Types of Voices Depending on Their Tone
In musical theater and opera, the voice tone of a person matters a lot. Studies reveal that there are almost eight unique voice tones out of which three are defined for females and four for the males. Usually, the vocal range of human beings can stretch for around seven octaves. Those who are interested in stepping into the music industry or are interested to learn singing may need to know more about the vocal tones. Well, it includes many important details, and you may have to undergo some in-depth study. However, this article can provide you some essential insights in this direction.
Main aspects of human voice tones:
Professional opera singers make use of the Fach system to define the voice tones. They also study different vocal types to understand different characteristics of opera so that adequate decisions can be taken during auditions. There are a few important variables of the Fach system that we have listed below to boost your understanding about voices and their tones:
- Vocal Range:
The vocal range is the most important indicator to decide the type of singer. When male singers have a high voice, they are better classified as countertenor or simply tenor. Whereas the high voice of female singers is defined as Soprano. When you are well aware of your vocal range, it becomes easier to exercise the right notes during training and while singing. In fact, it is damaging to train wrong notes; especially, the ones that are too high to our voice. In general, there are six main types of vocal ranges; the list includes mezzo-soprano, soprano, tenor, contralto, bass, and baritone.
- Tessitura:
It is better defined as vocal strength or the vocal range that our voice finds most comfortable and sounds best. It is also called as the sweet voice in terms of some professional vocal instructors. Knowing the right voice strength may help you to understand the type of voice. For instance, the soprano is more likely to have a stronger head voice, and the bass singers use to have a stronger middle voice.
- Transitions:
You might have noticed that many times singers need to change their voice so that they can hit the higher notes. For some people, it is more like changing gears while riding a car on the road. It is important to be more careful about at what point this change must occur so that the actual tone doesn’t get spoiled. The exact spot where changes are made is named as transition spot, and it is the place where lower voice gets converted into a higher voice.
- Weight and Size:
One more important factor for defining your voice type is considered as the weight of the voice. A singer may have a rich, deep voice, or a few others may have a brighter or lighter voice. Other than this, the instructors may also scale your voice between 1 to 10. This ranking is based on how much sound your voice produces when you are singing comfortably.
Other than this, you may need to consider few essential factors such as age, experience, physical qualities, timbre, and speech level of the individual.
Type of voice and their tones:
There are so many types of voices for males and females; few of them are listed below to update your knowledge base:
Soprano:
There are so many types of Soprano’s voice. The most famous one is lyric coloratura soprano; it is basically an agile, high, and bright voice type that leads to a warm and full timbre tone. The dramatic coloratura soprano is a very flexible type of voice tone that is produced with a dramatic tone and has incredible power. On the other side, Lyric soprano is basically divided between full lyric sopranos and light lyric sopranos; both of them follow warm tones. Dramatic soprano has a deep, rich voice with lighter tones and emotive sense. Another name in the list is character soprano that leads to a theatrical feel with an airy and bright voice.
Contralto:
The first most name in this list is coloratura contralto that ensures agile and light tones, but it is originated from some rare voices. Lyric contralto is airy and light in terms of timber; it lacks the higher ranges. The last type in this category is dramatic contralto; it is basically a powerhouse and is considered as the lowest type of vocal among women with the heaviest tone.
Tenor:
The high tenor voice types are common among males, and it features the highest tessitura. On the other side, the light tenor is observed in an agile voice type, and these people can follow very difficult vocal changes with ease. The lyric tenor is basically a warm and soft voice type that features full timber, whereas dramatic tenor pushes an incredible amount of power in the voice. Another type of male voice in the list is character tenor, and it is almost the same as the soprano that we have discussed earlier. The baritone tenor, on the other side, is very low and heavy.
Baritone:
Lyric Baritone comes with incredible agility and light timbre. The cavalier baritone has warm tones, and it maintains higher flexibility levels. Dramatic baritone provides full timber and is known for the dark quality. The bass-baritone is able to reach up to the extensive register.
Bass:
Lyric bass is probably the lightest bass in the list of voice types, and it comes with good agility. The acting bass is another common voice type with richer tones. Serious bass is a name given to the deep, powerful, dark, and mature tones, whereas low bass defines a rare type of voice with the lowest voice range.
There are plenty of things to know about voice types, and the in-depth details are always essential for a professional singer. In general, if you know about the voice types and know how to improve tones, it becomes easier to isolate your voice among other competitors in the industry.
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