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If I can comfortably sing from F2 to C5 then what would be the best key for my voice? Is it C major, because I can hit this note as a tonic of C major key, or maybe is it C# major because then I can hit seventh degree that is a leading tone to the tonic.

What is the correct way of thinking about it?

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There is NO best key for anyone's voice. It's the wrong way to approach it. The far more important thing is the RANGE of each and every song. Just because two songs are in the same key certainly does not mean they both have the same range. The range is the lowest note sung to the highest.

With a two and a half octave range in your voice, it's not too critical. Considerations are more than the range, though. The tessitura of a song - where it spends a lot of its time pitch-wise - is also important. Some songs don't have a huge range, but most of the song is sung at the high end, for example.

There's also the sounds at both ends to consider - some vowel sounds are hard to sing well towards the top end of one's range. Then, there's the vocal quality, because some songs do sound better at the extremes of your range.

So, given those criteria, you need to find the best key for you, for each song. Another thing to bear in mind is that if you are sharing vocals - harmonising - or someone is harmonising with you, the best range for them may or may not be your best. Compromise then comes into play.

I usually chuckle when someone says I always sing in Bb, or G, or whatever. What they probably mean is they sing the songs they sing - in that key. There's always going to be a song that they cannot sing in that key! Unless of course, they have a three octaaves plus range themselves, in which case, they could sing the existing songs in different keys as well.

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  • An addendum, relating to tessitura, but for the uneducated like myself - watch for the "money notes". Think of some 'big singer' track like Celine Dion, I'm Your Lady. If you can't wallop that big note before the chorus [which is sometimes also called the "I'm here" note, advertising big performance to come], it won't matter how well you do the chorus itself. Pick your key for the money notes.
    – Tetsujin
    Apr 18, 2019 at 18:51
  • Thanks for the exhausting answer. It cleared things a bit. @Tetsujin I didn't know about the money notes. But it makes so much sense to me. Thanks for the advice.
    – Raven322
    Apr 18, 2019 at 19:00
  • @Raven322 - I hope you mean exhaustive rather than exhausting, although I was a bit out of breath after producing it...
    – Tim
    Apr 18, 2019 at 20:17
  • I'm not a native speaker, I'm sorry for the mistake :)
    – Raven322
    Apr 24, 2019 at 13:22

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