Haley's Vocal Range

[mercfan3]

Like I said, just the range isn't defined by all you can sing.

Likewise, the alto voice is characterized as the lower female voice. If Haley struggles with the (which she does) lower notes, than she's not an alto.

Here's a list of mezzo soprano's in pop music. (It's different than classical.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mez...ical_music

Many of those singers Haley tends to rest at an even higher pitch (Whitney, for one.)

It might be that classical singers are classified differently because of a larger range, I don't know. But I do know, if you stick her in any choir room, she's going to be in the Soprano section. (usually they'll list Mezzo Soprano's as Soprano 2s..)

[kaypea]

Like I said, just the range isn't defined by all you can sing.

Likewise, the alto voice is characterized as the lower female voice. If Haley struggles with the (which she does) lower notes, than she's not an alto.

Here's a list of mezzo soprano's in pop music. (It's different than classical.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mez...ical_music

Many of those singers Haley tends to rest at an even higher pitch (Whitney, for one.)

It might be that classical singers are classified differently because of a larger range, I don't know. But I do know, if you stick her in any choir room, she's going to be in the Soprano section. (usually they'll list Mezzo Soprano's as Soprano 2s..)

Or it may be that in classical music that singers are defined by agreed upon standards as to what constitutes what as opposed to the sources from the list you provided which comes from music critics reviewing the artist's music which,needless to say has no agreed upon standards at all and is mainly dependent upon the ears of the critics,most of whom have little or no musical education and how often does anyone actually agree with music critics.That part of it always subjective.

Lets just agree to disagree.

[jjames865]

Since you guys are talking about vocal range, I was wondering if anyone knew whether Haley would be considered a Soprano or a Mezzo-Soprano. I'm fairly positive she's not a Contra-Alto. Just curious if anyone knows.

30CamdenSquare, just as confusing as to what genre Haley would fit into while on Idol is the conundrum as to what definition to use for her voice. It has been a fascinating discussion .

[mercfan3]

Yea, we're just going to have to agree to disagree.

We'll just categorize Haley's voice as "Special" and leave it at that.

[30CamdenSquare]

I think one reason this is so confusing is that we maybe comparing Haley's voice to different types of singers and so we're coming to different conclusions.

Kaypea - You brought up a good point when you said something to the effect of "If you compare Haley against a true mezzo-soprano you'll notice a difference... the type of music Haley sings just isn't sung in that range very often (I'll have to re-read your post & paraphrase better than that) Which got me thinking that maybe you're comparing her to classical singers, whereas Mercfan & I are comparing her to other pop (meaning non-classical) music singers.

Another thing that point brings up is, since non-classical music is sung differently ( naturally lower using the chest voice more) than classical music, shouldn't the ranges listed for popular music have been changed to reflect where they're actually singing.

Wikipedia (& almost every site I looked at) uses the same ranges as classical music
Soprano - C4-C6
Mezzo Soprano - A3-A5
Alto - G3-F#5 (When listed)
Contra-Alto F3-E5

But what I'm running into is (for example) the entire album Back to Black by Amy Winehouse (a contra-alto) is sung from C#3-C#5, which is practically the range listed for a Tenor - B2-A4. That wasn't unusual for a contra-alto either, quite few of them even sing down in the upper end of the 2nd octave quite a bit.

So anyway, my point is maybe it'd just be easier to compare Haley to Non-Classical Singers listed as the different voice types since the listed ranges don't seem to match up all that well.

If I can ever get the imbed videos option to work for me, I think it'd be easiest just to compare one of Haley's vocal range videos to a few singers listed as Contra's, Mezzo's & Soprano's and see how much higher or lower she sounds hearing them back to back.

[makefigure8s]

Speaking of the national anthem, she did it in Ab if I'm not mistaken.

Sheet music:
http://www.thenationalanthemproject.org/..._Voice.pdf

[30CamdenSquare]

Yea, we're just going to have to agree to disagree.

We'll just categorize Haley's voice as "Special" and leave it at that.

Didn't see the last couple of posts until after I posted so, if you guys are getting kind of sick of talking about this, that's OK too.

[kaypea]

Yea, we're just going to have to agree to disagree.

We'll just categorize Haley's voice as "Special" and leave it at that.

Yes and I wasn't aware that you're a singer and have life experience in stuff that I don't.Funny- I spoke to my sister tonight who-maybe like you- sings in a choir and I asked her where she woud place Haley and she said probably alto.Then I asked her if she could be a mezzo and she said-I don't know-she could be.And then again she's never considered giving it a thought.And what does it matter anyway.

[mercfan3]

I think Haley's rasp tends to be an alto trait. Not only that, but she often can have a heavy, soulful voice..which is also an alto trait.

I also don't think people realize how much overlap there is. For example, in choir..I can't tell you how many times the tenors were actually singing higher than the altos. (Over 50% I'd say.)

The alto range is going to mix with the mezzo range which is going to mix with the soprano range. (And the tenor range is going to mix with the alto range..it's just sung by men..etc..)

And when I judge categories, I do it by range, vocal limits (IE..where a singer struggles), where your vocals naturally go to.

Haley's vocal limits are with her lower register. And for me, if you are going to categorize a female singer as an alto..she has to be strong with those lower notes. Haley's lower notes are breathy and muddy. (Just listening to "You Oughta Know"...she struggled with the versus because they were too low for her. And actually, there were parts of "You and I" that she also struggled a bit with.)

And personally, I just can't consider a female singer an alto, when she struggles (and sometimes, can't sing) the lower notes. Which is the defining trait of an alto. Haley has very few limitations on her voice. It's actually pretty astounding. But she simply isn't nearly as strong with her lower notes.

Meanwhile, she absolutely soars with her upper register. (Which is why it really really bothered me when Randy said she was "Screeching at the top of her range." I literally wanted to scream "YOU LYING LIAR.") That is the reason I put her as a mezzo. She's not a Soprano, because like you said..where her vocals naturally rest in her songs are lower than where a pure soprano would want them to be. But there's some overlap with mezzo and alto. (Just like there's some overlap with mezzo and soprano.)

I think when you consider classical singers, you have to remember, that they all have larger vocal ranges than most pop singers. So most classical mezzo soprano singers can sing higher than what a mezzo is classified as. And also, as stated above, a lot of times classical singers stay in head voice, where as pop music is sung mostly in chest.


For me, a few good examples in pop music are first in the songs she covered. In live covers of "You and I" and "Rolling in the Deep" Adele (C3 - F#5) and Gaga (D3 to B5) start lower than Haley does.

Carrie Underwood (D3- Bb6) Carrie's typical "belt" pitch is a B4, she gets screechy at Eb5. (Don't get me wrong, she can sing even higher..but she gets into her head/mixed voice there..and she strains a bit.)

When Haley belts at B4, she's not even struggling..it actually doesn't even appear to be a belt, it comes out like Haley's just holding out a note. Her typical "belt" is Eb5.

[midnightblues]

Haley has a black womans Jazz/blues voice in a white womans body