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BASS, BARITONE OR TENOR?

Hello everybody! So I've been singing for about two years now. I've always loved singing, was just afraid of doing it in public. But I practiced, and it turns out I have one hell of a voice! Literally. I'm confused and it's making my life miserable! I've always had a low talking voice, up until this year where I started music lessons. My range extended, and it affected my talking voice. I now sound higher. At the beginning of last school semester, I took choir classes. When the teacher took our range, I was put in the bass section. And I sung there comfortably for the remainder of the semester. However, when I started taking private lessons with the same teacher, she got me baritone sheet music and we practiced on that, and I had no trouble hitting the highest notes of the range. Now, my favorite singer is Beyoncé. I always listen and sing to her songs. She also helped me develop my breath because she sings like a goddess while running and jumping and dancing on the stage like a deflating balloon. Because I always practice to her videos, I managed to develop my lungs and I have a lot of breath, and my singing technique improved. Keep in mind I've been doing this since 10th grade; and I'm a college freshman now. Today, I was singing, still going on thinking that I'm a bass-baritone. Because I was bored, I started singing more Beyoncé songs. For some reason, I chose to sing Listen. The highest note in Listen is a F#5. The note comes in towards the end when she belts out "complete". I belted out the note, but it turned out flat and I instead hit a F5 (La4). The reason I know this? I was recording myself and the machine has a vocal scale in which it records the frequencies of the input (my voice in this case), and it corresponded to a La4; which is an F5. Isn't that supposed to be waaaaay out of my range? At the beginning of the semester last year, I couldn't even hit a middle C (C4), because it was too high. So now I'm wondering, what category do I fit in? Because I can sing these high notes, I just don't feel too comfortable singing them all the time. What do I do? Do I continue practicing them or do I stop? I felt like I was putting pressure on my voice while singing that last part, but managed to hit it. I could still go on, I just did not want to strain it too hard. What do I do? Any advice on how to develop my range safely? Thanks :)

Comments

  • JonasFinnLarssonJonasFinnLarsson Pro Posts: 200
    A tip i've gotten is that it is more important to work with the voice you have and make it sound really awesome and easy, comfortable etc. etc. Thats better then trying to push for more range all the time.
  • highmtnhighmtn Administrator, Moderator, Enrolled, Pro, 3.0 Streaming Posts: 15,354
    It all depends on what range you want to sing in. Higher just for the sake of high notes may be beyond the area where your voice sounds the best. If your voice sounds the best at F5, then you should be doing exercises that include that range, and above if you want to sing well on an F5.

    It is possible to have a very wide range, and it is also possible to train to go beyond your present limitations and to extend your range. It just takes training and patience.
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