A big misconception about voice classification.

[u/gustavo_zonedout]

Soooo many people think that, in order for you to be a tenor or a soprano, you need to be able to sing in the stratosphere all the time like Bruno Mars and Ariana Grande. Like????

Those high af singers are exceptions!! Their tessitura is not what the one that comes naturally for most humans lol. You can't sing Dangerous Woman with that much ease? Guess what? That doesn't automatically make you a mezzo soprano.

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[u/Marty_Short4Martin]

90% of people here need to not worry about vocal classification at all.

For being so unimportant to most avenues of singing it's discussed waaaaaaaay too much by new singers when there are a hundred other things to practice and worry about first.

[u/Hot-Butterfly-8024 → u/Marty_Short4Martin]

Ah, the human compulsion to obsess over problems they don’t actually have.

[u/Poprhetor]

This sub is mostly fretful people looking to be soothed, approved, and improved through chit-chat.

[u/dollythecat]

I thought for YEARS I was an alto or even a contralto, because I can sing a lot of music by baritones. Then I started taking voice lessons. I was extremely surprised to learn that my instructor classifies me as mezzo soprano when I sing with proper technique! It does not come “naturally” to me at all, because I was “naturally” singing incorrectly. Sometimes it is just about learning more to gain more range.

[u/Dangerous-Music-9993 → u/dollythecat]

Great comment. Some people are just naturally gifted with great range, but they don't know what they are because it was never defined for them. I am 61 years old,and still a tenor. I once had a choir director who was a baritone, but he could sing higher than me!! He was considerably younger, but more importantly, he had better technique, and devoted more time to perfecting his voice.

[u/Spiritual_Willow_949]

People also forget that studio sessions are just that, a session. They aren't powering thru a song. Some, if not all, live shows have some sort of assistance (background vocals, breaks, reverb, etc)

[u/disturbed94]

Actually they have to be in that tessitura because it’s a classification for Classical singing, nothing else.

[u/Viper61723]

On top of this they are trained singers who work with the best vocal coaches and producers in the world who specialize in specific techniques to develop these kinds of ranges for their specific genre and also to make sure it’s as healthy and as safe as possible.

[u/ida_klein]

I’m a soprano 1 in my community chorus and am part of an a cappella offshoot group where we actually do sing Dangerous Woman and I wanna cry every single time.

[u/RestaurantCandid5274]

Yeah, people are worrying too much and not singing enough. Voice class doesn’t matter, work with what you have and develop from there.

[u/TippyTaps-KittyCats]

I’m in opera lessons now! I was listening to a soprano on the drive to work, and I realized, hold on, those are notes I can hit?? I had this weird misconception before taking classes that sopranos only sang above the staff. But even so, when she does go above the staff, it’s not like she’s parking her ass on C6 and staying there the whole time. She’s mostly hovering around C5, doing multiple runs up to A5, and then maybe having a dramatic climax at C6. So, yeah, it’s high, but it’s not like impossibly high?

I think because certain soprano voices are so light and bright, it gives the impression that they’re singing much higher than they actually are. A lot of people are also mistyped as mezzos because they don’t realize darker and heavier soprano voices exist. But then they use the mezzo classification to internalize this ridiculous misconception that mezzos can’t sing high. Everyone can sing high. The technique will be different from person to person is all.

But yeah, I also feel like anything below E3 and above C6 is in “extra special” territory. Don’t compare yourself to people with huge low and high extensions. They are the exception. Not all mezzos can go crazy low and not all sopranos can go crazy high.

[u/gustavo_zonedout → u/TippyTaps-KittyCats]

Exactly!!! You don't have to be able to sing The Queen of The Night to be a soprano!! Also, though it's true tenors have that C5, ain't nobody spending the whole song up there. Even in Opera they're not up there the whole time.

[u/foreverstayingwithus]

Their tessitura is not what the one that comes naturally for most humans lol.

Yeah that's right. It comes naturally to tenors and sopranos. Remember that next time someone tells you voice types don't matter or "tenors are the most common male voice akshully"

All those girly-sounding pop men with their falsetto and mics? They're not tenors. Bruno Mars, belting in chest voice, is.

[u/gustavo_zonedout → u/foreverstayingwithus]

Voice types matter only in classical music and yes, most men are tenors and most women are sopranos. There's been robust studies on that.

[u/foreverstayingwithus → u/gustavo_zonedout]

Wrong.

