Posted by listener on August 17, 2003 at 12:32:37:
In my church, there is only one fellow (occasionally in the group of four or five with microphones who are asked to help lead the singing) that is "right on" singing the bass harmonies of our hymns and songs.
When the "youth" get up from time-to-time and lead the singing, invariably their bass singer(s) have the vocal range to execute but make many errors finding their pitches.
Sopranos, altos, and tenors of all levels of experience (yep, the folks out in the congregation as well) all seem to be able to find their pitches in all sorts of singing and instrument groups...even (usually) young French horn players - whose instruments tend to offer many possible "choices" - seem to do better than inexperienced tuba players.
In young bands, it is not unusual to hear the soprano, alto, and tenor instruments all finding their pitches and playing out strong yet the tubas quite often seem to be just as "lost" as the young bass singers within our youth singing leaders in my church.
Is the bass part so difficult to hear that less experienced singers and instrumentalists have more trouble "finding" their pitches than higher-pitched instrumentalists and singers? (Obviously, bari-saxes and string basses experience far fewer of these errors, as their instruments offer fewer chances for misinterpretation of pitches.)
As a side observation, a "transitional" level for progressing vocalists (singing bass parts) seems to be that they can "locate" the pitches of primary importance, but still make many errors in the moving tones between the primary harmony notes (i.e. errors of scale - quite a few half-step errors in connecting tones). Would this indicate both a difficulty in hearing and a lack of knowledge of scales? Again, why do not-so-experienced singers or players of higher pitches seem to do so much better than not-so- experienced bass singers and tuba players in finding the correct pitches?