How to Find Your Singing Range – Know What You Can Sing

In this post we are going to discover how you can find your singing range, why it’s important and if there is any way that you can extend it either higher, lower or perhaps even both. Ready to get started, let’s go!

How to Find Your Singing Range the Easy Way

There are a number of different ways that you can use in order to find out what your actual range is. For now, the only thing we are going to focus on is your “normal” singing voice. This is most commonly known as the chest or modal voice. It’s the voice that you use for talking and is generally where you will do most of your singing.

I’m not going to ignore the other registers, but for now, this is what we are going to do.

Using an App

Perusing through the google play store I came across a sweet little app called sing sharp. It is a free app and you can use it to find your range easily. Simply follow the steps below:

Use Virtual Piano to Find What You Can Do

If you don’t like the app way I suggest using the online pianist site instead. Make sure you click on the letter notes button so that you know which notes you are able to sing.

Just press the notes and see if you can sing what that note is. Be sure to record your singing and playing as sometimes it’s difficult to know if you are actually singing the note you are playing.

Play as low as you can sing and make a note of that.

Play as high as you can sing and make a note of that.

Now you’ll have your general range, let’s see what voice you are.

The reason why it’s important to know what voice you have is so that you will be able to practice and perfect the songs that you can sing well in your range.

There is no point trying to sing something that is just too high or too low.

What Are the Different Vocal Types?

There are several different vocal types as well as some gray areas in between. Below you’ll find the general main vocal types so that you’ll be able to class yourself in the correct way.

I’m going to use the keyboard of a piano for reference, so you’ll know what I mean. This way, you’ll also be able to reference your voice to a real piano or the online pianist site.

It’s important to note here that whilst I may say that the range is specific, there are blurred lines here. You may have something in the middle in which case you may be both. For example, you may be classified neither as a bass nor a baritone.

However, you will be classed as a Bass Baritone. However, this is just semantics and I wouldn’t worry about it. Remember, the whole point of finding out what vocal type you are is in order to be able to sing the songs that fit your voice the best.

Take a close look at the piano keyboard below to see approximately where each singer fits in:

Why Does It Matter What Voice You Are?

Now what we have gone through the different vocal types (and I hope that you have managed to work out which one you are) let’s get down the important stuff. The entire purpose of knowing which type of singer you are is in order to give you the choice of what songs you should have in your repertoire and what ones you definitely should not. There is no point trying to sing something that your voice isn’t suited to.

A Word about the Vocal Types

Whilst it may be true that we define the vocal types by your normal/ chest voice range, it’s important to know that this isn’t a limit for you. You may not be able to belt and resonate in certain notes, you may very well be able to hit them. One reason why people want to hear your voice is because of the tone you emanate when you sing.

No one wants to hear you squeak.

Does the person who holds the world record for the highest voice actually sing really well that people actually want to hear him. Nope! And the reason why this is so is because there is no tone there. And there is probably no particular tone throughout the range. Having an enormous range doesn’t make you a fantastic singer.

Singing within yourself and ensuring that every single note is performed perfectly, with tone, presence, and resonance, is what people really want to hear. This isn’t to say that you can’t express yourself in the music you sing. Quite the opposite. When you sing the songs that fit your voice, you are going to really give them expression and allow them to be part of you.

Music is deep and it runs through your soul.

You just must tap into it. By singing the songs that fit your voice, you are really allowing the music in. Anything else is going to be contrived and not real.

Is There Any Way to Change What Vocal Type You Are?

A question I get asked though is I’ve found my singing range, but I want to increase it. That’s fine and good. However, it’s a next step. Let’s first of all get you singing what you can correctly and then we’ll increase your range, both at the top and at the bottom. If you want to know how to sing lower and really hit those low notes, check out the post that I’ve written about it. Moreover, if you want to increase your range and sing higher, you can see what I’ve written about that and practice the steps I show in that post.

However, unfortunately, you cannot change the vocal type that you are. The best notes that you will ever be able to sing will be somewhere in the range that you have already discovered. You can increase this range, both for high and low notes. But those notes will never be as good as the ones that you are already able to sing.

Is This Related to Voice Registers

One last point to learn about is that there are several different vocal registers. The main two that are used for singing are the chest/modal register and the head voice register. Although there are other registers too, I’m not going to talk about them here as that’s not part of your “normal” range. When you sing you are generally going to do so in your chest voice. Whatever form of singing it is, be it pop, rock, or opera, the chest voice is the voice that you use to speak in. when measuring your vocal range, we tend to do so in your chest voice as this is the one you use the most.

You do have a vocal range in your head voice as well and can sing songs up there too. I for example can sing almost every song sung by sopranos because I have a large head voice range. However, that doesn’t stop me from being a tenor. More than that, even if I can sing those songs, I won’t be able to sing them as well as a real soprano. That’s just not the way my voice works.

In Closing

The whole point of knowing how to find your singing range is in order to sing the songs that are most suited to you. Singing songs is personal and you want to bring out that personality. To do so, just allow yourself to be you and you’ll be well on the way to being the best singer you can be!