Vocal classification of popular singers -- possible?

Cafe Society
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Isn’t it possible to speak of a given artist’s vocal range within the soprano-to-bass gamut? Even if that artist is not a theatrical, choral or operatic singer?

Mostly as an academic exercise, I am trying to come up with a demonstrative, far-from-comprehensive list of popular singers – both male and female --classified by their vocal ranges. Anyone out there who may know a lot about voice training and the like may feel free to add further examples or comment on the classifications I put forth, as I am pretty well untrained in this field.
SOPRANO: It seems some female singers can sing in this range situationally – Mariah Carey, for example. But I am hard-pressed to think of any popular artists who sing in this range by default. Maybe Minnie Ripperton (Lovin’ You) or Dolly Parton?

MEZZO-SOPRANO: Maybe Stephanie Mills, Gwen Stefani, Belinda Carlilse, Faith Hill and Jewel fit here? The higher female ranges seem to be the hardest to distinguish between for me.

ALTO (CONTRALTO): It seems to my ear that alto is by far the most common range of popular female singers – Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Toni Braxton, Annie Lennox,and Grace Slick, among hordes of others.

TREBLE: Michael Jackson and Donnie Osmond, as children, sang in this range.

COUNTERTENOR: Smokie Robinson’s range extended this high, I’m pretty sure – though he seemed to be adept singing in the tenor range as well. I wouldn’t think his singing on Tears of a Clown, for example, would be considered falsetto.

I believe Michael Jackson’s range, as an adult, overlaps the tenor and countertenor ranges. Maybe Andy Gibb’s, too (I Just Wanna Be Your Everything). El DeBarge seems to fit here, as well. A more obscure example of a countertenor would be one-hit-wonder Jermaine Stewart (We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off).

TENOR: Like alto does among female singers, this range seems to predominate among popular male singers. James Taylor, Marvin Gaye, Hank Williams, Jr., Phil Collins, Al Green, Paul McCartney, Vince Gill, Michael Stipe, and Sting, among many others, seem to be clear examples.

BARITONE: I’ve read that this is the most common male range in the general population. However, I think baritone takes a distant second to tenor in terms of its commonality among male singers. My ear would reckon as baritones Mark Knopfler, Ringo Starr, Darryl Hall, Chris Rea (Fool If You Think It’s Over), Clay Walker, Eddie Rabbit, and Neil Diamond.

BASS: Seems to be especially rare in popular music, aside from group harmonizers like Melvin Franklin of the Temptations and Richard Sterban The Oak Ridge Boys. Still, a few basses can be scared up, most notable Barry White, Rick Astley, and the Righteous Brothers’ Bill Medley. I can’t decide where Johnny Cash falls between baritone and bass (maybe he overlaps).

FALSETTO: More of an effect rather than a vocal range. Frankie Valli, Harry Wayne Casey of K.C. & the Sunshine Band, Leo Sayer, and Barry Gibb have made famous use of falsetto singing.

…

Any obvious omissions (I’m sure there are many)? Any more clear, better examples of a given range?

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While it’s very true that a lot of female pop songs are in the mezzo-soprano/alto range, very few women are “true” altos. Most fall into the soprano/mezzo range. (Or at least, that’s what several choir directors told me.)

In fact, I’d wager Celine Dion is a mezzo.

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Interesting. Thanks for the info, Nocturne.

Anyone else have much to say on this topic? I hope people aren’t thinking this is my homework or my term paper or something :slight_smile: ! Been out of school for many, many moons.

It’s just that I have recently read a short essay explaining the differences between the traditional vocal ranges, using mainly opera singers as examples. I was trying to think up some examples of the various vocal ranges from music I am more familiar with.

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A great example of a bass would be Brad Roberts from Crash Test Dummies.
Also, a slight nitpick, I think that in fact when you say baritone takes a distant second to tenors in sheer numbers, I’d say it’s the opposite, at least in the classical sense. I may be wrong, but I believe that for a true classical tenor, a G or an A should be solid all the time, and not a stretch. That’s tough to do, especially when you still want to sound like rock and roll, and you don’t hear many people singing around those notes except for big dramatic spots (where they’re really belting) or in falsetto.

In the same way that Nocturne mentions that most female singers are not “true” altos, the same is true for most guys not being “true” tenors. Most choral music though, is written for SATB or some combination of those four (soprano, alto, tenor, bass), which might lead you to think that most everyone must fall into one of those categories, but it’s one thing to sing the tenor part in a choral arrangement, and the other to sing a tenor solo.

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Yep! Thanks!

This must be why a “true classical tenor” is such a big deal in opera/theater circles – they apparently don’t grow on trees.

