Voice range confusion??????

Hey fellow singers! Real glad i found a forum and community of singers to talk to and get support from, this is my first post so i hope my newbie-ness isn't too painful. But on to the topic at hand.

Alright see ive been singing for about a year and a half now and my first teacher(mainly classical) whom ive been learning from for a year and a half assessed my voice and deemed me a BASS. Ive gone to believe that for my whole singing experience. Also note: he never took me into or went over head voice.

After not getting much progress with him I switched over to SLS teacher and she took me to head voice and put me down as a TENOR. Im quite confused and conflicted whats your say? Who is more credible here???

To answer this question, we need to know exactly what you mean with 'head voice'.

Also, voice classification is not much use unless you plan on singing in choirs or classical music.

According to wikipedia, a bass has a tessitura that is lower than or equal to about F2 - F4. A tenor is four semitones shifted upwards into A2 - A4, give or take.

But really the number of voice types in the world is equal to the number of people alive today, minus twins and mutes. Don't be too hasty about what category you fall into. Some people have vast range, but they don't have pleasant timbres throughout that range. Their tessituras might be lower or higher than what might be thought judging by their range.

Bla bla.

Technique will let you choose.....

In all honesty, unless you plan on singing conservatory type musical pieces or classical it doesn't really matter.
Sing, train to widen your range and keep your vocal mechanism in top notch form, and enjoy yourself!

You're overthinking things, just open the mouth and sing, if it sounds good, it IS good......

Hiya...
The ratings of voice, are not about the high note, but that which you can reach on the bottom half..
There are bass singers, that can go into whistle tones , or Baritones that can sustain vocals high C's.. etc..
SO..... we are not limited by how much we can "stretch" the vocal folds, but that of how much we can open them....

Examples are : Bass : Barry White..... Baritone: Eddy Vedder ...... High Baritone : Chris Cornell ..... Tenor: Michael Jackson

Nah bro, Michael Jackson had hormone problems. He's technically a male alto. Have you heard him talk? Just like a woman, bro.

lol

That's not true. That is just him in character.
Vocal instructor Roger Love said that he called Michael Jackson, and caught him off-guard and he said that was when he realized that Michael Jackson always spoke in the voice as part of his image. He said Michael Jackson actually had a fairly low-pitched speaking voice.

Fairly low-pitched? Give examples.
All interviews on youtube, spanning twenty years, feature an alto speaking voice, although it's rougher after ~1990.
With rougher I mean more fry, but the pitch is much the same.

I'm sure his voice isn't as high as it appears to be while talking, but a rather low voice, would be impossible...
Listen to earilier videos of him, when he was a kid, teenager and adult... his voice changed a lot (speaking voice, and eventually singing voice), but all in all, his timbre and tone is placed high. He may be faking the falcetto aspects of it though -- which in time, probably became his true coloring...

Sorry to be a bit of an MIA OP, but thank you all for your insight i honestly never approached the concept of vocal range from the angles you guys presented me! I must admit people have told me I have a fairly deep talking voice but with the info you guys presented I'm definitely going to be a lot more open about singing it holy damn! By head voice for me was anything past E4, my teacher brought me up to a strained(since im really unfamiliar to using head voice) A5 I believe. My lowest singing note would be around an E2-D2.

Glad I found this community, gonna be replying and posting within it whenever and to the best ability that I can!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DExMNdStZU

 

Also hope this helps with looking at MJ's talking and voice and what not lol

In the recent 25th anniversarry MJ documentary on TV Seth Riggs mentioned Michael's lower baritone range and the fact that he liked to speak in that child like voice over his more natural lower speaking voice.

cool... oh.. and @Tommy57... Your mojo song rocks the doors off man... very well done... and your buddy places a mean harp....

Best answer in the thread. Learn how to sing without hurting yourself and sing what you want to sing. The rest of those classifications are... nice for reference, but not even really consistent between different classical singing schools, so don't sweat it.

I can only tell you what he wrote in his book, and since he was Michael Jackson's vocal coach at one point, I would have to take his word for it.

I have no idea how to go from head voice to chest voice without that godforsaken break.

lack of support then irin.. you have to really push down on the diaphram (like you are going to the washroom #2 style).... and go lightly...

Support isn't magic. Even with good support you'll need to know what to do with your throat for proper passagio.