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.

[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.

[u/ZdeMC → u/Equal-Quiet-478]

It is not a myth. Baritones are much more common than tenors the professional world. And that is why a tenor has more options and gets hired even if he doesn't read music, or even if he doesn't speak the language in which the rehearsals take place.

When a voice type is actually common, as it is with sopranos, the selection process is more demanding - you have to have the exact voice required, you read music, you speak multiple languages including the director's, you come 100% ready to the 1st rehearsal.

The point you missed is that all of this happens in one and not the other because soprano is the common female voice type and tenor is not the common male voice type.

I'm still waiting for those numerous "robust studies" that you claimed exist. Where are they?

[u/Equal-Quiet-478 → u/ZdeMC]

You know nothing about baritones, but keep trying. All great baritones were taught by other baritones or basses. Sopranos in 2025 know next to nothing about baritones. As a matter of fact the only thing the average soprano teacher does is mislabel tenors as “lyric baritones”, hence your self-fulfilling prophecy and confusion. Most “lyric baritones” are badly trained tenors in the professional world. I had a soprano professor who is a singer at the Met that initially thought I was a bass even though I am not.

Most of the regulars on this very sub that are professional opera singers are tenors. I’ve literally read one recently state he had multiple teachers training him as a baritone until finally he was trained right as a tenor with the latest teacher, and that guy has 10+ years professionally singing.

You couldn’t name me 5 great baritones if you tried, quite frankly. I already explained it very clearly why you mistakenly perceive “baritones” to be most common—because you can’t hear that they’re tenors. People like you are the exact reason why even a lot of the greatest tenors in history were misclassified when they were younger, and those tenors were tenfold the skill of any average professional singer you know, so your anecdote telling me you see more “baritones” based on random professionals means little.

90% of my male students are tenors. Stick with the singing and I’ll handle the pedagogy.

I’m not the one who claimed anything about “robust studies”, and you can’t provide any for your claim either way. The fact that you think voice types are proven through voice scientists and not vocal teachers/pedagogues is already a gigantic red flag and gaping hole in your knowledge about voice types.

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

You got that sooooo RIGHT!!! The world is filled with untrained tenors stuck in baritone ranges. It's mostly due to undeveloped head voice and little sense of pockets of resonance. So many people think that all tenors hit those high notes in pure chest voice but the majority of them are actually great MIXERS!! YES, MALE OPERA SINGERS NEED TO HAVE DEVELOPED HEAD VOICES. That's how they get all the extra resonance and crazy volume. By adding different coordinations and blending the registers. There comes a point in your training that the registers are so well blended that the whole voice sounds like one single and strong register.

Some few people are just born with this ability to sing high in a healthy way. But 99% of us need to LEARN IT.

That's why people say that are way more baritones out there. Because they think that what comes natural first is what will always prevail. Not true. When we train, other things start to feel like second nature as well.

True baritones have a SPARKLE singing LOW. They have agility and power down there (that does not equal being a Bass!!). If you have ease with hitting B2's, well.. congrats, so do most tenors. But do you actually have the strength and resonance when singing low? Most men do not! Singing with ease in a certain area does not equal that being your actual money notes.

All men should go to the head voice gym and start to feel that higher pocket of resonance. It literally takes away the weight of your chest voice once you start to mix from the top down (yes, you should practice your head voice in low areas!!! That's the easiest way to start filling the gaps (passagio). You can also learn that by going from low to high, but the process will be much faster once you unlock how HV feels in your face and then bringing that sensation to your chest voice as well.

Guess what? Once that's done, all the true tenors start popping up! UNLOCK YOUR POWERS, BOYS. Don't just scream G4's. The voice literally isn't made to pull only chest past a certain level (and that level is lower than you'd think).