Vocal Range Test: Find Your Voice Type & Singer Match
Sing a few notes and find out your range, your closest voice type, and which famous singers you overlap with. Takes about a minute, right here in your browser.
You'll need a mic and one moment of courage.
Free · No signup · Your voice never leaves your browser
What is a vocal range?
Your vocal range is the distance between the lowest and highest notes you can sing: not squeak, not growl, but actually sing, on pitch, with enough control that you'd do it in front of someone. It's written as two notes, low to high (say, G2–E5), and measured in octaves.
Most untrained singers have about one and a half to two octaves. Trained singers usually have two to three. A few famous outliers stretch past four. But range makes a poor scoreboard. Control over the notes you have beats a wider set you can't steer, every time.
How to find your vocal range without a mic
No microphone, or no desire to sing at your laptop? The piano method works fine:
- Open a piano: a real one, or any free keyboard app.
- Play middle C (C4) and sing along on “ahh”.
- Walk down one key at a time, matching each note, until one stops sounding like singing. The last good note is your low end.
- Go back to middle C and walk up one key at a time, switching into head voice when it feels natural. The last comfortable note is your high end.
- Write it low to high, e.g. A2–F5. Twelve keys make an octave.
Or press the button at the top and let your mic do the counting.
Voice types explained
Voice types are a shorthand from classical choirs, sorted roughly from highest to lowest. Typical ranges:
| Voice type | Typical range | Singers you'd know |
|---|---|---|
| Soprano | C4–C6 | Julie Andrews, Ariana Grande |
| Mezzo-soprano | A3–A5 | Adele, Beyoncé |
| Contralto / alto | F3–F5 | Karen Carpenter, Nina Simone |
| Tenor | C3–C5 | Freddie Mercury, Bruno Mars |
| Baritone | A2–A4 | Elvis Presley, Hozier |
| Bass | E2–E4 | Barry White, with Johnny Cash sitting between bass and baritone |
Your true type depends on where your voice is comfortable(your tessitura) and what it sounds like (your timbre), not just the extremes you can touch on a good day. That's why the test above asks for a third note, the one that feels most at home: it weighs that comfortable centre alongside your range, which is closer to how a teacher would hear you. It's still a solid first guess rather than a verdict. And voice types are for choirs and casting directors anyway; nobody's stopping you singing whatever you like.
How this test measures your voice
Under the hood, this test uses the McLeod Pitch Method, the same maths behind serious tuning software, analysing your voice dozens of times per second, with a clarity gate so it only counts moments when it's genuinely confident about the pitch. It hears in cents (hundredths of a semitone), then rounds your result to the nearest note, because telling you your low end is “E2 minus 14 cents” would be theatre, not measurement.
The classic failure of online range tests is the octave error: a detector hearing a harmonic and cheerfully reporting a note an octave off, which is how people end up with five-octave results they can't reproduce. We clamp detection to plausible singing range and re-check anything extraordinary before we show it to you.
One more thing, because it matters: your audio is analysed on your device, in your browser. It is never recorded, never uploaded, never stored. There is no server listening.
Frequently asked questions
How accurate is this vocal range test?
The pitch detection itself is accurate to within a few cents, far finer than the semitone we round to (you can watch the same engine track your voice live). The honest limits are physical: a laptop mic in a noisy room, or a note sung too quietly, can smudge a reading. That's why we ask for held, steady notes and double-check anything extraordinary before showing it. If a result surprises you, run the test again somewhere quiet: two runs that agree are a result you can trust.
What is the average vocal range?
Around one and a half to two octaves for untrained singers, and two to three for trained ones. If you measured below that, it isn't a ceiling: range edges respond quickly to regular practice, which is rather the point of the trainer at the top of this page.
What voice type am I: soprano, alto, tenor or bass?
Sing the test above and we'll estimate it from your range. Broadly: sopranos sit around C4–C6, mezzo-sopranos A3–A5, altos F3–F5, tenors C3–C5, baritones A2–A4 and basses E2–E4. But type is decided by where your voice is comfortable and how it sounds, not just your outer notes, so treat any test's answer, including ours, as a first guess rather than a verdict.
What is tessitura, and does it matter more than range?
Tessitura is where your voice sits most comfortably for long stretches, as opposed to the extreme notes it can just reach. For classifying a voice it matters more than raw range: two people with the same low and high notes but different comfortable centres are often different types. That's why the test asks for a third, most-comfortable note and weighs it alongside your range.
Can I expand my vocal range?
Yes. The edges of your range are the trainable part: most people add two to four semitones within a few weeks of consistent, gentle practice, and more over months. The one rule: never push through pain or strain. A bigger range built on force is a range you'll lose.
Do falsetto and head voice count in my vocal range?
For practical purposes, yes: count any note you can sing on pitch, on purpose, repeatably. This test measures your full comfortable range, head voice included. Traditional voice-type classification leans on your full (chest) voice, which is one reason different tests can label the same singer differently.
Which famous singer has the biggest vocal range?
Among reliably documented ranges, Mariah Carey's roughly F2–G7, over five octaves, is the usual answer, with Axl Rose's span often cited as even wider and Prince and Minnie Riperton not far behind at the top. A grain of salt with all of these: they're recorded extremes across whole careers, not notes anyone sings comfortably on demand.
Why do different vocal range tests give me different results?
Four honest reasons: detection quality varies wildly (octave errors are rampant), tests disagree on whether falsetto counts, your voice changes with warm-up and time of day, and mic and room conditions differ. Warm up, find a quiet spot, and trust the test that double-checks its outliers over the one that flatters you.