How low can you get?
Till now, it was the All Night Vigil by Rachmaninoff that held the dubious honour of asking for the lowest note to be sung in choral music – the third B flat below middle C. This 97 year long record has now been shattered with Paul Mealor’s setting of the De Profundis in which he asks his bassi profundi to sink to depths far lower than Rachmaninoff ever dared – the third E below middle C.
Not surprisingly, it’s not your average basso profundo who can plunge to these depths and so Mealor, along with Universal Music, mounted an international search for the right singer which drew over 400 applicants. Forty year old American bass Tim Storms won easily with a vocal range that extends a full octave lowed than Mealor asks.
Storms also hold the Guinness record for the lowest note produced by a human, 5 octaves below middle with a frequency of just 8 Hz, inaudible to the human ear.
Check out Tim Storms singing at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJcjCztvn70&feature=related
