Ля 3 octaves. Octave system. What is the largest voice range

So some ranges:
1 octave. Used as a curse word.
1.5 octaves. This is the middle range of an undelivered voice. It happens less.
The same range is enough for the performance of many pop and shitty songs. After all, those who sing them themselves usually have no more.
2 octaves. Considered the standard for the pros.
Here we need to clarify. Two octaves in the understanding of academics is very, very good. It is understood that the bottom note is heard in the theater in the last rows, through the orchestra, while the singer does not choke. The top note should also sound - no pitching, no tremolation, hoarseness, in a natural timbre. And - most importantly - to express something, to convey a certain mood.
These two octaves are enough for almost everything. Even, I will note, in order to pop the range.
In jazz, it is measured differently, and it comes out much more - take the same Mariah Carey.
An analogy can be drawn with watts. For example, a Soviet radio tape recorder (2x3.5W) and a foreign one (380W) - the sound power is almost the same.
3 octaves. Either a lot (if a worker), or a little (if there is a falsetto at the top, and a whisper at the bottom).
Before I forget. Small dictionary.
_Falsett_, or three-phase oscillation - the mode of operation of the larynx. Distinguish between chest / falsetto, voice / falsetto. The male range is NOT INCLUDED.
Female, countertenor and other voices sing ALMOST THE ENTIRE range in this way, so it makes no sense to talk about falsetto here.
Pop, folk, jazz singers sing in a two-phase vibration (that is, with a breast) to the re-fa of the second octave. Then there really is a falsetto.
_Mixt_ - a) dense, supported falsetto; b) THE METHOD OF SINGING, in which the "chest" is facilitated for a smooth transition to falsetto.
_Head_ - a) head resonance. Required on ALL ranges for all voices. b) upper case, usually in women.
I remembered this with my head; anyway. Let's go further.
3.5 octaves. Alexander Gradskiy is an example of how not to measure the range. If he has three and a half, so do I. Yes Yes! C sharp large - second salt. I can take more!
4 octaves. Sergey Penkin, Diamanda Galas. Ima Sumak. Jozek. Another sacramental figure is in the mass consciousness a synonym for the concept of "unique voice", so all newcomers (including myself) are looking for four octaves.
5 octaves. Mariah Carey.
7 1/4 octaves, for subcontrol - up to 5. THIS really was in the Guinness book. Marita Gunther, student of Alfred Wolfson.

One more touch. Confusion with octaves.
The thing is ... The thing is that laziness. Too lazy, for example, to write two keys for the guitar, the treble and the bass - that's why all guitar notes are written one octave higher.
It's the same with a male voice - if you record notes in real sound, you get a lot of extra lines. Therefore, vocal notes (especially tenor) are also written an octave higher.
In short, remember. Second octave in treble clef = first in real sound. Tuning fork: for the second / for the first. First string: E ​​second / E first. Remember?
Well, if you remember, I will now write what a full range is.
Full range, friends, is when a (academic) singer has all the notes he needs for his voice. There are usually two octaves of such notes, hence the sacramental figure.

Tenor: up to minor - up to the second. Tenor altino - E second.
Baritone: A-flat large - A-flat first. Baritone martin - all the first.
Bass Cantante: fa-fa # large - fa-fa # first.
Bass-profundo: re-mi big - mi first.
Bass octavist: the lower the better. The counter-octave fa is just right.

Women's voices are almost the same an octave higher.
Coloratura sopranos - fa third,
the countertenor is sung in the mezzo-soprano range.
Castrates covered any female range. Farinelli had three and a half octaves; Moreschi took E in third at the end of his career.

"Octave with you we called the interval of the same notes, for example: Do-Do, Re-Re, etc. But this is exactly the value of the octave in musical notation.

But on a piano (and on any other keyboard instrument), physical octaves are counted by keys. From "C" to "C" - one octave, from the next "C" to the next "C" - another octave, and so on. On a real piano there are 9 such octaves (7 full and 2 incomplete), take a look at the picture:

Piano Octave Names (Fig. 1)

Compare this picture with your piano, if you have one (if you have a synthesizer or midi-keyboard, read about them below - "Octaves on a synthesizer"). Well, are the octaves alike? Now try to find these octaves on your piano, mentally separating them from each other.

Now let's look at each of these octaves.

1. Subcontroctave. The very first octave is incomplete, consists of only three notes: A, A sharp, B.

2. Controctava. This is already a full octave on the piano, starting with the note Do, as it should be.

3. Big octave. Usually the bass part is played in this octave with the left hand.

4. Small octave. And in this octave, bass parts on the piano are also played.

5. First octave. The most frequently used, especially for learning to read notes on the staff.

6. Second octave. No less popular than the first one.

7. Third octave.

8. Fourth octave.

9. Fifth octave. It consists of just one note - Do, which is very high in sound, you can compare it with the squeak of a mosquito!

