What is my voice type?

A dear friend of mine was a professional opera singer. 4 different voice teachers reinforced the idea that she was a Coloratura Soprano (the highest voice type out there).

So she sang Queen of the Night, made decent money doing that, too. (If you can possibly sing that - you should, you will have a job.)

But she kept running into criticism: you sing so accurately, so virtuosically, always on pitch. But your high notes sound thin and non-vibrato, you should work on that. 

And boy, did she. She tried with 4 teachers! Until the fifth told her she probably was actually a mezzo-soprano. Say what now? How is that possible? Mezzos have lower voices, don’t they?

Well, it turns out that she and I, and all of those teachers, were not aware that Mezzos tend to have wider ranges than Sopranos sometimes. And they tend to have whistle tones. You know, that tiny, thin note that actually sounds like a whistle, which Mariah Carey is famous for? That’s how my friend was singing this challenging opera role for years.

Teachers feel the pressure to label your voice. That makes them look like they know what they are talking about. They expect that of themselves and students expect that from them. So sometimes, they jump to conclusions. And then you might spend your time singing the wrong things and not properly addressing your voice. 

Another tricky thing that will lead some to get the wrong idea, is certain qualities of the voice. Eventually, a better way to judge if you are, say, a tenor or a baritone, is to listen to the quality of your voice and not your range.

So if you “sound like a baritone” when you speak - chances are you are a baritone, even if you can sing quite high. And vice versa.

However! If the voice is not yet fully developed you can’t really tell all the qualities of the voice yet!

Did you know that there is a thing called a “Wagner Tenor”? That’s a type of tenor who sings mostly Wagner, because his top range is wonderful, full, rich and especially loud. But it's also very deep. It almost sounds like it's lower than it is. Which makes it even richer. Wagner wrote grandiose operas with huge orchestras, so those types of tenors are usually hired to sing those pieces. 

If a singer trains only for a few years, he may not discover that he is able to sing so powerfully and freely and that he has this ability in his voice. So a teacher will listen to his voice quality when he sings and speaks, which is deep, and say: you are a typical Baritone. I can hear that depth in your voice. And they might not even try and explore other possibilities.

Most voice experts agree that instead of range, a voice is classified by where the voice sounds and feels the best, the most comfortable.

Still, especially for beginners and singers who have not developed their voice fully, awareness of your comfort zone can be tricky. You may feel comfortable in a certain register of the voice, but the ideal one is still to be discovered.

Perhaps you can tell where you're most comfortable. Perhaps you hear your own voice while you sing and it sounds like type X to you. BUT!

Maybe you think you're comfortable somewhere, because that’s what you are able to do right now! Your teacher might hear some notes come easier or sound richer. Teachers are trained to hear the potential in your voice. That was my case. More on that in a minute.

Another problem we have with awareness of our own voice is simply the assumption that one can properly hear oneself. If you listen to yourself while singing and it sounds a certain way to you - don’t trust that! Your voice sounds differently from inside your own head than it does in reality. These are 2 different sounds acoustically. So don’t try to put a label on your voice judging from what you think you hear yourself.