I'm fairly new to vocals, and musicianship in general really, and there's something I don't understand about range.

I've read that death growls and black metal type vocals should be delivered using chest voice, and I've also read that chest voice typically only covers about 8-12 notes.

From my personal experiences so far, it seems that the bottom 70% or so of my chest range is what I believe would be considered low to high growls, and that the rest of the range is high enough to be considered black metal vocals.

Suppose someone wanted to use only black metal vocals, or only death growls. Wouldn't the part of their range that is high enough to be considered black metal vocals or the part that is low enough to be considered growls need to cover at least an octave? Or is it normal and acceptable to only have a few notes in a given style of vocals?

When it comes to Death and Black metal, you really don't have to worry about what notes you are hitting...just makes sure you aren't monotone the whole song.

so a few notes will be fine.

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So it really doesn't matter at all if you're in key or in tune or anything like that?

I'd say it is good to be in tune, but when it comes to brutal and extreme stuff, it doesn't matter so much cause this genres tend to be not very melodic anyway. I'm not a singer, but just thought about other bands now. If you take melodic death metal for example, the vocals sometimes try to do "melodic screaming" (for example the chorus of nemesis by arch enemy - and i don't want to start a discussion about angelas skills now, but also death used melodies in the vocals at), other great vocalists focus more on their sound and rhythm, not using many different notes (most brutal death and black metal) but maybe just listen to your favourite vocalists and hear what they are doing. also think about where you want to go and you should easily realise, wheter your current range is enough or not.

Your adequate practise makes your vocal know the range automatically. When you are starting at first always focus on your power and the use of diaphragm. The right combination of these two develops your consistency and finally the range as of the normal vocals. So ample practise on the gutteral vocals is a must or you might end up irritating your vocal cords.

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