# What type of voice am I?



## president83 (Jul 12, 2008)

Hello,

I have been singing for 5 years now but I am still not sure what voice I am. My first teacher thought I was Tenor, although I cant sing high at all...
My present teacher tells me I am a lyric baritone. But baritones must be able to sing up to high G I think, and I cant sing that high at the moment.. but I certainly don't sound like a bass!

Can you please tell me what you think? And how did you improve your high register when you were still learning?

Here are two examples from my singing from last december. I am not very used to sing with piano this is why I am sometimes not together with the pianist..






:tiphat:


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## frakli (May 29, 2012)

Hello!

I searched information on the same topic you asked about here. You have a very beautiful voice in my opinion, but you lack a good stabile breathing technique and are because of that singing out of tune at times.

Your voice reminds me of my own. It sounds like a tenorish baritone, that should sing high easily, but can't. Mine is very tenor-like but the highest note I can sing in a performance is F and all above that is falsetto or screaming. I'm very frustrated to get over my passaggio and to discover whether i'm a high baritone or a tenor.

Singers and teachers say to me that I am a high baritone and shouldn't try to sing tenor by force, and of course I think the same. The other half of those people say that I definitely will be a tenor some day. I often feel that neither of them are right, that I am doomed to sing within a range of 1 and a half octave.. 

What I suggest to you is to find a good teacher to work your voice with. I believe that one can only sing past the passaggio with the right breathing technique which allows a free throat. I myself don't know how to do it YET, but will discover it within the years. People say that if you don't feel any development in your voice in 6 moths of training you should change the teacher despite of how kind person he or she is. Singing with a kind teacher isn't enough, the teacher has to have something for YOU to be worth paying to.

Good luck in your journey to the high register!


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## president83 (Jul 12, 2008)

Hi Frakli,
thanks for your comments!
So you think it is the breathing which is the problem? Do I need to support the high notes more in order not to scream them? I thought it had something to do with transition from chest to head voice and not forcing the chest voice up.. but that's theory, in practice you just have to sing..



frakli said:


> Hello!
> 
> Your voice reminds me of my own. It sounds like a tenorish baritone, that should sing high easily, but can't. Mine is very tenor-like but the highest note I can sing in a performance is F and all above that is falsetto or screaming. I'm very frustrated to get over my passaggio and to discover whether i'm a high baritone or a tenor.


Your quite lucky, mine stops already at E.. at least with a goof F in your voice, you can still sing a wide variety of pieces. I curently have a good teacher, at least he is a professional opera singer so he knows what singing is about. I realise I wasted so much time with my old teacher although she was not completely useless but it was really not worth staying with her for 3 years..

Good luck for you too and I hope you will soon find out what is your best range to sing!


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## vlncll (May 9, 2013)

Hello!

I’m a 21 years old violinist, and never had any training in singing, I just sing for fun and was very upset that when humming my favorite instrumental oe opera passages I always had to “adapt” some notes that I couldn’t hit. String players are often encouraged to sing music passages with their best emulations of a full operatic voice to define choices about phrasing. After a long time trying to figure out my vocal type, I finally realized I was mistaken all the time: whenever I tried to test myself with a piano I sung one octave higher when going lower on the piano, and one octave lower when going higher. I could easily tell if others were out of tune, but not myself. Yesterday, I did it very calmly and finally figured out my tessitura, but still not my type.

I have a very small range of comfort, but I think that might improve with time. On the lower side, I could easily hit F2, E2 was not as easy. D2 was impossible.

On the upper side, F3 was nice, but everything from F3 to C4 was already a little bit uncomfortable for a full singing voice.

Given my personality, I never thought of myself as a bass or a bass-barytone! I usually speak around the highest part of my comfort zone, and I’m not a loud person, so is not my singing. I always thought I just had a “weak voice”. Surprisingly, I find it easier to sing the low parts of a song.

Can someone please help me in defining what type of voice I have?


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## Alfredoz (Apr 8, 2014)

Hi, could you post an audio recording of yourself vocalizing on ''Ah''? Thank you


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

Surely baritones don't _have_ to be able to sing to high G? Isn't that just a sort of generalisation?


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