Vocal Range Chart Female

Below I have embedded this interactive widget which chart the typical range for female voice. The colours represent the range of each voice type, from highest (lightest) colouratura soprano right through to the lowest contralto (darkest). The aim is to provide an opportunity to listen to boundaries of each voice type as well as see how they intersect.

It works with a mouse or trackpad but equally with your computer keyboard: you can click on and move around.

How to Use the Voice Chart

As you can see from the interactive widget above, there is horizontal bars showing each category of voices on the main visual space. These bars line up along the top of the chart on an axis of pitch. This means notes further to the left represent pitches that are lower while those further to the right is higher. The length of each bar indicate how far across the range of notes that vocal type tends to cover whereas its position along the pitch axis tell you immediately where that voice type lie within the spectrum of music.

Clicking on each of these voice bars will trigger an audio cue where you’ll hear both the lower and upper note in that range. You can begin to get an idea of how far apart those extreme pitches is from one another. By clicking through the bars in succession, you could of listen out for differences between, say, a dramatic soprano and a lyric soprano.

Alternatively, you can use the Tab key on your keyboard to cycle through each of the voice options available. The Tab key will jump from each interactive element, so when it’s focused on a voice bar, pressing either the Space bar or Enter will start playing that audio. This is good for those who don’t wish to move their hand off keyboard while exploring the chart.

Near the top right of control bar is a volume slider. This controls the master volume on the played audio. If the notes are too loud for where you’re listening, then slide the volume down using the slider. If you want to hear them better, slide the volume up.

The help button located in the header area is titled How to play. When you click on it a brief overlay appear explaining the voice types and the pitch axis. This gives you a handy reminder of how the chart is structured and what each bar indicates. Clicking it again hides the help text and clears the screen to show just the chart.

Clicking fullscreen will make the widget fill your screen. If you’re using this in a studio environment or maybe a class room where they need to see the chart from across the room, this might be for you. The bars is bigger and more readable in fullscreen mode. Click the button again and it will go back to normal size on the page.

If you choose a voice from the list, notice how below the control it shows some text which lists what voice type it is plus the lowest note and highest note that voice will sing. This shows how many octave are between them to give you an accurate measure of range. You could see for instance that a coloratura soprano would cover quite a lot of ground whereas a contralto perhaps only around two octaves.

Here you can see whether the song’s melody stays in one of those voice ranges or not. It might contain notes in the bars that are simply beyond the range of that voice. Where the bars cross over each other, they indicate areas where two voices has similar ranges. These tend to be the places where a singer feels most at home and connects best.

Listen to some examples of the dramatic sub-types in comparison with the lyric sub-types. As you can hear, they tend to have a slightly lower range as it is richly heavier to produce for these types of roles. The chart reduces these categories down to an easy-to-see visual (and hear) distinction.

To orient yourself, use the pitch axis labels at the top. The central note (called middle C) is labelled C4. From here you can follow where each bar sits in relation to the middle C. This will help you check where the bars are in terms of musical pitch, bridging the gap from the abstract bars to actual pitch.

Experiment with various voices. It is good practice for building up your ear. If you listen to the top and bottom of the range at once then you hear just how far we can extend our voices. This in turn give you a deeper understanding of how technically challenging singing are for each singer. Because this is an interactive chart, it makes this sort of learning so much more enjoyable.

Work through the range of each of these female voice types at a pace that suits you. You can explore them in whatever order you like and there’s no correct way to try them out. Remember to adjust the volume so that you feel comfortabley listening to it.

Once you know how the controls work, you will be able to answer the question about suitable voices quite easily. Click on the bars and listen for yourself what the difference sound like.