Songs for a mezzo-soprano voice

237 songs whose melody stays inside A3 to A5 from start to finish, out of 324 measured. Allow three semitones of transposition either way and it becomes 296.

This is the widest list on the site, which says less about mezzos than about where pop melodies are written. Being able to sing something is not the same as it suiting you, and a song sitting in the middle of your range is often less interesting than one that pushes at the edge of it.

The list

Sorted by artist, showing 40 of 237. The two notes are where the melody spends its time, not the single highest and lowest note it touches.

SongArtistSits between
What's Up4 Non BlondesB3 to D#5
Nord Sud Ovest Est883E4 to D5
I'm a MarionetteABBAE4 to A4
Name of the GameABBAA3 to B4
TigerABBAC#4 to D#5
WaterlooABBAC#4 to B4
Highway To HellAC DCE4 to E5
Beautiful LifeAce of BaseB3 to A4
The SignAce of BaseB3 to B4
Born CountryAlabamaC#4 to C#5
Y'a d'la rumba dans l'airAlain SouchonD#4 to D#5
Baby BabyAmy GrantB3 to C5
Vivo Per LeiAndrea BocelliD#4 to G5
Donna con teAnna OxaG4 to A5
Takin Care of BusinessBachman-Turner OverdriveC4 to E4
Ready For LoveBad CompanyA3 to A4
Run With The PackBad CompanyC4 to A4
Woman in LoveBarbra StreisandA#3 to C#5
One WeekBarenaked LadiesC#4 to A4
Wind Beneath My WingsBette MidlerG#4 to A5
The Tide Is HighBlondieF#4 to F#5
Bad MedicineBon JoviC#4 to A4
Cat PeopleBOWIE DAVIDC4 to G5
China GirlBOWIE DAVIDD4 to E5
Dans l'eau de la claire FontaineBrassens GeorgesB3 to G4
AubreyBreadD4 to G5
Guitar ManBreadD4 to E5
From the Bottom of My Broken HeartBritney SpearsA3 to B4
American Honky-Tonk Bar AssociationBrooks GarthE4 to C#5
Walk in the SunBruce HornsbyF#4 to D5
I'm On FireBruce SpringsteenC#4 to B4
The RiverBruce SpringsteenE4 to E5
HeavenBryan AdamsB3 to G4
Thought I'd Died and Gone to HeavenBryan AdamsB3 to A4
Cold ContagiousBushB3 to E5
Ci vuole un fisico bestialeCarboniD4 to C5
Faccio I Conti Con TeCarboniC#4 to D5
Mare MareCarboniD#4 to D5
Nobody Does It BetterCarly SimonA3 to A#4
Jambalaya (On the Bayou)CarpentersA#3 to A4

See all 237, and set your own two notes

Why a voice type is a bad way to pick songs

A voice type is not a range. It is where your voice sits happily and where it changes gear, and two people called mezzo-soprano can have their break in different places. A choir director put it to me more bluntly than that, and he was right. Using A3 to A5 as a filter is a starting point, not a verdict.

If you would rather work from your own two notes, the range test measures them in about a minute in the browser, then hands them straight to the full song list.

Where these numbers come from

They are read out of MIDI transcriptions from the Lakh MIDI Dataset, CC BY 4.0, by Colin Raffel. Human beings typed those melodies in by ear and about a fifth of the songs transcribed twice have versions that disagree by a whole octave. Only songs with two agreeing transcriptions and a range a voice can produce made it here. I also labelled all 214 acts by whether the lead singer is a man or a woman, and removed the 108 male-led songs sitting above B4, where no male pop singer spends a song. What is left still runs high on average for male voices, so a title here is a shortlist entry rather than a fact. The main page sets out the whole method.

Other voice types, bass, baritone, tenor, alto, soprano.

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