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What’s My Voice Type? The Different Voice Types and How to Distinguish Them

Every singer wants to know what his/her voice type is, but it’s not always so easy to figure out the specifics. Continue reading on to learn how to find out what your particular voice type is. Soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto, countertenor, tenor, baritone, or bass; all you need to know is in this post.

ü Characteristics – Variables in Determining Voice Type
Figuring out your voice type is not only a matter of looking at your vocal range, but at a number of different characteristics. For example, vocal tessitura and timbre can be more important as range can be between types. This is usually the case with sopranos and mezzo-sopranos; they might have the same range but mezzo-sopranos have a lower tessitura and darker timbre.
All together your voice type is a result of the following vocal variables:
  • range – the notes your body can produce
  • weight – light voices, bright and agile; heavy voices, powerful, rich, and darker
  • tessitura – part of the range which is most comfortable to sing
  • timbre – unique voice quality and texture
  • transition points – points where you change from chest, to middle, to head register
  • vocal registers – how extended each register is
  • speech level – speaking range
  • physical characteristics
I know that you’re probably surprised at the fact that physical characteristics play a role in deciding somebody’s voice type. This is because many times physique determines what roles opera singers are going to audition for.
I have seen productions where the audience bursts out laughing when the primo uomo (leading man) sings to the prima donna something along the lines of “oh, how small and fragile you are” when she is nothing close to small and fragile.
ü Major Category – Voice Types by Range and Tessitura
If you sing in a choir or take voice lessons, you have probably already been classified as a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto (alto) if you are a woman, and a countertenor, tenor, baritone, or bass if you are a man. But are you really sure you’ve been classified correctly? Test your voice according to the following specifications.

 Soprano
Voice Type: Soprano, Range: B3 – G6 

 Soprano is the highest female voice type. There are many types of sopranos like the coloratura soprano, lyric soprano, the soubrette etc. which differ in vocal agility, vocal weight, timbre, and voice quality; I will talk about them in an upcoming article. All of the sopranos have in common the ability to sing higher notes with ease.

A typical soprano can vocalize B3 to C6, though a soprano coloratura can sing a lot higher than that reaching F6, G6 etc. At this point I would like to debunk a myth. It is widely thought that the higher a singer can sing, the better the singer is. This couldn’t be further from the truth as range is defined by our physique and size of the vocal cords, not not how professional we are.


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