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Media Notes / Voice Types

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In modern musical theatre, just as in Opera before it, certain types of roles are commonly associated with certain vocal ranges. While these vocal range cliches differ depending on the style of the show (more rock- or pop-oriented musicals lean toward tenors and alto/mezzo belters across the board), these generally seem to hold up pretty strong. Most of these associations do indeed stem from similar associations in opera, and especially in operetta, which is where American musicals developed from in the first place.

The six major vocal categories, from highest to lowest ranges, are:

  • Female voices
    • Soprano
    • Mezzo-soprano
    • Alto
  • Male voices
    • Tenor
    • Baritone
    • Bass

Also, singing in opera requires a very different technique than pop singers and musical theatre singers; opera has existed since long before microphones and sound systems and opera singers therefore are trained to use easily ten times the breath support and voice projection that pop singers are trained to use to ensure that their voices can be heard without microphones over a full orchestra.

To further complicate matters, each vocal category has its own subcategories, similar to how wrestlers and boxers are categorized (featherweight, lightweight, middleweight, and heavyweight) based on the type of music and the volume of the orchestra; in opera, the most basic subcategories for each voice category can be divided thus:

  • Light Lyric (lightweight): Sweet, light but not weak, can be heard over smaller orchestras. There is a special type of Soprano called a Soubrette (featherweight) which is even lighter, bubbly and a bit warmer in timbre.
  • Full Lyric (middleweight): richer, and smooth. Can be heard over most orchestrations, but not too heavy.
  • Dramatic (heavyweight): Powerful, heavy, metallic, and emotive. Can and must be heard over very heavy orchestrations. *Too many singers have ruined their voices and prematurely ended their careers trying to sing roles that are too heavy for their voices*.

Beyond that, there are two additional subcategories shared by multiple voice types. The first is the spinto voice, found amongst tenors and sopranos. Coming from the Italian phrase "lirico-spinto" (meaning "pushed lyric"), this voice combines the range and bright tone of the full lyric voice, but with a weight that can support dramatic passages with less sustaining power than the dramatic voice. Spinto is effectively "light-heavyweight".

Furthermore, all three female voice types share the other subcategory: the coloratura. The main attribute of the coloratura singer is her vocal agility - rapid trills, large gaps between successive notes and various other forms of ornamentation are all par for the course. Since they specialise in vocal acrobatics, coloratura singers can have either lyric or dramatic vocal tone.

Voice Types and Examples:

    open/close all folders 

     Soprano 
Sopranos are almost always The Ingenue and/or Satellite Love Interest and/or Purity Personified — Innocent Soprano is a whole trope built around this (not characters from the series of the same name). When they're not, they're still more often than not the romantic lead. They may also be a Defrosting Ice Queen like Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls or Marion Paroo in The Music Man.

In opera, it is common that the main protagonist is a soprano, whereas supporting characters (friendly or antagonistic to the protagonist) are mezzo-sopranos or altos. A notable exception is Carmen, by Bizet, where the main character, the sensual and volatile Carmen, is a mezzo-soprano, her best friends are a soprano and a mezzo, and her "antagonist", the sweet and pure Micaëla, is a soprano, playing with these voice characterizations. On the other hand, in Turandot, by Puccini, the ruthless princess Turandot and sweet, loyal Liu are both sopranos; Turandot is played by a dramatic soprano (powerful and steely) while Liu is played by a lyric soprano (demure and sweet). Likewise, in Nabucco, by Verdi, the title character's treacherous daughter, Abigaille, is a soprano while his sweet, virtuous daughter, Fenena, is a mezzo-soprano.

Sopranos are also much rarer in rock musicals, because most rock music is not written for soprano vocalists. That is not to say, however, that all soprano roles are written for non-belters; parts in more contemporary musicals that fall within the soprano range, such as Eliza in Hamilton, are often belted.

