5,500 songs by vocal range (and find yours!)
By
Last updated Wondering why some songs are easy to sing while others are almost impossible?
It’s because each song is written for a specific voice, one that’s capable of reaching a certain low note and a certain high note.
Using this guide, you’ll identify your own vocal range and voice type then choose from over 5,500 songs from more than 300 artists that we’ve categorised by voice type.
Section list
Jump to a section of this page:
What is a vocal range?
A vocal range is simply the range of notes that a vocalist can sing from the very lowest to the very highest.
What is a voice type?
A voice type is a group of voices that have similar vocal ranges and transition points. The three most common voice types for females are soprano, mezzo-soprano and contralto, while the three common male voice types are tenor, baritone and bass.
Identifying your vocal range and voice type
Find yours with an app
Some people will want to understand the theory while others just want a quick and easy answer. This method is for the latter. There’s a handy and free app that will do the heavy lifting for you on either iPhone or Android.
We’re not affiliated with this app, we just think it does a great job. Here’s the link for Android and here’s the link for Apple iOS.
Just install the app and then sing your lowest note all the way up to your highest note (but don’t go right into falsetto, stay in chest voice), and it will tell you your vocal range and voice type.
Now you can skip the theory (if you wish), find your voice type and start browsing hundreds of matching songs!
Find yours using music theory and a piano
To understand what a vocal range is in terms of music theory, we need to touch on a few basics.
The entire musical scale is just 12 notes repeated in lower and higher pitches called octaves. The best way to visualise this is by thinking of a piano. The white keys on a piano are the seven notes A, B, C, D, E, F and G, and the remaining five notes in the musical scale are the black keys which are sharps or flats.
To write down a note without the musical stave (staff in the UK) it’s necessary to provide both the name of the note and its octave. To achieve this a number is added at the end of the note to pinpoint the position of its octave on a piano.
The first note on a piano is A and its octave has been given the number zero. So, as you can see in the diagram below, that first A note is A0 and the next repetition of A is labeled A1.
If you have a piano, sing your lowest note and find that same note on the piano and write down its name. After doing the same for your highest singing note (not including falsetto) you’ll be able to use our definitions below to identify your voice type and starting looking through hundreds of matching songs.
Choose from over 5,500 songs
We’ve classified over 5,500 songs from more than 300 artists by voice type so you can quickly choose from a list of songs that you’ll be able to sing. Simply find your voice type below and follow the link through to our matching list of songs.
Alternatively, check out our definitive list of the 371 best karaoke songs of all time which are all classified by voice type.
Female voice types
Soprano
The soprano is the highest of the three most common female voice types.Â
Vocal range: approximately C4 to C6.
Three famous sopranos: Mariah Carey, Celine Dion and Sarah Brightman.
Mezzo-Soprano
Mezzo-Soprano or mezzo is the female voice type between soprano and contralto.
Vocal range: approximately A3 to A5.
Three famous mezzo-sopranos: Lady Gaga, Rihanna and Whitney Houston.
Contralto
Contralto is the lowest of the common female voice types.
Vocal range: approximately F3 to F5.
Three famous mezzo-sopranos: Tracy Chapman, Annie Lennox and Toni Braxton.
Male voice types
Tenor
The tenor classification is the highest of the common male voice types.
Vocal range: approximately C3 to C5.
Three famous tenors: Justin Timberlake, Ed Sheeran and Freddie Mercury.
Baritone
Baritone is the most common male voice type. It’s in between tenor and bass.
Vocal range: approximately A2 to A4.
Three famous tenors: Elvis Presley, John Legend and Eddie Vedder.
Bass
Bass singers are capable of singing at the lowest of the male registers.
Vocal range: approximately E2 to E4.
Three famous tenors: Louis Armstrong, Leonard Cohen and Barry White.
Final thoughts on voice types and vocal ranges
Now you know your voice type and your vocal range. Singing, in all its forms, will be far easier from this moment forward.
We’ll leave you with one last tip. You don’t need to be confined to songs that match your voice type. Instead, you can change the key of songs for other voice types to make them the right range for you.
Do you have something to add? Or would you just like to say hello? Please leave us a comment below.
Image credits
Annie Lennox via Flickr
Adele creative commons
Rihanna via Flickr
John Legend via Flickr
All other images are in the public domain.
