to find the lowest note you can still sing comfortably, so do not count notes that you cannot sustain.
For some singers their normal and breathy lowest notes may coincide. For others, they might not.
For example, if the lowest note you can hit as you descend the scale is the second-to-last E on the keyboard, then you’d write down E2.
If you’re a woman, start by playing a C5 and work your way up from there, key by key. If you’re a man, start by playing and matching a G3. You want to find the highest note you can hit without significantly changing your tone quality or the natural action of your vocal cords. If you hear a break or new breathiness in your voice or feel a difference in how your vocal cords are working to produce a note, then you’ve passed your modal register.
If you find that you can go further still beyond your falsetto to high notes that sound like whistles or squeals, you may well have a whistle voice, too. Your highest note will fall in that register.
For example, if your highest note in your normal voice is the fourth ascending F on the keyboard, then you would write down F4 and so on.
For instance, if your collection of numbers reads D2, G2, F4, and B4, the correct notation for your range would read: (D2)G2-F4(B4). The outer two notes in parentheses represent your full range, that is, all the notes that your body is capable of producing. The two middle pitches (such as, “G2-F4” in the above example) represent your “tessitura,” that is, the range in which you can most comfortably sing using your normal voice. This is helpful to know when you are selecting the appropriate voice type for singing music.
Do not include include the sharps and flats (black keys) in your count. [7] X Research source
For example, if your lowest note was E2 and your highest note was E4, then you have a range of two octaves.
The typical ranges for each voice type are as follows: soprano B3-G6, mezzo-soprano G3-A5, alto E3-F5, countertenor G3-C6, tenor C3-B4, baritone G2-G4, bass D2-E4. Your range may not fit perfectly into these standard ranges. Choose the one that fits closest. If your full range does not seem to fit obviously into a single voice type, use your tessitura instead to see which type it most closely aligns with. You want to pick the voice type in which you will be most comfortable singing. So, if you, for instance, have a range of (D2)G2-F4(A4), you would most likely be a baritone, the most common voice type for men.
While most people aren’t trying out for opera these days, being aware of your voice type helps you be more aware of the notes you can reach when performing other types of music, either solo or in choirs. Informally, it can even help you figure out which songs you can effectively cover when singing karaoke. The different voice types descending from highest to lowest are: soprano, mezzo-soprano, alto, countertenor, tenor, baritone, and bass. Each type has a typical associated vocal range.
Your modal (or chest) voice is essentially your comfortable singing range when the vocal folds are in their natural manner of action. These are the notes you can reach without adding a low, breathy or high, falsetto quality to your voice. The range of notes that you can hit comfortably in your modal voice comprise your “tessitura. ” Your head voice includes the high end of your range, produced with elongated vocal folds. It’s called “head voice” because it refers to those notes that feel the most resonant in one’s head and have a distinct ringing quality. Falsetto–the voice most people use when impersonating female opera singers–is included in the head-voice register. For some very low-voiced males, the lowest vocal register, called “vocal fry” is also added, but many people cannot even reach this low end. These notes are produced by floppy, vibrating vocal folds that create low, creaking or croaking notes. Just as the “vocal fry” register extends to super-low notes for some men, the “whistle register” extends to super-high notes for some women. The whistle register is an extension of the head voice, but its timbre is distinctly different, sounding not unlike, well, a whistle. Think: the infamous highest notes in a song like “Lovin’ You” by Minnie Riperton or “Emotions” by Mariah Carey.
The octave also corresponds with standard musical scales, which are typically comprised of eight ordered notes in ascending or descending order (for instance, C D E F G A B C). The interval between the first and last note of a scale is an octave.
For instance, the lowest pitch on most pianos is A0, making the next octave above it A1 and so on. What we deem “Middle C” on a piano is actually C4 in scientific pitch notation. Since the Key of C is the only major key with no sharps or flats (and, thus, uses only the white keys on a piano), scientific pitch notation counts octaves starting with “C” notes rather than “A” notes. This means that though the lowest pitch on the far left-hand side of a keyboard is A0, the first “C” that occurs two white keys to the right is C1 and so on. Hence, the first A note that appears higher than Middle C (C4) will be A4, not A5. The full expression of your vocal range will include three of four different scientific pitch notation numbers, including your lowest note, highest note in modal voice, and highest note in head voice. Those who can reach the vocal fry and whistle registers may have pitch notation numbers for those as well, always ranging from the lowest notation note to the highest.