Other notable soprano roles:

    Mezzo-soprano 
Mezzo-sopranos, being in the most common vocal register for women, come in a wide variety of types. They can be a wide range of ages, although female characters over fifty tend to be altos more often than mezzos. The majority of mezzo singing, especially nowadays, is belting, and as such mezzos are especially common in pop- or rock-oriented musicals. Just as the leads in most operas are sopranos, the secondary female characters (commonly referred to as "witches, bitches and britches (cross-dressing roles)") are generally mezzos; this is not uncommon in modern musicals, where frequently the soprano will be the main love interest, and the mezzo her best friend or rival, a la Cosette and Eponine in Les Misérables. Also referred to in many productions as a "Belt" voice, for someone who can strongly sing passages in the middle and high register in her chest voice (rather than the soprano's lighter head voice.) Elphaba from Wicked is prime example of this.

Other famous mezzo-soprano roles:

    Alto/Contralto 
Altos or Contraltos are the lowest female singers commonly heard. Unlike their male counterparts the basses, however, roles for altos are a bit more common, especially in rock musicals. In more traditional pieces, altos are frequently middle-aged leading women, though some of those are mezzos as well. The only role demographic altos have a firm hold over is for women over sixty - which in most shows means grandmothers like Mme. Armfeldt in A Little Night Music or Gran in Billy Elliot. In the rare case that there is a female villain in a show, she will probably be an alto.

Other famous alto roles:

    Counter-Tenor 
Counter-Tenors, also known as falsettists, are men who sing in their falsetto register, allowing them to enter the rarefied pitch-sphere normally reserved for women singers. Counter-tenor roles are rare outside of gospel and classical European opera— most operatic counter-tenor roles were originally sung by castrati but are now performed by counter-tenors, women, or the very rare male sopranos, also known as sopranists (such as Michael Maniaci). Castrati were in fact not counter-tenors because they sang in the modal voice rather than the falsetto. For the same reason, prepubescent boys who sing in a high range are not called countertenors, but rather boy sopranos or trebles.

  • Mary Sunshine from Chicago, written to be played by a man in drag singing soprano, is often played by a woman in amateur productions due to the difficulty of finding men who can sing that high.

    Tenor 
Tenors are mostly good guys, and mostly leading men or ingenues—hence the Tenor Boy trope. There are a couple of villainous tenors, such as Pirelli in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto, and John Jasper in Drood. There are also a few character tenors, such as Sancho in Man of La Mancha and Nicely-Nicely Johnson in Guys and Dolls. Because most people's voices deepen as they age, there are few tenor roles for men over forty, although Jean Valjean from Les Misérables, one of the rangiest tenor roles in popular musical canon, is usually played by a middle-aged man.

Other famous tenor roles:

    Baritone 
Baritones, like their female counterpart, the mezzos, come in all shapes and sizes. They are common for leading men, villains, and character parts. There are even a few ingenues, or at least roles for young men, in the baritone range, such as Arpad in She Loves Me, and Anthony in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Because it is range shared by many singers, there are many subtypes of baritone roles. Villains and leading men in heavier pieces are frequently dramatic baritones, whereas character types are comic baritones, and younger characters or characters in lighter shows are lyric baritones. Because it is the most common male vocal register, the voice can also have an "everyman" implication, and such roles are frequently baritones.

There are many who also use the term baritenor which is an informal use to describe the high baritone roles that are increasingly common in modern musical theatre, such as Marius and Enjolras in Les Misérables, Bobby in Company, or The Phantom and Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera.

Other famous baritone roles:

    Bass-Baritone 
Bass-baritones are either low baritones or high basses. They are often held to many of the same tropes as basses (see below), but are more common and likely to be a major role due to the fact true basses are rare. These roles are written with the darker sound in mind, but can be expected to sing as high as a baritenor at times. An example of this Officer Lockstock from Urinetown who is required to sing a solid high G and has an optional A above that, yet is still expected to have a solid low range. Bass-baritone roles are common features in the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, including the Pirate King from Pirates of Penzance and Dick Dead-Eye from H.M.S. Pinafore.

    Bass 
Basses are very rare in modern musical theatre, chiefly because there are few vocalists who have sufficient volume at those low registers. Because of the unique qualities of the sound, most bass roles are villains and/or authority figures, and in either case older men. The most notable exceptions to this are Emile de Becque of South Pacific, who is the romantic lead (though still middle-aged), and Joe of Show Boat, who is the wise old black man. Otherwise, bass roles are few and far between, and it is more likely to find bass soloists from the ensemble rather than bass leads. Basso profundo is when someone has a very low voice even when compared to other basses.

