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!

Photo: Kane Rheinholdtsen/Unsplash

“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.

 

“I wanted to leave something behind … because I could do it,” the singer said.

For the lowest musical note ever sang by a human, check out the record set by Tim Storm, the man with the lowest voice. And here is the highest musical note ever sung by a man.