How much of Aha's song Take On Me can they sing...that's a good range indicator. I'm kidding, but it's also a massive range.

Think of the common choir groups: Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass (there's more, technically) Based off the natural/comfortable ability of the singer, one of these ranges sorta just makes sense. Most of the time, the range someone talks at will be a good indicator of where they would sit in a choir.

But to determine the limits of a range, you're testing notes until you waiver or strain too much. A tuner would help, but it's up to you how much you want to track it or push it. Most people don't talk at their limits, so to tell a full range from talking only gets harder. How they breathe while talking might be an indicator, or if they're monotone or not.

But the voice is measured mainly by the tones in which a person speaks, right?

What I found confusing is that countertenor is said to be the male equivalent of alto/contralto, but apparently this isn't accurate since countertenors have a range of E3 to E5 (and they use falsetto, otherwise their voices are tenor/baritone) and contraltos have a range of F3 to F5 and contralto is more masculine (or at least deeper) sounding than the countertenor voice.

However, there are contralto singers which aren't that deep, like Eula Beal.

Also, I hear that the stereotypical female singer is soprano. However, there is a significant number of mezzos and I just discovered that children's voices are mezzo (A3-A5) and personally my own voice didn't change in a perceivable level since childhood. I sing soprano (last week the choir conductor asked me to correct it a bit since it was sounding a bit deep in the beginning) so I am suspecting I am actually a mezzo. However, there are times in which I cannot tell a mezzo from a soprano, a mezzo's voice doesn't necessarily sound youthful and sopranos can sound youthful (such as Anita Auglend from Sins of Thy Beloved).

Another detail: this choir only has, in theory, four voice types: soprano, alto, tenor and bass, so I suspect that some might be in the middle and perhaps the basses are actually baritone, since basses are rare.

Another thing that is confusing me is that, when I watch videos of voice types for fun, this video and this video apparently have singers of multiple ranges singing the same note. How can that be? 🤔

I would appreciate if you helped me to see it more clearly.

No. You can’t tell if you listen to Chris Cornell talk and he has a 4 octave range.

Because he was borderline tenor-baritone and touched tones of both?

This describes Chris’s vocal range.

There is a lot ground to cover, I honestly don't have all the specifics. To me there's a lot of gray area, but it comes down to what does the song require. To simplify things, it makes sense for a choir to use the 4 major ranges, it makes writing the composition easier at least.

Those videos are interesting. The main showcase seemed to be how when hitting those notes called out, how effortless was it. I'm a tenor, yet I can still carry notes out of range. The trade-off is that I lose volume or stability. Or like how my low note might be a baritone's high note. It's the same note, but who's more comfortable with it.

Keep trying to figure it out though, it's a good rabbit hole to get into. Cheers~

People with perfect pitch are good at this

At knowing people's voice types?

Yeah, if I hear a note I know it’s quality (A B C) and it’s octave range. Adam Neely on YouTube claims otherwise but he just wishes he had perfect pitch

Could you please explain me how, for example, a contralto, a mezzo and a soprano could all reach a B5 in their own voices (if the voices are identified by ranges)? I saw videos like this and I don't understand.

Their ranges all overlap at some points. Sometimes it can be hard to tell someone’s voice type based on a song if it stays in an overlap section or doesn’t venture out to their limits.

> Could you please explain me how, for example, a contralto, a mezzo and a soprano could all reach a B5 in their own voices

Who says they can? (I.e., you need to ask whoever it was said they could.) (And how else would they do it except in "their own voices"? ;-))

Soprano can get a few notes beyond B5.
It's right at the top of mezzo-soprano, but they could probably get it.
Most contraltos would struggle (it's a 4th above their "official" top note); I expect some could do it, although it probably wouldn't sound too good.

This one has the three singers singing the same note (I used B5 as an example because I forgot the actual notes)

Just from hearing someone speak, not reliably. Perhaps if someone speaks with a naturally booming tone in a low register it's a good guess that they're a lower voice type, but the opposite isn't true at all--just because someone speaks with a higher or lighter tone doesn't mean that they're a higher voice type.

Determining someone's vocal classification takes time and only makes sense if they have some vocal training. Vocal classification is somewhat about range, but is more about tessitura, which is where their voice sits the most naturally. With men, range and tessitura tend to follow each other, but it's really common to find women who are capable of producing notes far outside their tessitura, but which don't sound very good. Really working out where someone is strongest takes time with a qualified voice teacher.

In another comment, you said:

> this choir only has, in theory, four voice types: soprano, alto, tenor and bass, so I suspect that some might be in the middle and perhaps the basses are actually baritone, since basses are rare.

Yes, this is a common problem in choirs. The distribution of voices follows a bell curve, and most people are in the middle. Most men are baritones, and most women are mezzo-sopranos. Choirs are typically divided into soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, which on the surface might seem to force all of those middle voices to sing out of range. However, upon further inspection, most choir music doesn't push the extremes too hard, and each of the four sections are usually divided in two. Soprano 1 will be true sopranos, soprano 2 will be higher mezzos, alto 1 will be lower mezzos, alto 2 will be true contraltos; and similar for the men. Or at least mostly that way--it's also okay if an individual is a little out of their tessitura, it won't hurt anything.

Also remember that people's voices are a continuous spectrum and don't neatly fall into any category you might define, and people's voices change over time. And then there's also genre-specific concerns and conventions.