Michelle Chamuelās Live Vocal Range. (Because she didnāt have one of these videos, and she should. Plus, I was curiousā¦) From what sheās shown, Michelleās range is F3-F#5, which is 2 octaves and a semi-tone (or half a note.)Ā
First..For anyone that does not know how this works.. There are 8 octaves, a range is measured by how many octaves a singer can sing from. C1 is the lowest note, B8 being the highest (I donāt know of any singers who can sing either..btw, notes go āC,D,E,F,G,A,B..and back to C) But when I say something like āB5ā It simply means, the note B on the fifth octave. Thereās a frequency that is associated with it as well. (And, when people say off pitch, that means the frequency level they hit is not within 30% of the frequency they were going for. So..noteX has a frequency level of 10, singer hits 6..thatās off pitch. Yea. Music is Mathā¦Fml.)Ā
Itās a quick video, and there is more than the one note that I listed in each clip. A general rule..if itās below C4, the lowest note is the one Iām talking about..above C4, and the highest note is the one Iām talking about. Also, I didnāt put every note on there, but if someone can sing a D4 and a F4, they can also sing an E4. The only time that isnāt the case is when you start to shift into whistle register (which is like a ..really high head voice. So..instead of a flute, think piccolo.) Sometimes singers canāt flow the whole way through, and then it becomes debatable about whether its part of a vocalists range or not, but thatās irrelevant here.Ā
I noted in the Youtube video, the F#5 is not the top of Michelleās range. Iām confident the F3 is the bottom. She tends to not be able to sing that note as strongly as her others, and she can have some pitch problems with it. On the other side..she hits F#5 easily, itās accurate, and itās pretty strong. If I had to guess..her range probably goes to Bb5. She hits the F#5 easily, so the G5, shouldnāt be an issue at all. In fact, Iām positive she can hit that. B5 has a tendency to be the top of the belting range, so itās likely that the top of her range is spread somewhere between G5-B5, which is two notes.(C6 tends to start the whistle range)Ā Like I said, the ease at which she hits the F#5 makes me think sheās likely to have the ability to at least go a note higher, and Iād think even further, but I canāt prove it because she hasnāt done it in a live performance (from what I can tell.). As for why she doesnāt/hasnāt? Michelleās picky about the way she sounds, and it gets hard to control up there, and those notes arenāt always the most pleasant to listen too when belted. Sheās not the type of singer to sing high just to sing high either, it has to sound right in the song too. But those are just guesses and likely something only Michelle knows. Iād guess, as her career goes along, weāll hear her sing higher.Ā
Another interesting thing about Michelleās voice is that she doesnāt use her head voice (the head voice is when her voice sounds kind of like a flute.) to expand her range. She uses it to create a different sound. Iām sure there are other artists that do this as well, but the only other one I am aware of is Carrie Underwood. (And the two have a similar range.) Itās interesting to me, because she uses her head voice frequently, and has incredible control with it, but the actual notes are not any higher than her belts. Because of this, I left the head voice out of the video. It sounds like itās higher, which ends up confusing people.Ā
Finally, Michelle is apparently an alto. I would have guessed Mezzo, but from what her live performances have shown..sheās the exact definition of an Alto. She seems to prefer singing verses in the fourth octave, while belting in the fifth. (neither is unusual for any current female artist.)
Also, most of the clips in the video come from The Voice, but one is from Tunebombās video from the New Years S/He video, one is from Michelle herself, and the other is from MJās Blog from the Darren Criss concert.Ā
So, whatās it mean? In general, great singers have vocal ranges between 2-2.5. Some are greater (Mariah Carey stretched to almost five octaves in her prime, which is ridiculous) but around that range is needed to sing a majority of songs, so Michelle fits right in. I am a little surprised she hasnāt stretched her head voice simply because sheās cited Christina Aguilera (who Michelle can belt higher than) as a vocalist she idolizes, and thatās exactly what Christina has done. Ā (But like I said, she could have..and just doesnāt put it in any of her songs.)Ā
So anyway..if anyone else finds this stuff interesting..(and sorry for the bookā¦)