I can sing as high as what was described as “High F”. Is High F the same as F6? I know High C is C6 and singing to that is very comfortable for me, but F6 for me is very reachable. I have been told I am coloratura. I thought I was soprano per se. Thank you.
Hi Diane. Yes high F is the same as F6. The truth is vocal ranges don’t actually tend to sit perfectly in the voice types that are used to classify singers. It may be you are mostly like one voice type but are also able to reach higher, if that’s the case then that’s a bonus!
I’m a bass voice and can hit a C4 I’m 46 and a male
Nice.
What vocal type am I if my tessitura is g3 to f5? Am I an alto, as I thought I was, because my vocal range is actually around f3 to ab5. Thank you! (I’m probably a contralto, just checking for performances)
Yeah, contralto. All the best.
my vocal range is from a d5 to a f6 what vocal type am i?
Hi Kennadee. Hmm… well you’ve got the upper side of the Soprano range, but on the face of it are lacking the lower end. It suggests to me that there’s more exploration of your voice to go as your range should be wider than that. Good luck!
is it normal if i can sing comfortably at any vocal exercises/vowels (and not only) to about D-E6 comfortably, and with pushing to F6, but at songs i have problems with singing like E5 (it sounds bad most of the times). Why’s that?
There are a number of reasons this could be and it’s hard to know without hearing you sing. But I suspect it might be down to one of the following areas: (a) transitioning from one vowel sound to another, songs will test you there in a way that exercises won’t. (b) the song lyrics are challenging you to produce a vowel sound that you’re less used to from practise. (c) the particular entry to the note is more challenging than in the practise environment (faster? Later in the breath?). Hope that helps.
What should I sing if I’m female, and my range is C3 to B6?
Hi Katherine. Well, with a larger range like that you have more options! Sounds like you’re not going to be able to quite hit the high notes of traditional Soprano songs, but will have a strong ability to sing Mezzo-Soprano and then rise higher than normal for those songs. So I’d be thinking more towards Mezzo Soprano but with the view to see what you can add by hitting those higher notes too. Hope that helps!
Hi! I’m a singer who’s very comfortable belting in my chest voice and I’m trying to find songs for a show? I can sing E3 to B4 when I’m my chest voice.
OK, so you can belt in chest and can I assume you can sing in your head voice as well, just not belting? If this is the case, and since you’re doing this for a show, I’d recommend looking for singers who follow a similar method to that. Some of Adele’s songs do this for instance. Once you find them, if they’re not in your register, transpose the song so it’s in the right key for you. Good luck!
Not counting vocal fry and subharmonics, my lowest chest note is D#2 which is half a note lower than the suggested bass E2, which makes me a bass by approximation which doesn’t make sense to me. Do traditional bass choir singers and such not go below E2? Everyone and their mother on YouTube who are basso profundo or anything similar does F1 in their chest which feels more like a bass, while C2-C4 is baritone.
Given my chest range of D#2 – C4 what kind of music should I sing? My favorite songs such as “Do Not Reject Me in My Old Age” by Chesnokov, sung by Changmin Kim, Vladmir Miller, etc, are all sung from C2 down to Gb1 which I can’t do.
Hi Erik. Thanks for your comment. The generally accepted low note for a typical male bass singer is E2. Do bass singers in choirs go below that? Yes, very often trained bass singers will be able to sing lower.
As to what kind of music you should sing, my answer is anything that’s comfortable. With the tech we all have so cheaply now you can sing any song that covers a range fitting to yours in terms of note count, you would just need to transpose (change the key) of the piece. For instance, you will find plenty of famous songs by tenors that stay within the range of your voice in terms of note count. By transposing it into your key, it will be perfect for you too. This means you can find many interesting songs and not be type-cast into ones originally written for bass voices.
So my range shows to be F2 to A2, comfortably. That seems pretty narrow. Any suggestions of what I can sing in this narrow range? I just want to be able to do one or two songs so I’m not the only one not participating in Karaoke night.
Hi Derrick. Hmm… well, if it’s just for Karaoke night, you’re probably best to pick a song from the bass singers list, or find a low baritone song, then do the old trick of changing higher notes for lower ones and lower notes for higher, so you stay within your range. With karaoke, it’s all about attitude and having fun anyway! Beyond karaoke though, singing tuition would help you learn to sing across a wider note range, opening up more possibilities for you. Good luck.