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If you sing second bass as I do, there's the challenges of dealing with different ranges in alledgedly bass parts. At the lowest range is Glinka's Cherubic Hymn where there are a lot of D2's (one ledger line below the bass stafr). Here I feel like a Russian octavist. That separates the basses from the baritones
And then there are pieces that lean towards baritone.
And, then there are the two brick (to bang against the testicles) pieces that contain a lot of E4's (two ledger lines above the bass staff) with an F4.
That's where I have to pretend I'm Farinelli.
So when I was young, I played the Cello. The lowest string is the C string, which is tuned to C2 and therefore our lowest note.
One of the things the cello is noted for is having a range that is similar to the human voice and you ar proving that with your lowest note being so similar.
I used to be a baritone, and so was occasionally winched up from 1st bass to 2nd tenor. Those days are gone: I am now definitely a bass, though not a basso profundo. Anything below bottom E flat requires alcoholic lubrication (so I bought vodka on the way to sing Rachmaninov's Vespers), but I now charge extra (!) for going above top E.
(I did also sing a summer season at the cathedral as a male alto, but it was only passable in quality, and the lack of practice has rendered that skill more or less unusable now.)
(Choir, at my inclusive-minded church, was one of my 'safe places' when I was first experimenting with skirts.)
Did you drink an entire bottle of vodka to reach the Bb1 (2 ledger lines) at the end of Now Lesttest Thou Depart second bass part of Rachmaninoff's Vespers? If I were to sing that, I would drink some Wild Turkey 101 bourbon the night before.
Bottom D flat is, I think, the lowest I have ever sing in public. Bottom C can generally be reached only under extraordinary conditions, early in the morning or after enough port to jeopardize the tuning of all the other notes.
Having sung in and also conducted many choirs all my teenage and adult life, contests for reaching very low notes with any applied volume output remain for me totally academic, being first a boy treble/soprano and then a tenor.
In that range for many years I could without resorting to falsetto reach and apply decent volume to a top B flat. Alas, now in my eighties the nearby top G is the best I can manage.
Singing 'a-capella' in small groups it's wonderful to have a decent bass singer to add that certain oomph !
When I wake up in the morning, I can reach G1, 3 ledger lines below the bass staff. Alas, that octavist note leaves me shortly afterwards.
Tenor for me is a lost cause as it would seriously strain my voice. I teased a bass singer about singing tenor. He said, "Next, you will ask me to sing castrati."
God gave us all kinds of voices. It would be awfully dull if everybody was a baritone.
