In music, the range, or chromatic range, of a

musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...

is the distance from the lowest to the highest pitch it can play. For a singing voice, the equivalent is vocal range. The range of a

musical part A part (or voice) generally refers to a single strand or melody or harmony of music within a larger ensemble or a polyphonic musical composition. There are several senses in which the word is often used: * the physical copy of printed or writte ...

is the distance between its lowest and highest note.

Compass

Among British English speakers, and perhaps others, compass means the same thing as chromatic range—the interval between the lowest and highest note attainable by a voice or musical instrument.

Other ranges

The terms sounding range, written range, designated range, duration range and dynamic range have specific meanings. The sounding range"Music theory online : musical instrument ranges & names", Brian Blood, Dolmetsch.com, 2009, webpage:
Dolmetsch-M29
refers to the pitches produced by an instrument, while the written range refers to the compass (span) of notes written in the sheet music, where the part is sometimes transposed for convenience. A

piccolo The piccolo ( ; Italian for 'small') is a half-size flute and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. Sometimes referred to as a "baby flute" the modern piccolo has similar fingerings as the standard transverse flute, but the so ...

, for example, typically has a sounding range one

octave In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...

higher than its written range. The designated range is the set of notes the player should or can achieve while playing. All instruments have a designated range, and all pitched instruments have a playing range. Timbre, dynamics, and duration ranges are interrelated and one may achieve registral range at the expense of timbre. The designated range is thus the range in which a player is expected to have comfortable control of all aspects. The duration range is the difference between the shortest and longest rhythm used. Dynamic range is the difference between the quietest and loudest volume of an instrument, part or piece of music.

Range limits

Although woodwind instruments and

string instrument String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the ...

s have no theoretical upper limit to their range (subject to practical limits), they generally cannot go below their designated range.

Brass instrument A brass instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips. Brass instruments are also called labrosones or labrophones, from Latin a ...

s, on the other hand, can play beyond their designated ranges. Notes lower than the brass instrument's designated range are called pedal tones. The playing range of a brass instrument depends on both the technical limitations of the instrument and the skill of the player. Classical arrangements seldom make woodwind or brass instruments play beyond their designed range. String musicians play the bottom of their ranges very frequently, but the top of a string instrument's range is rather fuzzy, and it is unusual for a string player to exceed the designated range. It is quite rare for wind musicians to play the extremes of their instruments. The most common exception is that in many 20th century works, pedal tones are called for in bass trombones. This chart uses standard numberings for octaves where

middle C C or Do is the first note and semitone of the C major scale, the third note of the A minor scale (the relative minor of C major), and the fourth note (G, A, B, C) of the Guidonian hand, commonly pitched around 261.63 Hz. The actual frequen ...

corresponds to C₄. In the MIDI language middle C is referred to as MIDI note number 60. The lowest note that a

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks ...

can sound (with a true pipe) is C₋₁ (or CCCC), which is 8 Hz, below the range of human hearing and not visible on this chart. However, if acoustic combination (a note and its fifth) counts, the lowest note is C₋₂ (or CCCCC), which is 4 Hz. In terms of recording and reproduction, many speakers have a low limit of around 40–60 Hz.

Typical ranges

Notes

External links