To my ear, a lot of male pop/rock/soul singers seem to be singing in what I previously thought of as an indeterminate “high” male voice. Maybe some of the guys I mentioned above as tenors are really natural baritone singers who happen to be able to reach the lower tenor range if their songs happen to call for them.

The essay I read explained more than the four SATB ranges – they explained mezzo-soprao and baritone as well. So I’ve been trying to figure out, for kicks, into which of the six ranges do various popular singers fall.

Nocturne turned me on to the idea of a singer purposely belting out an entire song out of their natural range, simply to accomodate the way the song is written (?). Rock-&-roll and soul/R&B, especially, seems forgiving of vocal imperfections resulting from singing out of range. Heck, 60s- and 70s-style soul music even seems to actually use voice-cracking and such as a technique of emotional delivery.

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You’ve made my brain kick in … I bet I can add Tears for Fears’ Roland Orzabal to the list of basses.

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Yeah, you know, it’s really amazing how something can sound “high” even when it isn’t, or likewise sound low, just by the tone of the singer. As someone who sings a lot of rock/pop tunes for kicks (open mike nights and such), I often have been surprised at how much lower some notes are than they sound. I listen to an album, and think, “I could never hit that note,” and then I go to the piano and find it and it turns out to just be a D or E. It’s all in how you make it sound. Timbre of the voice counts for a lot of percieved “highness” and “lowness”, IMO.

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What’s your range, and what songs that you’ve sung make you hit the highest notes?

As of now, the concept of timbre is completely over my head :frowning:

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Cool thread topic!

Just to add another dimension to the discussion:

Vocal range is not the only factor that we singers consider when considering what to “call” ourselves. There are tenors out there with great low notes and basses with great high notes; you see even more overlap in women.

The color (timbre) of the voice – the darkness or lightness, the general sound quality – and the tessitura (the part of the vocal range in which a voice sounds its best and most characteric, and where the singer is most comfortable) are often more telling. Someone with great low notes and a rich, deep vocal timbre is much more likely to sound like a bass to you than someone with great low notes and a lighter, more reedy sound.

Anyhoo… my quick picks

Bass: Barry White!

Baritone: Frank Sinatra

Tenor: John Lennon

Alto/mezzo: Karen Carpenter

Soprano: … … doh! can’t think of anyone.

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Timbre is not all that dificult to grasp really; most simply it’s what makes two notes that are the same pitch sound different. For example, you and I might sing the same note together, but each voice will sound different. Or a piano and a trombone might play the same note, but you probably wouldn’t confuse which was which. That’s timbre.

A good example of timbre in a vocal situation is falsetto. Most male singers have a point in their vocal range where they can choose to either sing falsetto or not. Falsetto will often sound “higher” (that’s subjective there… higher is just how I’m choosing to describe it) than the same note belted out of a chest voice.

Dang it! I knew if I tried to give an example without giving an example I’d be asked for more specifics! I was being ambiguous because at the moment I couldn’t think of any specific songs where that happened, but I clearly remember being in that experience. Let me try to think of one… well, first off, my comfortable range is from the F below middle C to the G an octave and a half above middle C, although too much up on the high notes wears me out. I’ve not ever had any real vocal training, and haven’t quite worked out how to sing at the top of my range consistantly.

I guess a decent example of a song I’ve sung that pushes the top of my vocal range is Baba O’Riley (the Who song, you know… teenage wasteland). Roger Daltry sings pretty high, and it’s tough to mimic him. I can’t really do all the stuff he does, but most of the melody tops out at an E.

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I guess the tessitura of a given singer was what I was getting at in the OP, but didn’t know the name for it. I understand now that a gifted singer of either sex can sing out of their tessitura and make it work.

Singing well out of one’s tessitura must be one of the major things which marks a singer as unusually talented – especially if said singer can accomplish it without vocal training.

Ashcroft, do you think that the soprano candidates mentioned in the OP have tessituras in the soprano range?

…

Eonwe – thanks for the explanation of timbre.

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Oh yeah … a video of that song years ago was the first time I ever saw anyone play bass overhand.

Ambitious choice for an open-mike-type performance – you must have some decent vocal chops.

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As for sopranos, in addition to Dolly Parton and Minnie Riperton, I’d argue for

Maria Muldaur

Julie Andrews (in Victor/Victoria she called herself a mezzo, but if you listen to her early in her career, her voice was pitched higher)

Bernadette Peters

In fact, most of the singers I’m coming up with tend to be better known for their stage/movie work than their recording careers. For whatever reason, I think popular music may favor the singer with a slightly lower range.

