Yma Sumac
Soprano · Latin · Folk · Classical · Peru · prominent since 1950
How Yma Sumac uses that range
The trick is changing mechanism mid-phrase with no warning: a growled, rattling low chest sound, then a bright piercing tone up in whistle register, and nothing gradual in between. Vowels stay wide and open down low and clamp tight up high. Rhythm is percussive, locked to the accompaniment. Attack the whistle notes with force and they will not come, since that register needs very little air and a fully released jaw.
What is Yma Sumac’s vocal range?
Yma Sumac's vocal range is commonly cited as B2 to C#7 (Db7) — about 4.2 octaves, or 50 semitones, and is usually classified as soprano. Full voice is cited up to around A5; everything above that comes from head voice or whistle register.
Switched between growled low chest and piercing whistle-register tones inside single phrases. That cited span is wider than 97% of the 357 voices in this library.
- Signature song
- Gopher Mambo
- High C#7 heard in
- Chuncho (The Forest Creatures)
Reading the numbers
- B2 is a deep floor for a soprano — lower than all but 3 of the 52 sopranos here.
- The top note beats 92% of the 52 sopranos in this library, and sits in whistle register.
- Only 4 singers here reach above C#7.
- 16 semitones — 32% of the whole span — sit above the cited full-voice ceiling, so much of this range is head voice, falsetto or whistle rather than chest.
- That floor is a full 13 semitones beneath where a soprano's range conventionally starts (C4).
Commonly cited figures, not lab measurements — extreme notes are one-off recorded moments, not the singer’s everyday range.
Take the free 2-minute range test — your mic finds your lowest and highest notes, then this page shows exactly how your voice lines up with Yma Sumac’s.
Also bottoming out on B2
12 other voices here are cited to the same floor.