Ayu's vocal range
 

So, does anyone know what her vocal range is? how many octaves etc.?
i've always wondered about that.

sure, there's no official answer on that, but maybe some of you could have a basic idea, i remember quite a few members here that actually sing in real life and know a lot about vocals.

so, what 'cha think? :)

This was asked a while ago and we never really got a concise answer, I believe most people wavered between alto and soprano...but with Ayu because she hits notes that are across both bands it's hard to classify her. I also remember that someone had a source from 2000 which talked about her singing in a traditional Japanese style to hit her notes in monochrome...

I have a friend who is studing traditional japanese singing and she said that article is total bull******

I'm going to ask her ayu's vocal range if she shows up anytime soon^^

Wasn't that article also written by a student studying trad. Japanese music?

People shud make vocal range videos from her songs&albums

Yeap, but this doesn't really mean anything...
after all, ayu's vocal technique is mainly western (she started learning for real on New York) and back at 2000 ayu couldn't really sing, neither on a western or eastern way

^ what?? ==a

i dont know if we honestly would ever truly know her range...

if you look at her sheet music, its all pretty similar i think.

I don't know if I've ever seen her go above the staff, and this is her older stuff.

If she goes into different stuff now, I don't know. Do we have sheet music for the new stuff? (thats official)

I only know in SEASONS she uses the falsetto in the chorus

"sonna hibi ga atta ne to, waraeru hi ga kuru darou"

She uses her falsetto (or something really similar to it; it's out of her comfortable range, but she still manages to hit, so it's either a falsetto or she's straining which I'll explain later again).

Then in her zomg songs like M and Dearest; the final screeching chorus... it doesn't sound like falsetto... more like she's straining her voice to reach those notes which sounds really uncomfortable.

For her A Song For xx album, where she sounded really screechy and high... I attribute that to improper vocal training... the whole album sounded kinda nasal too; so it's likely she used her nasal voice to sing that album, and not her diaphragm, which she started to use like since Duty, I feel.

Also, in kanariya where she sounded really high... I actually feel like they edited her voice to be that high to create some kind of effect (birds do sing really high; maybe she wanted to be like a canary that's singing)... which could explain why she never performed this live lol.

Finally, all these are my personal opinion, so... don't take them too seriously! ^^

^I really like your explanation tbh. :yes

This really is a good point^^

I'm going to ask my friend wich song has her lowest and highest note and make her listen to those songs and everything else :innocent

That's very interesting. ;) Sounds realistic to me. It might be true.

I forgot to mention her vocal range probably changed a lot over the years. In 1998 she would never be able to reach the notes in talkin' 2 myself & decision. Yet in recent lives we also see her lowering the key of her older songs like POWDER SNOW.

^ maybe coz she's matured ?

Voice gets lower while u get older... it stop changing when people are around the 40s if I'm not wrong...

Also, having proper singing lessons may make her range a little wider... so, she can hit some low notes she couldn't

Also, look at the recording of Dearest, and then the vocal performance at A Museum.
Instead of asking what her vocal range is plainly,
I think you should ask what her vocal range is/was in this or that period of time.
The final chorus on Dearest recording is a bit much, but in A Museum, it's performed beautifully!
So.. yeah, thats what I think about it.

i thought somewhere around this year
she said in her blog that after PCDL she realized
she have 3 octave range or something? >.>

Asked my friend about it... she said Ayu has for sure 3 octaves, but she may have more than it

3 octaves are common for most singers...

The highest I've ever heard her sing was an "F" (F5, an octave above middle "F") and the lowest I've ever heard her sing was a low "F" (F3, an octave below middle "F").

But the highest she's been hitting recently is an E flat ("GREEN," "Rule"), two half steps below the "F" she used to hit.

So, seems like she has a little under three octaves...

But that's just the information I can gather as a singer myself. This isn't from any other kind of source. :P

Good point of view.
Anyway, it's really difficult to know her range because her voice always in evolution