Vocal range test

How to test your vocal range

1. Tap Start the test and allow the microphone. Sit somewhere quiet and hold the phone or laptop about an arm's length away, or closer for low notes.
2. Sing an easy “ah” and slide down slowly. Wherever you can still hold a clear, steady note for half a second, it counts; the bar under the note name fills while you hold. Keep going down until it is no longer comfortable.
3. Tap Next: highest note, then do the same going up: slide up and hold the highest notes you can sing cleanly, in any register, without straining.
4. Tap Finish. Your range appears in note names and octaves, drawn on the keyboard over the usual voice-type ranges, and is saved on this device with today's date.
5. Not sure you are on a note? Tap that key on the keyboard to hear it, then sing it back. The page stops listening while the reference note plays, so the speaker never counts as your voice.

How it hears the note

The page reads 2,048 samples from the microphone about 30 times a second and runs the YIN pitch detector on them (de Cheveigné and Kawahara, 2002): it compares the sound with copies of itself shifted by every period between 1/1,400 s and 1/55 s, and the first shift where the sound repeats almost exactly gives the frequency. Taking the first good repeat is what stops it from reading a note an octave too high or low, a common fault of simpler tuners on voices rich in overtones. Sound that is too quiet, or that never repeats cleanly (breath, hiss, room noise), gives no note at all.

The frequency is then named in scientific pitch notation, where middle C is C4 at 261.63 Hz and A4 is 440 Hz. Each octave doubles the frequency, and each of its 12 semitones multiplies it by 2^1/12 (about 1.0595). A cent is a hundredth of a semitone, so “A4 +12 cents” is 443 Hz. The microphone is opened with echo cancellation, noise suppression and automatic gain control switched off, because those phone-call filters bend and gate a sung note and would make the reading less honest.

The half-second rule. A note counts once every reading stays within 60 cents of where you started it, for 0.5 s, with no gap longer than 0.15 s. The counted note is the semitone nearest the middle of those readings. So a crack, a scoop or a squeak that lasts 0.3 s never becomes your highest note, while a note you can actually sustain does.

A worked example. If your lowest held note is E2 (82.4 Hz) and your highest is A4 (440 Hz), that is 29 semitones: 2 octaves and 5 semitones, or 2.4 octaves. On the keyboard that covers the whole bass bar (E2–E4) and the whole baritone bar (A2–A4), each with 5 semitones to spare, so by range alone the two are equally close and the page names both. Timbre is what tells them apart.

The voice-type ranges

The bars under the keyboard are the usual ranges of the seven major voice types: bass E2–E4, baritone A2–A4, tenor C3–C5, countertenor E3–E5, alto (contralto) F3–F5, mezzo-soprano A3–A5 and soprano C4–C6. They are read in the build from the keyboard figures of Wikipedia's Voice type article, which cites McKinney and Boldrey, and the date they were fetched is shown under the keyboard. The closest match is the type whose range overlaps yours most, counted in semitones shared over semitones covered by either; when that is level, the type whose middle is nearer yours wins, and an exact tie names both.

What it cannot do

• Voice type depends on timbre, weight, where your voice is comfortable most of the time (tessitura) and where it changes gear, not on range alone. The match here uses range only, so it is a rough guide, not a classification; a singing teacher listens for much more.
• Phone and laptop microphones often pick up little of the lowest notes, and a fan, traffic or music in a noisy room can drown them, so your low end may read higher than it really is. A headset microphone and a quiet room help.
• It cannot tell chest voice from falsetto or whistle register, or your voice from an instrument: any steady note it hears for half a second counts. It listens from 55 Hz (A1) to 1,400 Hz (about F6), so notes outside that are not read.
• It gives no singing-health advice. Stop if it hurts.
• Your saved results (lowest note, highest note and date) stay in this browser only. Clearing your browser data, or a private window closing, deletes them, and they do not follow you to another device.

Privacy

The microphone is only opened when you tap Start, and it is closed when you finish or tap Stop. The sound is analysed inside this page, a few thousand samples at a time, and thrown away: nothing is recorded, uploaded or sent. The page counts an anonymous page view and the fixed words vocal-start and vocal-result, never a note, frequency or result.

Questions

Is this vocal range test free and online?

Yes. It runs in your web browser on a phone or computer with no app, account or payment. The microphone is read inside the page; nothing is recorded, stored or sent anywhere, and only your finished results (two note names and a date) are kept, on your own device.

What is the typical vocal range of a female voice?

The usual classical figures are soprano C4–C6, mezzo-soprano A3–A5 and alto (contralto) F3–F5, from the Voice type article above. These are typical ranges, not limits: the same article says solo singers are classified more by where the voice is comfortable and by its colour than by range.

What is the typical vocal range of a male voice?

The usual figures are bass E2–E4, baritone A2–A4, tenor C3–C5 and countertenor E3–E5 (mostly in falsetto). The same source calls baritone the most common male voice.

How do I find my vocal range with a piano?

Tap a key on the keyboard above to hear it, sing it back, and the readout tells you which note you are actually singing and how many cents off. Then move down key by key to your lowest comfortable note and up to your highest. With a real piano the method is the same, but this page also checks whether you hit the note.

Why does it not show my lowest notes?

Low notes are quiet, many phone and laptop microphones pick up little of them, and a fan, traffic or music in the room can cover them. Try a headset microphone, a quieter room, the phone closer to your mouth, and hold the note a little longer.