Vox Daily

I'm a 2nd tenor: lower than a tenor, but a little higher than a baritone.

Without testing my upper range at this late hour, I'd say I'm probably a Lyric Baritone who can sometimes hit the Dramatic/Heroic Tenor notes without falsetto.

Maybe I'll include that in my description; yep, I'm sure the Metropolitan Opera will be calling in no time.

Hi Stephanie,

I used to sing 1st tenor, though I feel my upper range has diminished in the last year or so, especially because I haven't been singing.

I occasionally think about engaging a voice coach and getting back into singing... it would be interesting to see where my voice is now.

My guess would be:

• Charaktertenor
• Dramatic/Heroic Tenor

Vince

This is fascinating. Choir directors never seem to know whether to put me with the altos or the tenors. Maybe I'm a Deep Contralto! (I like how that one sounds!) Beautiful site design, btw.

I sang with a choir for several years and I currently sing with a Salsa band in NJ and I am a virtuoso shower singer as well. After carefully perusing the lists, I've concluded that I am a Tenori Grande Double Chocolate Latte with Spumo. I may not sound so great, but I'm delicious!

Hi Stephanie:

I'm a dramatic mezzo soprano. I have a four octave voice.

I like your comment about how women's voices change. Before I turned 38 I could sing from G below low C to A above soprano High C but at 38 my voice turned really thick and dark. While I have more power I've lost tones off both top and bottom. It's all good though since I love singing hard rock and old school r&b. I usually sing 1st soprano in choral music - mainly because I don't usually hear second soprano parts well and I hate singing alto choral parts -- the melody is much easier to sight-read.

Vicki

I'm so confused. I don't know what I am...

I've been in high school choir for four years and I have always sang alto. My freshmen year I could sing from an f below middle c to two octave above that, and my director told me that I'm "definitely an alto."

Well, now that I'm a senior I can't sing that f any more (my lowest note is now "a" below middle c), but I can sing all the way to the c that is two octaves above middle c. I've always been a loud singer and I usually have a really hard time blending in choir.

I would guess that I'm a dramatic mezzo-soprano, but I really don't know. What do you think?

And another question: why is my voice higher now than is was when I was a freshman? Did my voice type change with my range? And if it did, what was my voice type before the change? Was I really "definitely and alto?"

Hi Stephanie,

I'm a little confused about my fach too. I've always sang first soprano in my high school choir but the teacher always wants me to be a second because I have a very loud voice that is really rare and won't blend with practically anybody. It really sucks because it prevents me from being in our concert chorale. My range is the g below middle C (if I really push it) to the G sharp above the C two octaves above middle C. I can do all the agile stuff a coloratura can do and can go as high, but everyone says my voice is way to big to be a coloratura. I didn't know there was any such thing as a dramatic coloratura until now, but from what I've read it sounds like that's what I am.

Hi Stephanie,

I am with my choir for about 12 years now. I started at 7 and now i am 19. I was a boy treble then because i could reach up to f7. Though i could still reach the seventh octave (c7)to date, our voice coach wanted me to push it to a higher range. Could i still do this? and would it really be possible? I am a sopranista countertenor singing the sopranino range classified as lyric coloratura (i sing piccolo), and i sing 2nd soprano and descant. please tell me if that would do me damage.

Hi everyone,

Thank you for sharing your voice types!

Lauren and Kaylynn:

You're right, you don't want to push your limits, particularly if it is on either extremes of your range (high or low).

When I was in high school, I was floating all over the place singing soprano, alto, and the odd tenor notes in the higher passages to help beef up the sound (we didn't have many tenors).

If your music teacher at school asks you to help spread your voice over parts that you feel are out of your comfort zone in efforts to carry the other parts for weaker sections, it is almost too easy to say "Sure, I'll do it!" because it makes you feel very important and is telling of your vocal versatility... but you what you don't want is to be the hero in the "lend me a tenor" section during the most formative years of your vocal development only to find that you have damaged your voice later on or have used it in ways that create discomfort for you.

While it's a splendid feather in your cap to say you can do it all and a great way to inflate your vocal ego, I suggest that you opt to seek professional instruction from a trained and certified voice teacher and ask them about how you should and should not be using your voice - note that this is very important particularly in high school music programs.

To locate a teacher or someone who can help, check out the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS):

http://www.nats.org

On the topic of blending... when you are in a choir, blending is stressed quite a bit - I know because I too was the one soprano who had a hard time of it ;) When you have a "big" voice, it is difficult to blend with people, especially if you have clashing voice types and colors. A skilled conductor or director knows how to blend voices and through their efforts can ensure that "blending" occurs without having to make each chorister "blend" by decreasing or eliminating their natural vibrato.

If you don't let your vibrato out because you are blending in with other voices, you're doing your voice a disservice as well as potentially hurting your vocal folds.

VOX Daily Reader: It sounds like you have some questions that need to be addressed by a voice teacher, too. They are very specific and I encourage you to contact someone at the university or conservatory level to consult you on what to do.

Here's a link on the NATS site to find a teacher:

http://nats.org/find_teacher.php

Best,

Stephanie

The whole idea of fach is not to nitpick at what notes you can or can't sing - that job is done well enough by the classic 4 or 6 (mezzo soprano and baritone) classification. Fech is all about HOW you sing. A dramatic tenor has the full range of a tenor, but his voice becomes more full as he goes down, as opposed to up. A "lyric baritone" is distinguished from a tenor or a Charaktertenor not by range, since they are essentially identical. But because the lyric baritone can sing high, sounds more full in the bass register, but can't muster contrabass range. It's important to keep in mind that what you can hit is less important than where you sound good in terms of fech.