Man with the world's lowest singing voice

Tim Storms holds the World Record for the lowest note ever sung by a human. He can hit a G-7, or .189 Hz. It's so low you can't even hear it, but it's measurable. I like how Tim's website says "Biography of a Bass Freak." Tim also has the world's widest vocal range for a male. He was profiled this week by NPR's Morning Edition and also CNN. You can also hear Tim perform on the St. Petersburg Chamber Choir's new album, Tranquility: Voices of Deep Calm.

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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John Smith

God, I hate that damn song.
- paulio
  
  This is the only recording of it I would have preferred in higher quality though :P
  - Cigarsam
    
    Check out the Blind Boys of Alabama do this song before you totally write it off.
    - kP
      
      http://www.blindboys.com/free-track/
    - paulio
      
      Amazing talent. I have heard a few versions which I would class as a similar quality. I would prefer to hear their skill in different songs though :)
- Brainspore
  
  You should hear him do “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead.”
  - Donald Petersen
    
    Puberty got him kicked out of the Lullaby League.
- TheMudshark
  
  “Can´t help falling in Love” would have been a good choice, á la Klaus Nomi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfWP0FG5mv0
- http://twitter.com/beep54orama B E Pratt
  
  Ah, but you never heard the version we did in a band in Austin. A punk version. Truly awesome to watch a full dance floor of kids slamming and pogoing to Amazing Grace :) The song is ‘amazingly’ easy to turn up to 11, speed out and blow doors off with.
Brainspore

I bet he was the only kid in his school who sounded like Barry White before puberty.
Joe Buck

This is ridiculous. Since we know that he cannot hold a note with an accuracy down to one one-thousandth of a Hertz, it is nonsense to report that he achieved a pitch of 41.203 Hz.
- Brainspore
  
  The claim is that he is capable of hitting that note, not holding it precisely. It’s akin to saying “Superman can leap over the Empire State Building, which is 1,454 feet tall.”
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    For people who don’t sing — hitting a note, hitting a sustained note, hitting a note with volume are different things. I can sing some pretty good basso profundo, but without any power behind it.
http://www.facebook.com/zoran.ivancic Zoran Scout Ivancic

still prefere Brooke Benton in Rainy Night in Georgia
http://twitter.com/tenner tenner

That sounds like it’s three octaves below middle C. Two octaves below middle C is the functional lower limit for the bass parts in most choral music.
jrtom

41 Hz is well within the range of human hearing. The note as described (E 2+ octaves below middle C) is even on a piano keyboard. Are you sure you didn’t mean 4 Hz?
- jrtom
  
  According to Wikipedia, his new record is < 1 Hz, which is indeed outside the range of human hearing. (It's also questionable whether it even makes sense to call this a note, but that's a different topic.)
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Storms
  - http://profiles.google.com/stephen.schenck Stephen Schenck
    
    I’m very suspicious of that claim. I mean – one cycle every five seconds? That’s the sound of VERY slowly waiving one’s hand in the air.
- Andrew Chapman
  
  Yeah–normal human hearing is 20 Hz – 20 KHz. But there’s absolutely no way he hit 4 Hz.
  - http://ae4rv.com/ royaltrux
    
    I can hear one Hz. It sounds a bit like a second hand ticking.
    - cellocgw
      
      I’m sure you’re deliberately joking, but in case there are some believers out there (ya know, the ones who think The Onion is true): We hear a second hand “tick” because it’s an impulse generated once/second but containing a rather wide array of frequencies. See ”Fourier Transform”. Nerding off…
- David Pescovitz
  
  My error. Fixed. Thanks!
LaylaSV

I wonder if voices in this register would benefit from a different microphone / amplification system to more accurately capture their specific tonality and adjust for perceived volume?
- Diogenes
  
  Yes! And I’ll sell you one. It has a special piece of wood attached, and it’s only $15,000 dollars. Every audiophile should own one.
  - LaylaSV
    
    Oh awesome ’cause I just replaced all my old coaxial cables with the $80 ones from Monster and I am really beginning to see how small things like that can make a big difference.
    - Diogenes
      
      Now you’re talking! I’m also going to come out with a special brick that looks just like one you’d buy at the brickyard, but that makes all music sound more ethereal. Stay tuned!
- http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers
  
