Vocal range is the measure of the breadth of
pitches that a
human voice can
phonate. Although the study of vocal range has little practical application in terms of speech, it is a topic of study within
linguistics,
phonetics, and
speech and language pathology, particularly in relation to the study of
tonal languages and certain types of vocal disorders. However, the most common application of the term "vocal range" is within the context of
singing, where it is used as one of the major defining characteristics for classifying singing voices into groups known as
voice types.