Important: write down the names of these octaves in your notebook in the order in which they are written above.

Octaves on a synthesizer

"But the synthesizer is not 9 octaves?", You say. Let's look at octaves using a 5-octave synthesizer as an example:

The name of the octaves on the synthesizer (Fig. 2)

What I mean is that on digital synthesizers, where the number of octaves is odd, there will be "First Octave" in the middle. Also on a 7-octave synthesizer. And to find out how the rest of the octaves are called - look at the picture (Fig. 1).

It happens that the first octave is not always in the center, because manufacturers can arrange it according to their preference (but the octaves will still remain in the same order). How, then, is the first octave determined? You can hear it ...

How to identify "First octave" by ear?

The first octave is a comfortable octave for a calm female voice. When you take, for example, C to the first octave, you should have associations, as if you are talking to a woman in a calm voice. If you do not get this feeling - the C note is too bass, then this is not the first octave, but a small one.

I have prepared a video for you where you will hear how the first octave sounds. And if you cannot find the first octave on your synthesizer, then you can always refer to this video. I personally have not found on the Internet where they show exactly how the first octave sounds. They only show how to identify it on the piano. But what if we have a non-standard synthesizer or midi keyboard? Then we watch, and, most importantly, listen to the video:

The sound of the "First Octave":

What does the first octave sound like?

But you can switch octaves on a synthesizer? Yes, if you switch them, then they all seem to shift either to the left or to the right, depending on where you switched them. But the sound shifts, the keys themselves remain in place. Therefore, it is better if you remember the sound of at least the first octave, and you will already find the rest, focusing on the first.

Conclusion

So we reviewed with you octaves on the piano and on the synthesizer. Moving on to the next lesson, where we will learn how to read sheet music!

Octave system
As we have already found out earlier, the steps of the scale are periodically repeated at different heights. Moreover, in the diatonic scale, the repetition occurs in seven steps (the eighth repetition of the first), and in the chromatic scale through twelve (the thirteenth repetition of the first).
The basis for this repetition is the similarity of the steps. In the diatonic scale, every eighth step (and in the chromatic scale, the thirteenth), has a frequency exactly twice as high as the first. And from a physical point of view, sounds with a frequency ratio of 1: 2 are related, as if the same sound, at different heights. If you play them at the same time, they will merge into one.
The distance from any step up or down to the nearest of the same name (repeated) is called octave .
Based on the octave similarity, the entire scale is divided into sections, the so-called octaves. Each octave starts from the note Do, ends with the note C, and has its own name. They are from lowest to highest:

Subcontrol-octave
Counter octave
Big octave
Small octave
First octave
Second octave
Third octave
Fourth octave
Fifth octave

As you can see, the scale is divided into seven full octaves, with two incomplete at the edges. Names in low to high:

Sub-octave, counter-octave, major octave, minor octave, first octave, second octave, third octave, fourth octave, fifth octave (incomplete. The first octave is located exactly in the middle of the scale.

Now we can name each sound with an exact definition of its pitch. For example, Re of the second octave. Or Mi of a small octave.

The letter adopted two options for abbreviations:

Option 1
Used in Soviet textbooks. Sounds of a small octave and higher are written with a small letter. Starting from the first octave, a number from the top is added to the small letter, indicating the octave number. Sounds of a large octave and below are written with a capital letter. Starting from the counter-octave, a number is added to the bottom of the capital letter, indicating the ordinal number of the octave from the big octave down.

The names of sounds can also be in the syllabic notation system. Up to 1, re 4, etc.

Option 2
Used in Western countries, as well as in music programs. For the beginning of the numbering, the subcontact is taken as the lowest, and further from it the octaves are numbered in ascending order from 0 to 8.

>> Here I must immediately focus on one important detail. It is necessary to clearly share the meaning of the term octave, it can be used in two senses.

• Octave as the distance between two sounds of the same name. Do-Do, Re-Re, Mi-Mi, Fa # -Fa #, etc. An octave can be built from any step.
• Octave as a part of a scale. In this case, the octave always starts from the C note and ends with the C note. The next C note is already in another octave.

