mike’s music pages

They Told Me That I Was Singing An Octave Too Low.  What is an octave?

Sometimes in our rehearsals there is a bass singer who is singing an octave lower than the other basses. When the director says that someone is singing an octave too low, it makes no difference because the offending bass does not know what an octave is. In this lesson you will learn what an octave is and hear some examples.

Many basses think that to sing bass means always to sing low. They don’t think that they are singing bass if they are not rumbling at the bottom of their vocal range. Bass is the lowest voice, but the top of the bass range overlaps the other voices and therefore some bass notes are not very low. If your choir director has told you that you are singing an octave too low, then you need to keep reading.

When you sing you produce sound by moving air over your vocal folds (vocal chords), causing them to vibrate and create vibrations in the air. The sound that you produce has a pitch that depends on the vibration frequency. If a note has a frequency v, then the note with frequency v/2 is an octave lower. For a specific example, if the note “A” has a frequency of 440  hz, then the note “A” with a frequency of 220 hz is one octave lower.  The best way to understand an octave is to hear it. Play the video below to see and hear octaves.   In the video I have labeled each note. The second note in each measure is an octave lower than the first note. When you are singing an octave too low, then you are singing the second note when you should be singing the first note.

Fast Tube by Casper