Voice types
Voice types and their ranges
Six voice types, from bass to soprano, each with its usual range and the choir part it sings. Open one to hear its lowest and highest notes, and to read how to tell it from its neighbours.
Range, comfortable range and colour
A voice type is a name for where a voice sits and how it sounds. Your range, from your lowest note to your highest, is the first clue. But the usual ranges overlap by an octave or more, so range alone rarely settles it.
Two other clues matter as much. Your comfortable range, sometimes called tessitura, is the stretch where you could sing all evening without tiring. Colour is the sound itself: darker and heavier, or brighter and lighter. Two singers with the same top note can be different types if one lives near that note and the other only visits it.
Registers and the passaggio
As you sing higher, your voice changes how it works. Low notes sit in chest voice, which feels full and close to speech. Higher notes move into head voice, lighter and more ringing. Falsetto is a lighter, breathier way to sing high, and the mix is a blend of chest and head that many singers use across the middle.
The stretch where the voice changes gear is called the passaggio, Italian for "passage", and singers often call it the break. Where it falls is one of the best clues to voice type: a tenor's comes higher than a baritone's, and a soprano's upper one higher than a mezzo's. Sing a slow scale upwards on "ah" and notice where the sound wants to change. Keep it light, and stop if it strains.
Voice types and choir parts
Most choirs sing in four parts, called SATB: soprano, alto, tenor and bass. The sopranos usually sing the tune, the altos a harmony below them, the tenors the higher men's part and the basses the lowest notes, which hold up the chords.
With six voice types and four parts, two types have to share. A baritone sings Bass or Tenor 2, and a mezzo-soprano sings Soprano 2 or Alto 1, depending on the music and where the choir needs voices. When a part divides, 1 is the higher line and 2 the lower. The director has the last word, usually after hearing you sing.
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Questions
How many voice types are there?
Six are usual: bass, baritone and tenor for most men's voices, and alto, mezzo-soprano and soprano for most women's. Classical singing adds finer names, such as contralto for the lowest women's voice, bass-baritone, and countertenor for a man who sings in the alto range or higher, mostly in head voice.
What voice type am I?
Your range gives a first guess: the vocal range test finds your lowest and highest notes and names the type they fit best. Then check where your voice feels easy and where it changes gear, as each page here describes. Many voices sit between two types, and a teacher or choir director can help you decide.
Do men and women sing the same notes?
Not usually: men's voices sit roughly an octave below women's. When men and women sing a tune together, they are usually an octave apart without noticing, because the notes share a name and blend so well.
What does a range like C3 to A4 mean?
Each note is a letter and an octave number. Octaves are counted from C, and middle C is C4, so C3 is the C an octave below middle C and A4 the A just above middle C. Each page here plays the notes, so you can hear a range as well as read it.
Can my voice type change?
Yes, over years. Voices settle through the teens and into adulthood, training can make the edges of a range easier, and many voices grow a little lower with age. If your voice has changed, take the vocal range test again.
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