The incomparable Sarah Vaughan has long and forever been among the favorite jazz singers of special correspondent Asiris. Her voice is an amazing instrument.
An ordinary person has 1.5 octaves, but he uses only 3-4 notes? ().
Sarah has a three-octave range: from soprano to male baritone!
I don't want to offend the cute and super-popular performer of the same song.
"Somewhere over the Rainbow"
(),
but you can compare yourself.
Now you better highlight Sarah Vaughan's voice in the trio

Yes, that there is a range! I listen, admire and sing along!

Sarah Vaughan. Sarah Vaughan
03/23/1924, Newark, pcs. New Jersey -
04/03/1990, New York
Vocalist, pianist. Along with Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday, she is one of the founders of modern instrumental singing. She repeatedly emphasized that she was greatly influenced by the improvisations of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. She had a range of three octaves, was considered the best vocalist of the bebop period.
She learned to play the piano, worked as an organist in the church, sang in the choir. In 1943 she won a vocal competition at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, and Billy Eckstine, who was on the competition jury, recommended her to Earl Hines. In 1943-44 she was in the Hines Orchestra as a second pianist and member of the vocal trio. After a while Eckstein "took" her to his band, organized the first recordings (with Tony Scott, Dick Wells, Dizzy Gillespie, Teddy Wilson and others). In 1945-46 she sang in the John Kirby Orchestra, after which she decided to perform on stage with a trio. In 1947 she married the trumpeter George Treadwell, who became her manager for many years. Best early recordings: Mean To Me (1945), Body And Soul (1946), Once In A While (1947), Ain’t Misbehavin’ (1950), East Of The Sun (1950). After 1955, she mainly performed in clubs, rarely appeared on stage, in 1967-72 she almost did not sing (as it was sarcastically noted in one of the reference books, “I was looking for husbands and managers for a long time”). But in subsequent years, she visited more than 60 countries, taking part in a variety of projects - from concerts in small jazz clubs to performances with symphony orchestras in huge halls. In 1972 she recorded an album with music by Michel Legrand (Sarah Vaughan - Michel Legrand) with the orchestra conducted by the author. Thanks to recordings with various compositions - orchestras and choirs - the vocalist managed to achieve success outside of jazz. However, jazz musicians gladly invited her to their programs. After a triumphant performance at Carnegie Hall (1979), she toured with the Count Basie Orchestra, Joe Pass, Stanley Terrentine. In 1978 she became an honorary doctorate at the Berkeley School in Boston. Once the critic Leonard Feather wrote about her: "I heard the vocalist with the spontaneity of Ella Fitzgerald, with the soul of Arita Franklin, with the warmth of Peggy Lee, with the phrasing of Carmen McRae. And Sarah Vaughan had it all."

This text is the fruit of an unhealthy idea to write a fact for those who are not engaged in vocals, are not interested in exercises and terminology, but love music and are not averse to singing their favorite songs with a guitar. Or evaluate the capabilities of the vocalists of your favorite bands and their place in the vocal hierarchy. Finally, for those who are just wondering how the tenor differs in principle from the bass.

Here I will not bore about such joys as breathing, "support", "dome" - about them, and so it is written dofiga, and it is impossible to understand from the written niche until you break off your horns about these things for a couple of years.
I will simply, as far as possible, talk about how the singing voice works from the inside and what voices are found in the wild.
In general, I will try to write a text that at one time would have been very useful to me, but for some reason then I did not catch my eye.

Let's start with the simplest, most understandable and interesting. Range. What is the general range of singing voices? You will be surprised, but in general, it is rather small. A professional opera singer is supposed to have 2 octaves. Moreover, there are relatively few pieces that actually use these two octaves entirely. Usually you need about an octave and a half. Well, in pop music, among bards and in the Russian horn, it happens that half an octave is enough.

Is two octaves a lot or a little? For comparison: the classical guitar can extract 3.5 octaves, electro ~ 4, my Yamaho synthesizer - 5 octaves, piano ~ 7.3 octaves.
It seems a little. In fact, here it should be clarified what the "range of a professional singer" is. By this is meant the notes that he will sing when he is awakened in the middle of the night with a cold and a heavy hangover. Those. such notes, which are always with him and which he confidently publishes, coming to work day after day. In addition, it goes without saying a beautiful, musical, correct sounding of all notes of the range, and also aligned in timbre and dynamics (i.e. volume). And also "flight", i.e. the voice of a professional opera singer should always be heard by the audience in the last row. No, this is not the same as "loud".
So, getting those two octaves is a serious job that takes years in music. schools and conservatories.

Generally speaking, in addition to the mentioned two "professional" octaves, there may be additional notes in the voice. Below or even above. But there are few of them, hardly more than a third there or back. More often women have these notes, they have a slightly larger range. One way or another, modern opera material does not require these notes (by "modern" I mean the current repertoire of opera houses, in fact, with a number of reservations, we can assume that "modern" opera begins with the composer Verdi).