Other famous bass roles:

    Basso Profundo 
Voice archetype: A guy who sings bass. Allow us to rephrase that: a guy who sings BASS, a bass singer's BASS, a BASS that makes Barry White's bass sound like a boy soprano .

Basso profundonote  (also spelled Basso profondonote ) is the technical term for the lowest of all voices. To qualify, the character must be able to give a tuba a run for its money when it comes to low notes. Many may be "Oktavists", men who sing a full octave below the normal bass range. Also known as Russian Bass due to its prevalence in Russian Orthodox chant and other Slavic music.

This voice range is rare, just like women able to sing in Whistle register. Even more rare are men who speak naturally within this register, a trait that almost always overlaps with Baritone of Strength and Evil Sounds Deep. Contrast Tenor Boy.

  • Will J. "Dub" Jones of the Coasters, who sings backup vocals on "Yakety Yak" (Don't talk back), "Young Blood", Salty Sam's lines in "Along Came Jones", and "Charlie Brown" (Why's everybody always pickin' on me?)
  • Guinness world record holder for lowest note ever sung and widest vocal range, Tim Storms. He is able (proven by technology) to vibrate his vocal cords at 7 cycles per second, well below the lower human hearing threshold. That's right — he sings so low you can't hear it. He's since gone even lower than that, somehow reaching down another two octaves to 0.189hz.
  • Richard Sterban of The Oak Ridge Boys, most famously from the "oom papa mow mow"s on "Elvira".
  • Harold Reid of The Statler Brothers.
  • J.D. Sumner of The Blackwood Brothers and The Stamps Quartet held the Guinness World Record for lowest recorded human voice for a 1968 recording of "Blessed Assurance." He would match this feat singing backup for the 1977 Elvis Presley song "Way Down."
  • Southern Gospel music has a ton of low-down basses, including Ken Turner, Paul Downing, Rex Nelon, Tim Riley, Mike Holcomb, Glen Dustin, George Younce, Tim Duncan, London Parris, and numerous others, all of which regularly reach notes on a night-after-night basis that would make the average operatic or doo-wop bass singer cringe.
  • Tennessee Ernie Ford was another below-the-staff Southern Gospel singer before moving on to country and crossover success. One example.
  • Melvin Franklin of The Temptations was renowned for his extremely rich and deep bass voice, which gave the Tempts a truly unique harmony during his tenure with the group.
  • Thurl Ravenscroft did the voice of Tony the Tiger. He's also the bass lead of the Mellomen, the group that sings "Grim Grinning Ghosts" in the Haunted Mansion at Disneyworld, and was the vocalist for "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch."
  • George Sanders is another deep bass, as evidenced by Shere Khan's "That's... What... Frieeeeeends... Are foooooor" in Disney's The Jungle Book (1967). Pick some guy you think is a bass, and have him try to hit that last note. Technically, that was Bill Lee doing that note, since George Sanders was unavailable.
  • In the song "North To Alaska" Johnny Horton hits a basso-profondo note ("way up noooooooooorth").
  • Johnny Cash, at times, too.
  • Trace Adkins, he of "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" (and Celebrity Apprentice) fame.
  • Barry Carl, the bass guy from Rockapella.
  • Isaac Freeman of the Fairfield Four.
  • Boris Christoff: the start of this is a good example.
  • The late American bass Jerome Hines tried singing Wotan but gave it up because the pitch was too high for him.
  • Parodied in "The Dooright Family" by Ray Stevens, where the bass singer in the titular gospel family band (voiced entirely by Ray) is asked to "go for another octave". He does (by way of studio trickery on Ray, who is a baritone at best in Real Life), causing him to explode onstage.
  • Noriel Vilela, a Brazilian samba singer.
  • Michel Bell, Tony-nominated actor-singer and former member of the Fifth Dimension.
  • Male choir Chanticleer features bass Eric Alatorre, whom you can hear in all his glory in John Tavener's "Village Wedding" (listen for him during the tenor's solo that starts with "let them throw white rice like a spring shower").
  • One of the background singers on Canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn's "Anything, Anytime, Anywhere" is an oktavist. Listen particularly at the end.
  • Paul David Kennamer from Valour Music. His solo starts at 1 minute 54 seconds in here.
  • Eric Alatorre of Chanticleer is one of few powerful American profondos, reaching down to a solid F♯1 ("Ease on Down the Road") and perhaps beyond.
  • Tom Waits is best known as a basso profondo singer, though in his earlier career he was better known as a smooth voiced baritone. And he's a gravelly basso profundo, too.
  • Yuri Wichniakov is a particularly low basso profondo, whose lowest recorded note is an E1 during "Evening Bell" at about 4:00 in.
  • Peter Steele of Type O Negative usually sang in the upper register of his voice, but was certainly capable of this; he often noted that their shows were so loud he couldn't even hear himself sing.
  • Boyz II Men's Mike McCary.
  • Club for Five's Tuukka Haapaniemi. One of the strongest vocal basses in contemporary a cappella, also a trained classical vocalist. Just... Watch.
