Joy Chapman, a singer/songwriter from British Columbia, in Canada, recently set a new Guinness record for the lowest musical note sang by a female, a C1.
For as long as she can remember, Joy Chapman has always been able to sing in a very wide vocal range, from the alto, to tenor and base, but it wasn’t until her niece started encouraging her to go for a world record that she actually considered it. The girl had learned that the former record for the world’s lowest vocal note (female), was held by a singer who hit a D2 (the second lowest D note on a piano), and she was convinced that Joy could go significantly lower than that. She turned out to be right!
“I start my singing scales at C2, so she said, ‘you sing much lower, you should try for the record,'” Chapman recalled about how the idea of a Guinness record attempt came about.
That was a year ago, and the Canadian singer had to overcome a series of challenges in order to get her name into the world’s most famous record book. First her mother past away, then the Covid-19 pandemic shut down her studio, during one of her attempts the videographer turned on the low-end limiter on the microphone, so it couldn’t pick up Joy’s lowest notes… But in the end she got it done.
On February 21st, in a music studio in Surrey Canada, Joy Chapman recorded a C1 (33.57hz), the lowest C note on a piano and the lowest note ever sung by a woman.