Vocal range and bragging techniques XD
Well, once again here I am, posting something I'd meant to post a LONG time ago. Seeing as this week is gonna be pretty hectic with us getting ready to leave for Illichivsk and me consciously deciding to subject myself to "electronic detoxication" during our vacation *eyeroll*, I decided to finally sit down and post what I'd already discovered about voice range and processing. Seeing as I am NO pro at all, just an amateur who's very much interested in the subject matter, I'd really appreciate any comments and corrections from people with some professional music education.
I have read that Gackt's vocal range is 4.5 octaves, Mariah Carey's vocal range is 5 octaves etc etc. However, when I dug a little deeper into the whole matter of vocal range, I understood why some professional singers scowl at these figures.
First of all, for the purpose of basic info I'll quote Harvard Brief Dictionary of Music which says that "the human voices are usually classified in six types: three female voices: soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto; and three male voices: tenor, baritone, bass. The normal ranges of these voices are approximately an octave (more safely, a seventh) below and above the notes b', g', e' and a, f, d [which makes them a total range of about two octaves]... Trained soloists frequently exceed these ranges, however…"
Secondly, it appears that there are 2 ways of assessing vocal range of a singer. Based on what I have read, I'd call them the "classical" assessment and the "jazz" assessment. The main difference btw these 2 approaches is that the classical assessment 1) does not take falsetto register into consideration while evaluating a singer's range because falsetto is not part of a singer's modal (most frequently used) voice and is more like a singing technique than a voice per se, and 2) draws a pretty thick line between hitting a note and holding that same note. Thus, holding a note means not only hitting it, but being able to colour it accordingly and sing it out loudly enough for the people at the back of a concert hall to hear it. Jazz assessment, on the other hand, takes into consideration the falsetto range and does not pose such strict requirements regarding hitting vs holding a note.
So, consequently, from the classical point of view, a 2-octave voice is actually a very good and well-trained voice, 3-octave voice is already an outstanding voice. At the same time, it appears that many pop singers prefer to assess their vocal range in jazz terms, which leads to these awesome figures of 4-5-6 octaves voices floating around XD
Gackt's modal voice appears to be baritone; it's enough to listen to even his latest Episode.0 single to hear that he can climb pretty high without switching to falsetto. Thus, based on what he said himself, I'd conclude that he has about 2.5 modal voice octaves and about 2 falsetto octaves, which indeed make up around 4.5 octaves in jazz assessment =P
From what I've read, Freddy Mercury (who, according to some sources, was a tenor, and according to other sources - a baritone who sang in the tenor register) had a modal voice register of about 3 octaves. Add to this his amazing falsetto and you'll probably get a 5-octave voice in jazz terms.
So, basically when we hear pop vocalists bragging about their awesome vocal ranges, we have to keep in mind that they're usually assessing their voices in jazz terms =P
Sources:
http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/720
http://che-shire.livejournal.com/537943.html
http://www.myqueen.ru/voice.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsetto_register