What, in your experience, (or, hey, if you can find any decent research on the subject that won’t cost me $20 to access) is the vocal range where you think “everyone” (or, say, 95% of people) can sing without warmup or preparation, without causing themselves physical pain - totally on-spec.
The context for this, btw is church music - mixed group of people, mostly adults.
There seems to be very little accessible research that I can find. Found one cite here that says an average female range is E3 to F5 … I can’t imagine that’s un-warmed-up random chick on the street. And then, contrariwise this lot has even the contralto section starting no lower than a G3, which seems pretty high to me for an absolute-lowest-note.
Well, if you’re talking about specific frequencies that are within everyone’s range, A3-C#4 is roughly the spot where all four ‘traditional’ choral vocal ranges should all be able to hit.
If you’re ok with octave unisons, then songs in the keys of D or E generally allow men and women to both sing melodies without working too hard, depending on the melody, of course; men and women will generally have a full octave in that range, plus a third above and a fifth below.
Yep Eonwe has it about right. I would take a congregation to a D, but not below the A.
There are some modern songs that really stretch (big octave jumps and stuff) that are really hard to pitch for a congregation - if you get it to work for the guys, it’s impossible for the women, and vice versa. No middle ground.