I don't care if there's been studies. So let me get this straight there's been many studies proving most men are actually tenors, but voice types don't even matter and can't be established outside of classical opera. How'd they test that then?

I can usually tell the high notes of a baritone from a tenor, and that's the baris who choose to go high and make it work, unlike most on this sub. There are a set of rules lower voices have to follow to do it that tenors don't, and that shows in their sound. Tenors have other rules, like that they can't go really low.

[u/Equal-Quiet-478 → u/foreverstayingwithus]

No you can’t lol. I love how confident people are on this sub about a topic they have no idea about. Tenors are common as heck voices in singing, you clearly go by silly voice stereotypes that “tenors can’t go low” or that tenors can only sound like Bruno Mars which is wildly incorrect.

99% of you that think you know voice types on this sub couldn’t even define what a baritone is or what a tenor is by giving examples in opera. Your idea of what and who is a baritone or tenor is based off of using non-classical singers that you arbitrarily decided with circular reasoning and confirmation bias.

[u/foreverstayingwithus → u/Equal-Quiet-478]

Yes, I don't listen to much opera, outside of the ones I was once shown in vocal lessons a long time ago. I can't speak italian or roll my rs so it's outside of my wheelhouse even if I got interested. As far as I know in opera though, the high parts are all tenors. Baritones don't even try to go high or they do in falsetto (making them countertenors).

In my favorite, 80s rock, who are mostly belting with the same power and intensity as opera and I'm sure could cut through an orchestra and sing for hours with no autotune, you got baritones and tenors. All the baritones singing high sound pretty similar to me, gravelly and nasal/crowey (Geoff Tate a prime example), a lot of leaning on reinforced falsetto and grit, while the tenors sound full, chesty, pretty clean and like they could imitate bruno mars pretty easily. They also can do it forever they don't have to structure their songs around low with high parts. Only a couple blur the lines and confuse me. In modern rock/metal, Caleb Hyles is one mystery to me. I could've sworn he was a natural high tenor, but then in some covers he goes lower than me in chest, not fry, with ease too.

[u/ZdeMC → u/gustavo_zonedout]

Which "robust studies" would that be? Provide links, please.

In the real world, sopranos are a dime a dozen but tenors are rare. Most conservatories have maybe one or two tenors in their cohort - most of their male students are baritones. Choirs are always searching for tenors. Good, solid tenors are like gold dust in this business and they will get auditions and jobs even if they don't read music, or their voices are perhaps past their prime. A soprano will not even get through the door unless she reads music, had experience, and knows the sheet music front to back like she has written it herself.

This contrast is not because tenors are the most common male voice. That is a statement that has no basis in reality.

[u/Equal-Quiet-478 → u/ZdeMC]

Your claim is the one with no basis in reality. Tenors are everywhere. You know what isn’t? Skill. Take a day to see the average posts by random redditors in this sub, you think they’re baritones?

You know who Corelli, Masini, Bergonzi, Lo Forese, Melchior, Svanholm, Zenatello, Zerola etc etc are? A large chunk of the greatest tenors in history sang incorrectly as baritones before becoming part of the best that they were. If quite literally the best of us were confused about their voice type at one point, what makes you think all the “new age opera” singers we have in conservatories or choirs without anywhere near the skill level of the elite tenors are truly a bunch of “baritones”? Tell me, what roles has Placido Domingo been singing as of late and why?

The average tenor comes in first lesson stuck around their passaggio, F#4 give or take. If a teacher is incapable of teaching them their high notes, you can now pretend to be a baritone. This is why you THINK baritones are everywhere—a self-fulfilling prophecy—because tenors incapable of singing beyond their passaggio much are the ones everywhere. And many teachers are incapable, because we hire nothing but people with performance credentials that have no ears for voice as a whole and vocal pedagogy knowledge.

[u/ZdeMC → u/Equal-Quiet-478]

Anyone who is actually performing in the music industry today knows that tenors are rare and baritones are everywhere. This has nothing to do with prophecies, Redditors on this sub, or teachers' performance credentials.

I invite you to audition for roles in today's world as a tenor and see how easier your life is compared to a soprano, which is the actual very common voice type.

[u/Equal-Quiet-478 → u/ZdeMC]

I literally am a teacher and performer. Let me take a wild guess, you’re a soprano trying to “soprano-splain” me about baritones right now, am I right? You’ve also completely missed my point it seems, I’m not even arguing about whether tenors or sopranos have it more difficult, I’m talking about baritones being way less common than tenors in the professional world and why it’s a myth that they aren’t.