  • Avi Kaplan of Pentatonix is the reason fans of the group always recommend listening with headphones. He can hit notes so low that he once blew out a speaker during a performance of "Hit the Road, Jack."
  • Atsushi Sakurai of BUCK-TICK can do this as part of his extraordinary range.
  • His Excellency Demon Kogure of SEIKIMA-II is even more notable for it - he can reach almost all ranges from here to high tenor verging on falsetto.
  • The two well-known vocalists of Malice Mizer, Gacktnote  and Klaha, though Gackt is more of a Bass Baritone, rather than Basso Profondo. Fairly evident in their most well-known (and sadly, their last) hit, "Beast of Blood", where Klaha manages to combine his low register with a Perishing Alt-Rock Voice.
  • Ittoku "Sally" Kishibe, Lead Bassist of The Tigers, who had easily the most recognizably distinct voice of the band, matching his instrument.
  • Ken Turner takes this trope to a whole new low in "Rainbow of Love".
  • Josh Turner hits a basso profundo note on "Would You Go with Me" ("If we rode from town to town and never shut it down").
  • In Pitch Perfect 2's soundtrack, bass singer Elliott Michael repeatedly hits notes in the F1-G1 range, even hitting E♭1 during their mash-ups. He also has a surprising baritone and falsetto register ("Sugar Medley" "Talk2Me").
  • One of the most famous basses in recent history, late great Feodor Shalyapin, ironically wasn't a Basso Profondo, but instead a higher and more lively Basso Cantante. He could go as low as he wanted, but personally preferred to sing closer to a baritonal register.
  • The Spine of Steam Powered Giraffe has been known to hit ridiculously low notes in some of the band's harmonies; what makes this even more remarkable is his tendency to jump from bass straight into an impressive falsetto.
  • Italian singer Mario Biondi, whose voice has been compared to Barry White's.
  • Stefan Poiss of mind.in.a.box and Thyx.
  • Tim Foust of Home Free. His last note in their cover of "Ring of Fire" will rattle your floorboards. Likewise his impressive E1 on a cover of the aforementioned "Elvira", where he out-basses even Sterban!
  • Leonard Cohen, though it only started to set in during the eighties; his voice on his seventies records is noticeably higher. He remarked that when he started recording 1984's Various Positions after a five-year break, his voice had deepened almost an octave, and it only got deeper.
  • Jonathan Young, known for his covers of Disney music. Sometimes it fits really well, like when he's doing Scar or Frollo. But then you hear him doing Elsa or the Muses... Somehow, it still works.
  • In the 1960s and 70s, fans of world music put on the Nonesuch recording Liturgical Music of the Russian Cathedral and wondered what had happened to the speed on their turntables. It was just Michael Trubetzkoi, the unbelievable basso profundo of the Johannes-Damascenus Choir of Essen, chanting verses from Paul's epistle to the Romans. Blogger Derek Davis describes hearing it for the first time:
    ... starts in the subbasement of the human voice and ascends, step by step, a full octave, until he’s half way up the cellar stairs. Then stops. It’s chilling, unnerving, exhilarating – a mountain asking for permission to roam the world.
  • T.J. Osborne of Brothers Osborne can sing basso-profundo, as demonstrated on "It Ain't My Fault".
  • Randy Travis hits a basso-profundo note on "If I Didn't Have You".
  • Mikhail Zlatopolsky's documented lowest note is E♭1, which means his voice was so low that accordingly it made his nearby singers tremble. Hear for yourself: [1].
  • Larry Hooper, one of Lawrence Welk's featured vocalists, was a popular attraction of the band thanks to his basso profundo voice, featured on such hits as "Oh Happy Day" and "This Old House".
  • R&B vocal group The Ravens, very successful in the late 1940s and early 1950s, owed a big part of its success to bass vocalist Jimmy Ricks, who became the standard against which R&B bass vocalists would be measured for the next generation. note 
  • Even though he's a bass-baritone, George Ezra hits a very low note in about three minutes of his song "Shotgun" ("Feeling like a someone, someone, someone, someone.").
  • Chuck Barksdale of the Dells was a key contributor to the group's harmonic blend, but could use his deep voice to great effect when called to the spotlight (e.g. "I Can Sing a Rainbow/Love Is Blue").
  • Geoff Castellucci of Voice Play is certainly this, (although he says he would never call himself a true bass and thinks of himself more as "a baritone with a bass range") with his lowest recorded note being a B0 (as heard in the 'Warriors' cover), and hitting various other low notes in their other covers by using subharmonics. Geoff has cited Thurl Ravenscroft as a major inspiration of his, and this is very noticeable if you listen to both of them sing.
  • Korean vocal quartet Forestella has Ko Woo-rim. He's a classically trained basso profundo opera singer, having studied music in college, and bass singers are extremely rare to come by in the Korean music industry. Not only can he reach pretty damn low (his lowest note on record is a G#1), but he's also the youngest member of the group at age 28 (his fellow Forestella members and tenors Doohoon, Hyungho and Mingyu are 37, 35 and 32, respectively), which is quite shocking to find out once you've heard him sing.

