The Vocal Ranges Of Famous Singers, Compared

The average human body has a limited amount of pitches it can physically make — and then there's singers like Axl Rose or Mariah Carey.

Some singers are known for their almost superhuman vocal range, and though vocal range does not necessarily a great singer make, it's still fascinating to compare the breadth of some of the most famous singers in the world and to see where their ranges fall.

Crunching the numbers from Vintage Vinyl News, Reddit user oritron put together this graph that compares the vocal ranges of singers like Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Prince and Michael Jackson side by side.

The approximate range of each singer is calculated by charting the highest and lowest notes each singer has sung in the recording studio, according to Vintage Vinyl News. On one end of the spectrum, we have Taylor Swift, whose vocal range is 2 octaves and 1-1/2 notes. In contrast to Swift, singers like Mariah Carey and Axl Rose have wider vocal ranges: Carey's range is around 4 octaves and 6-1/2 notes and Axl Rose's is 5 octaves and 2-1/2 notes.

It should be noted that the singer with the widest vocal range is credited to Mike Patton of Faith No More, who, though not featured in the graph, reportedly has a vocal range greater than six octaves.

[Via Reddit]