The Vocal Range of Dave Grohl: (D1-)D2-F5(-D6)

Unlike his extremely baritonish singing style lets us expect, Dave Grohl is actually a low tenor, actually pretty similar to Paul McCartney as far as voice placement goes.

Grohl's singing style started out as pretty reminiscent of Kurt Cobain's style, but later evolved into Grohl's own approach. Recently, he has started to showcase McCartney-like style in some of his notes. Grohl's lower notes are surprisingly weak, and he has problems projecting them live, whereas his higher notes, though sometimes stylistically strained, are strong and quite comfortable.

1. 0:00 - B2s from "Rope".
2. 0:16 - Quiet B2s from "Stranger Things Have Happened".
3. 0:36 - Calm singing from "Everlong" with few short B2s.
4. 0:58 - B2s from the bridge of "Learn to Fly", Grohl often has problems projecting these notes properly live.
5. 1:23 - Awkward backing vocals from the awesome song "Drive Me Wild", Grohl hits lots of B2s here.
5. 1:51 - Short B♭2 from "Still".
6. 1:59 - Extremely weak B♭2 from "X-Static".
7. 2:07 - Singing down to whispery A2 from "Back & Forth".
8. 2:15 - Faint A2s from "Headwires".
9. 2:30 - Whispery A2s and one G♯2 from "Up in Arms".
10. 2:41 - Strong A2s, G2s and quick E2 from the humorous gay rights-song called "Keep It Clean", Grohl's lows are surpisingly great here!
11. 2:49 - More strong G2s and somewhat growly E2 from the same song.
12. 2:57 - Really weird spoken lows from the bridge of "Everlong" bottoming around D2 in full, there are more audible in the vocal track (without backing music ).
13. 3:12 - This isn't sung but counts towards the total range, if nothing else: many D2s from an interview.
14. 3:21 - D1 in vocal fry (not connected to chest) from "Sister Europa".
15. 3:26 - Starting off with high notes, great, clean G♯4s from "Normal".
16. 3:54 - Powerful G♯4s from the intro of "In Your Honor".
17. 4:22 - Chesty G♯4s from "Come Back".
18. 4:44 - Quick and easy A4s from "Bridge Burning", one of my favourite songs by Foo Fighters!
19. 5:02 - Intense A4s from the chorus of "The Pretender".
20. 5:18 - Fierce A4s from "Stacked Actors", I love that rasp he puts at the end of the chorus!
19. 5:38 - Emotional belted A4s from "Come Alive".
20. 5:46 - Mighty A4s from "Hell".
21. 6:15 - Great G4s, A4s and falsetto E5 from the fantastic live cover of "Maybe I'm Amazed" by Paul McCartney.
22. 6:25 - Scaling up to exploding B♭4 and sustained A4, the song is "The Deepest Blues are Black".
23. 6:43 - Really clean and tenorish B♭4s from "This Will Be Our Year", originally by The Zombies; these notes actually remind me a lot of Macca!
24. 7:04 - Very powerful B♭4s from "Lonely as You".
25. 7:27 - Powerful G♯4s and one B4 from the live cover of Mose Allison's "Young Man Blues".
26. 7:46 - Extremely raw B4s from "Enough Space".
27. 8:01 - Fantastic high passage from "Halo" ending with a powerful sustained B4.
28. 8:21 - Earthshattering A4s, B4s and non-modal (not connected to chest) D5s from "Free Me".
29. 8:46 - Backing vocals from Nirvana's "In Bloom", Dave sings melody around B♭4 with quick trills up to high Cs (C5s).
30. 9:06 - Cover of Paul McCartney's classic "Band on the Run", Grohl hits the A4s and C5s during the famous part of the song.
31. 9:37 - Really good C5 from same the cover of "Maybe I'm Amazed", Grohl really seemed to aim for Macca's style on that note.
32. 9:43 - Really raw high singing topping at full C♯5, the song is "FFL".
33. 9:53 - Shouted C♯5 from the live performance of "Stacked Actors", Grohl does these high-pitched shouts really often live.
34. 9:58 - Really intense passage that has Grohl sliding up to nearly non-modal D5, the song is "Monkey Wrench".
35. 10:19 - Full D5s from the live performance of "Bridge Burning", the studio version has non-modal E5s instead.
36. 10:32 - Brief full E♭5 from "The Colour and the Shape".
37. 10:38 - Short full E♭5 from the comedy live cover (though the cover was actually really good) of "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin, Grohl is really straining to get up there. This is also a pretty old recording, Grohl's high note technique wasn't that good back in the clip.
38. 11:03 - Really strained, sustained E♭5s and two brief highs, E5 and F5 (Grohl's highest full note), from the live performance of "Breakout".
39. 11:32 - Time for non-modal notes (not connected to chest): E5 from "Bridge Burning".
40. 11:47 - Sustained falsetto E5 from the live performance of "Everlong".
41. 11:58 - Raspy falsetto G♯5 from the live performance of "Best of You".
42. 12:06 - Quick falsetto B5 from the live performance of "Breakout".
43. 12:11 - Grohl's highest note, screamed falsetto D6 from the live performance of "My Hero".

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[shayzurS]

he is a bariton or a tenor ?

[GoodGuitarSolos]

@shayzurS He is a low tenor with extremely baritonish singing style.

[Nic33rd]

Love this series! Keep em coming!

[MedraUdamara]

An awesome video for Master Dave Grohl. Thank You, GoodGuitarSolos.

[GoodGuitarSolos]

@Chriskkboongg Why the hell not? Care to explain me why?

If you yell at somebody with your full voice, that is obviously full voice. Use some logic.

[Chriskkboongg]

@GoodGuitarSolos Shouting or screaming doesn't count as a full voice.

[fallenrox59]

This is great

[liljimi321]

I believe you missed the enough space HIGH scream. you got the B4 but he goes higher for one measure. really high. not too harp on you, but that one scream in that song is what i believe his best. powerful. Cool vid man.

[Beatleshell]

I really enjoyed this.....so cool!!

[GoodGuitarSolos]

@aaa83555 What the fuck? Screamed notes can be full too. Obviously, cleaner notes can be more impressive, but Grohl hits some powerful full notes up there. His C5 from "Maybe I'm Amazed" is pretty impressive too.

Ummm, why? Grohl obviously makes a stylistic choice by hitting those notes with a strained approach.

[aaa83555]

@GoodGuitarSolos yes if you think that ultra screamed note are FULL notes yes you're right, but if you tell this to a vocal teacher he will make joke of you