From The Start: key, vocal range, and how hard it is to sing
Laufey's From The Start is a short, conversational jazz-pop tune people look up when they want the original key, the vocal range, and whether the melody will sit in their voice. This page answers those searches with the original recording's commonly cited key and with singing stats measured from the vocal line: range G#3–B4 (15 semitones), tessitura mostly C#4–F4, phrasing tempo about 56 BPM, difficulty medium, longest note C#4 held 4.3 seconds, about 0.6 notes per second, duration 170 seconds.
What makes it easy or hard to sing
The measured span is 15 semitones from G#3 to B4. That is not a stadium-belt compass. The work is in staying accurate in a narrow band while the line keeps moving. Most of the melody sits between C#4 and F4, so you spend the song in the middle of many mixed voices rather than parking on a chest-dominant low or a screaming high. The top is B4, a mix or light-head note for a lot of singers; the floor is G#3, which mezzos can usually speak-sing and which many tenors will find slightly low and breathy if they stay in full voice.
Phrasing tempo is about 56 BPM with 0.6 notes per second. The clock is slow, but the lyric density is not zero. You get time between phrases, then a run of syllables that need clean onsets rather than scooping. Difficulty is marked medium for that reason: the range is modest, yet pitch and diction have to stay tight because there is nowhere to hide in a spare arrangement.
The longest measured hold is C#4 for 4.3 seconds. C#4 sits inside the tessitura, so the issue is not altitude. It is a steady, unforced tone without leaking air or drifting sharp. At 0.6 notes per second across 170 seconds, stamina is more about repeating that middle-voice quality than about surviving a marathon of high belts.
Who it suits
Voice types that live around C#4–F4 will feel at home: lyric mezzos, sopranos who like to mix down, and light tenors who can keep B4 easy. Baritones will meet G#3 comfortably but may need falsetto or a very light mix for the upper end. True low basses will find the tessitura high and thin. True high sopranos will find B4 easy and G#3 dull unless they add color without pressing.
If your speaking voice already sits near C#4, you can treat the song as diction and swing practice. If your break is right in the C#4–F4 pocket, plan mix work before you worry about the G#3 floor or the B4 peak. The 15-semitone map is small enough that transposition by a whole step still keeps the character of the line.
How to practice it
Map your own passable notes against G#3–B4 first. If B4 is a strain, drop the track a step and keep the same shapes; if G#3 disappears, raise it. Then isolate the tessitura. Sing five-note patterns only between C#4 and F4 on a vowel you can keep consistent, because that is where the measured melody actually lives.
Treat the 56 BPM phrasing as speech on pitch. Speak a phrase in time, then sing it without adding extra slides. At 0.6 notes per second you cannot rush consonants; land them on the beat and leave the pitch clean. For the 4.3-second C#4, practice a silent inhale, a quiet onset, and a straight tone that does not swell into a choir-boy wobble. Stop the note on purpose rather than fading into noise.
Work register joins next. Glide G#3 to C#4 without a bump, then C#4 to B4 in mix. The song does not demand a heroic C5, so do not manufacture one. Keep the 170-second duration in mind as a set of short phrases, not one unbroken solo: mark breaths where the measured line already leaves space.
When the middle voice is stable at the original speed, add the swing feel without dragging the 56 BPM grid. If a phrase still smears, slow that phrase only, then restore tempo. Upload the song to PitchHighway and learn it phrase by phrase.