  The only subwoofer that can reach below 1Hz is the Thigpen Rotary, which dispenses with a push-pull dynamic driver and is basically a ducted fan using orientable blades to push and pull the air in and out of a room. And it uses your room as a giant speaker cabinet, so your neighbours can enjoy the infrasonic terror. Basically, once you reach below a certain point, the wavelengths are too long for a direct linear coupling.
kP

I suspect Sulfur Hexafluoride doping.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcmMW772slI
http://biggeekdad.com/2012/01/inhale-sodium-hexafluoride/

(no, not really, just keeping with the news of the day – someone does something extraordinary and doping is suspected)
recoiled

He almost hit the brown note. Yes I’m quoting South Park. Sorry if this is juvenile. But it’s all that I could think of while listening to that sound.
- BunnyShank
  
  I was going to say that you probably feel it rather than hear it, then you reminded me of… ok
James Mason

I think the standard for performed music is that it sound good. This doesn’t.
- dragonfrog
  
  Philistine. The standard for performed music is that it be inaccessible to people with bourgeois expectations like music sounding good.
  - James Mason
    
    What do my musical tastes have to do with the middle east? Jeez – some people.
http://twitter.com/ElliotPotterSho Elliot Potter

Clearly he has three meals a day.
http://weirdly.net Jacob Ewing

Nice! An acapella subwoofer!
Robert Cruickshank

Hands up all those who want to hear this guy sing death metal instead of church music.
- thecleaninglady
  
  You got my vote.
argeop

0.189hz means one vocal pop every 5.3 seconds. That does not make sense to measure as a pitch. The reason the bottom range of human hearing is 20hz is not that we can’t hear sounds below that (unless it’s a pure sine tone) but that we don’t perceive it as pitch. Cycles that repeat at less than 20hz are perceived as individual rather than continuous sound.
- Diogenes
  
  Ya, I’m thinking someone bumped a decimal out of place somewhere. 0.189hz isn’t a pitch it’s a rhythm, and a slow one at that. Seconds per cycle rather than cycles per second.
RedShirt77

All I can think about is the Simpsons episode where they used barry white to attract snakes. If I was in the room with him I probably wouldn’t want to have me feet on the ground.
- http://ae4rv.com/ royaltrux
  
  They use him to keep their snake handlers in business.
jon jon

That frequency range is satan’s playground all the way. Considering “the church” used to mutilate boys to retain their pure, angelic tonal qualities, God clearly prefers his tones crystal clear and balls-less. Satan prefers the often ambiguous tonality of resonant vibration.
http://celesteagnes.blogspot.com/ Sekino

Impressive voice, but I just can’t stand Amazing Grace with a load of melisma added. Gotta go cleanse my ears with bagpipes.
RJ

The point isn’t whether you like the music or not. The point is that he’s able to sing lower than anyone else. I wonder if this has been a lifelong fixation, driving him to stretch his formant-creating muscles all his life, or if he was simply born with this ability.
- http://beautifulsynthesis.com Andrea
  
  Little of both is my guess. Anyone can stretch their vocal range, up or down, given practice. Sounds like he started in the basement and kept digging.
  - Wreckrob8
    
    No. A voice coach who appeared in conversation with Tim Storms on the BBC earlier this week was of the opinion that you can train your voice to reach higher but not lower notes. Tim’s ability is fundamentally genetic.
    - Donald Petersen
      
      Joaquin Phoenix says that during the six months before principal photography commenced for Walk The Line, while he was learning to play guitar and sing as Johnny Cash, his voice was too high and the band had to transpose the songs into a higher key. But right before shooting commenced, suddenly his singing voice deepened, and they had to play in the songs’ original keys.
http://beautifulsynthesis.com Andrea

Whoa…

(My lowest note is D below Middle C, two and a half octaves above the note he ends on in this. I’m a soprano.)
kartwaffles

0.189 Hz is one oscillation every 5.29 seconds. He’s not singing, he’s just making ~12 clicks per minute and calling it a tone.
jwkrk

I can hit below 0.1 Hertz, it’s called breathing…
bolamig

It sounds like there’s some sound processing on his mic adding in lower frequencies that are correlated with the fundamental frequencies he’s actually producing. This artifact is likely why it sounds like a bad recording. Then again youtube’s compression algorithms probably aren’t optimized for such low human produced sounds.
http://twitter.com/jimmyjone Jimmy Jone

Go fer another octave, Virgil!

http://youtu.be/dDGoTyuSFfc#t=04m05s
http://bannedsorcery.com/ Bryce Anderson

Wow. When he hits those high notes, it’s… well, less impressive than when he hits the low ones.