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[slight personal hijack]

I think that current events are working against me here, but my screen name isn’t Ashcroft – it’s aschrott. Sorry to be picky about that, but I don’t really want to be associated with the Attorney General.

[/spj]

Back to things at hand…

I think that Mariah Carey’s upper extension on her voice makes her one of the closest candates for a real soprano in pop singing. It’s what we hardcore singer nerds call “whistle register,” which is an area of the female voice even higher than those usually explored in soprano singing. Most other pop females couldn’t even access that in their voices, let alone make interesting use of it in performance. That said, most of her singing is still in the more “belty” low-middle part of her voice. I think that real sustained soprano singing would sound too “straight” in most pop contexts.

Dolly Parton? Not really to my ear, but I haven’t heard a huge amount of her stuff, and I get the impression she’s a lot more versatile than most people think. I’m not familiar with the other person you mentioned.

I agree. It’s an interesting trend in pop music that women with especially low voices tend to be favored in public taste, and men with especially high voices. Somewhat the opposite is true in classical singing, where richness is really valued in the male voice, and the sparkling high stuff in women. Huge generality there, but still a valid contrast I think.

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Bordelond, this is a fascinating topic! :slight_smile: I’ve caught myself trying to put popular singers in SATB classifications many times – no longer am I alone! :smiley:

One observation I’ve made through the years I sang in both community and college choruses is that there are very few people who “fit” nicely in the SATB categories. Vocal ranges can overlap considerably. As Eowne said, one’s place in the SATB realm is determined by the range one can sing comfotably. Sometimes voices have enough of a range that they can also sing another part – alto as high tenor, for example.

Anyhoo, I’ll leave the explanations to Eowne and add my humble little list:

Soprano/Mezzo Soprano - Minnie Riperton, Sarah McLachlan, maybe Celine Dion, Britney Spears (AAACK!)…I’m trying to think of others…

**Alto - ** Mariah Carey (yes, I read that someplace – she also has a 6-octave range, which explains why she sometimes sounds like a soprano), Paula Cole, Carly Simon, the Indigo Girls, Cher, Alicia Keys…

Tenor - Prince, Michael Jackson, Phil Collins, maybe Dave Matthews…hmmm…

Bass/Baritone - Elton John, Billy Joel, Paul McCartney, Barry White (the epitome of bass, IMHO)…hmmm…

pauses to reflect if she has any more classifications…

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Nope, that’s why I’m singing open mike and not getting paid :smiley:

A possible addition to the tenor list: Art Garfunkel. He seems to be right up there, with a much more clear voice than a lot of other male singers.

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Yikes :eek:

What a maroon I am! Aschrott, please accept my humble apology. My pore ole eyes definitely did me wrong there.

Ha! As in “dog whistle”? (tee-hee)

I really had to reach for soprano examples. I thought Dolly Parton because of her speaking voice, actually – which is probably a big no-no. Still, songs like Here You Come Again sound pretty high.

I bet you know that song Loving You by Minnie Ripperton:

Have you seen that very recent VISA commercial set at a Steelers game where the PA plays Loving You as the team is coming out of the huddle? Then Jerome Bettis turns his head like “WTF?” Then the stadium AV guy tries to buy “Who Let The Dogs Out” with a check … but d’oh! No ID! He should have used his VISA Checkcard!

Also, a first-season episode of South Park (pretty sure it was the Big-Gay-Al boatride episode) made fun of Loving You, which was going to be performed in South Park by John Stamos’ brother Rick.

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Hell, I don’t even know what the heck I’m talking about, and I’m trying to classify the singers myself!

Something that just struck me – do truly lousy “singers” allow classification this way? Where do you put Fred Durst or Kid Rock (hack! gag!)?
Eonwe – Garfunkel is a very solid pick. Now I have an auditory “image” in my mind of what you (or others) mean by “clear” in this context.

Your suggestion of Art Garfunkel makes me try to think of someone with similar vocal qualities (though not a sound-alike): Glenn Frey.

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Yeah, definitely. (FWIW, I have trouble singing along with recordings of Andrews, although I’m fairly sure I’m a real alto.)

But she’s not exactly a pop singer, and I’m hard-pressed to think of actual pop singers who are sopranos. As ashcrott said, it would sound too “straight” in a pop context.

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YES! As soon as you mentioned the name of the song that’s exactly what I thought of. Hilarious - especially they way they kept singing that one stratospheric note in the middle. In fact, that’s the only place where I’ve ever heard that song, but I’ll never forget it.
This thread made me think of Wayne Newton, too. Anybody who doesn’t know him invariably thinks he’s a woman when they first hear his recordings. Surely he’s his own vocal category!