Usage outside standard musical theatre:

  • The opera sequence from Final Fantasy VI features two male characters: the heroic tenor Draco and the villainous bass Prince Ralse.
  • The four basic voices (sop, alt, ten, bas) are also used to organize and classify singers in any genre where singing happens, but rarely involve any personality associations ("How many tenors does it take to change a lightbulb" jokes notwithstanding). Also, this organization only matters when multiple singers will be singing at once; the tenor/bass division is important in a Boy Band, for instance, but Britney Spears' voice partnote  is irrelevant because she's a solo act.
  • The characters in The Decemberists album The Hazards of Love have voice types that both match well with the stereotypes and play with them. Of the female parts, Margaret (Becky Stark), the sweet Love Interest, is a soprano. (On stage she would probably be played by a soubrette, who can either be a soprano or a mezzo.) The villainous Queen (Shara Worden) is a mezzo-soprano. The parts of William and the Rake are both sung by Colin Meloy. You would expect William, the innocent hero, to be a Tenor Boy - but he falls more in the baritone range. The evil Rake, on the other hand, who one would expect to be a baritone, gets some high notes and falls into the tenor range.
  • The song "Alto's Lament" is about an alto lamenting the fact that she always gets stuck singing the harmony in big, show-stopping musical numbers instead of the livelier and much more recognizable melody.
  • On Glee, Rachel is a mezzo-soprano and Santana is an alto. Most of the boys are in the tenor range, with the exception of Kurt (Chris Colfer), who is a true countertenor and does not use falsetto.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic Pagliacci has a group of characters known as the Choir Boys who are all named after different vocal types. But since they're all vicious killers, their songs shouldn't be listened to unless you have a deathwish!
  • The manga Shonen Note: Boy Soprano is about a middle school choir. The protagonist, Yutaka, is a prodigious boy soprano but recognizes soon his voice will crack. Yutaka fits The Ingenue stereotype, being a bright eyed and sensitive boy.
  • Katja from Missing Stars is said to be a soprano. She's reserved and a potential love interest.
  • The three leading ladies in Victorious have the three basic female voice types. Tori is an alto, the intimidating Jade is a mezzo-soprano, and the sweet and more childish Cat is a soprano.

Alternative Title(s): The Soprano, Basso Profundo, Basso Profondo, The Dish Rattler

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