But what about the recurring stories about singers with ranges of 3-4-5 octaves? Yes, so be it. Ask how the range was measured. And they measured it, most likely, with the inclusion of all non-singing sounds. I mean, from belching to screeching when pressed by the door. Usually, such statements are either advertising, or boys and girls on forums are compared with each other with virtual devices.

And there is one more thing that needs to be mentioned right away. So to speak, the third octave from the bushes. Falsetto.
In general, this is a mode of operation of a male voice when it sounds like a female. Well, everyone heard Vitas?
Or let's listen to one of the best vocalists in modern rock - Mat Bellamy, masterfully mastering falsetto and easily switching from it to the main voice, which, together with his tenor voice, gives 3 octaves.

In the above piece, everything is sung in falsetto

Male academic vocals do not imply the use of falsetto, except as a characteristic paint. In any case, these notes are not included in the range. Although it so happens that a man sings entirely in falsetto, i.e. a woman's voice. Such shots are called counter-tenors, they usually sing a soprano or mezzo-soprano repertoire and are hardly distinguishable from them in sound.
In order not to forget about women, I must say that they have their own "falsetto" - called the whistle register, is used extremely rarely.

At this point, I would like to tell you a little more about the types of voice, since such a badyaga has already gone. In general, there are 6 of them: three men (from high to low - tenor, baritone, bass), three women (soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto del ... contralto). Each male voice is about an octave lower than the corresponding female voice. True, here it must be borne in mind that each of the types of voices is divided into at least two more: lyric (high, light) and dramatic (low, denser and stronger). The maximum number of voices is divided into hundreds of varieties, depending on the hickiness of a particular researcher. Most of the variety is observed among sopranos and basses, which is logical.

Most men are statistically baritones. So, if you are a man, then, most likely, you are a baritone, if there is no reason to suspect otherwise. If there are reasons, then, quite possibly, it is still a baritone - as if the type of voice can only be determined by a specialist, and then, it happens, they miss. That is, if you are in a conversation bass all the time, it does not mean at all that you are a bass, and not a tenor. In addition, these types of voices are rare in their pure form, usually something in the middle between bass and baritone, or tenor and baritone. It also happens that a singer begins his career with a baritone, and continues with a tenor. Placido Domingo is a classic example.

Most women have a high voice - soprano. Mezzo are found much less often, and the contralto is now completely endangered species, now they are no longer particularly separated from the mezzo.

Usually in the process of staging a voice is made to sound characteristic of its type, i.e. the tenor yells in a thin voice, and the bass mumbles in a thick one. Although in principle this is not necessary, you can try to portray a sound of a different type, just for each voice there is, as it were, its own optimal timbre.
Mezzo and soprano are more difficult to distinguish from a soprano, and sometimes it is completely impossible.

As for the modern stage, both rock and pop - it almost entirely consists of tenors or tenors squinting. Apparently, the high pitched voice is more in line with the erotic fantasies of the target audience (teenage girls). Although in the Soviet stage, and in the foreign mid-20th century, there were many baritones. Some of them (Gopzon, Leshchenko) are still soldering.

How different are the voices in terms of range? In fact, not so much, for "neighboring" voices by about a third, i.e. by 1.5-2 tones. In an octave, I remind you, 12 semitones or 6 tones. But you need to understand that the third is a little if you take it from the middle of the range, but if you take it from the top note, then every semitone is given there, like climbing Everest.

Finally, one last thing about the types of voices. In general, this classification is used in academic music for one reason: the parts are written for one or another type of voice, and, accordingly, the singer's assignment to one or another class determines the optimal repertoire for him. On the stage, everything is different, there material is often written for a particular performer (often by himself), and here it does not matter at all whether he is a tenor or a coloratura bass - there is an opportunity to choose convenient material for a specific voice, and not for a type. Therefore, it is often problematic to reliably find out what kind of voice a particular performer has. Meanwhile, it is sometimes useful when re-singing someone else's material, so to speak, to compare the capabilities of the original performer with your own.

I'm tired for today. In the second part I will try to write about the structure of the voice and the concept of tessitura, as well as draw a number of practical conclusions.
I hope for a heated discussion of the text, a little shit in the comments would also be helpful.

Finally, I suggest listening to some good performers.

Sergey Lemeshev, lyric tenor.

Muslim Magomayev, baritone.

Fedor Chaliapin, high bass.

Anna Netrebko, soprano.

Elena Obraztsova, mezzo-soprano.