Taking middle C (C4) as a starting point the average bass singer will cover roughly a couple of octaves below, and a soprano two octaves above that point using their normal (modal) voice. So how many other types of singing voice are there, and how high or low can the human voice actually go? There are links from several of the named indiviuals below to examples of them singing, so have a listen and prepare to be amazed.
Well, apparently there are four vocal registers, although they are of variable use in practice. After the normal or 'modal' register next up is 'falsetto' as used by most male altos / countertenors and other men wanting to discretely sing along with women's parts in rehearsals. Then there are 'whistle notes' normally used by female singers for extreme high notes (E6 and upwards). Finally, the lowest vocal register is known as 'vocal fry', 'glottal rattle' or any number of other terms implying that it is basically a non-musical growl of very little use in 'serious' singing.
So what are the extremes achieved by less than average singers? Let's start with the top end of male voices. Some of you might know about Michael Maniaci 'the male soprano'. He's got a beautiful voice covering the standard soprano range because his voice simply didn't break when he went through puberty. Given the lack of castrati these days that makes him pretty unusual. Have a listen to Adam Lopez though. He's naturally a tenor, but can go down into the bass range and way up high using whistle notes to hit a Csharp8 (that's an 8 octave range and a world record high note for men). Being an Australian he's eager to clarify that he is 'all there' but it's still a bit disconcerting to hear a man sing that high.
Over to the ladies then. In classical music the top note required in standard repertoire is a G6 (in an aria by Mozart, a Massenet opera and in Thomas Ades' The Tempest which also asks for 17 E6's in the first scene alone) and F6 appears in a number of pieces, most famously the Queen of the Night arias in The Magic Flute. Beyond that a few works were written specifically for soloists such as Erna Sack and Mado Robin which go up to C7, but these are hardly ever performed these days. To break the ceiling set by Adam Lopez we've got to look to pop singers. Individuals such as Mariah Carey and Minnie Ripperton regularly zip up into whistle notes, but the highest of the high is Brazilan pop singer Georgia Brown. She also has an incredible 8 octave range, with a G8 appearing on one of her records, but as the world record she managed an astounding G10!
After that we'll drop into the depths. Unfortunately I have no idea of the lowest note achieved by a female, but true women basses do exist, so it's going to be pretty low. For men the obvious place to go for a proper basso profundo is Russia, and you can find a reasonable number of 'Octavists' there who basically sing an octave below normal bass range down to around E1. Vladamir Pasjukov and Aleksander Ort are two examples. Penderecki wrote an F1 in his Song of Cherubim, but for choirs luckily the lowest requirement is 'only' a Bflat1 in Mahler's 2nd Symphony and Rachmninov's Vespers. You can hear a performance of the Mahler on 5th November in Oxford Town Hall being put on by Oxford Symphony Orchestra with Oxford Harmonic Society as the main choir. That means I personally will be attempting to plummet to those depths - wish me luck. Outside of classical music there is certainly some competition from gospel and country singers such as Paul David Kennamer, Tim Storms and Roger Menees amongst others. The latter has managed to use the vocal fry register to growl his way down to 0.393 hertz (we're into negative numbers on standard terminology here) which might possibly be the world record. I wouldn't exactly call it singing though. For a more pleasant exampled of vocal fry try listening to Abert Kuvezin of Yat Kha - a group who combine Albert's growls with a spot of Tuvan throat singing. Ah yes, Tuvan throat singing - how does that fit into the four vocal registers? Maybe you'll have to ask a Tuvan that one.
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