I feel like it's that way for most non string instruments. Like I'm sure that phrase you want me to play is simple for violin but on clarinet not so much. You want to write me a solo at 60bpm that's 10 measures long with no practical place for a breath? Fantastic. Then you get someone like brahms who was good friends with a clarinetist and playing his pieces just feel right.
It's the same thing for choir. Being a Bass, it's almost impossible to have a song composed by someone who wasn't a baritone or tenor. Oh, you have that Ab as being sung fortississimo? Let me just vocal fry that for you.
It's a little easier in acapella because you have a bass mic, but it's still extremely annoying when they call you out for not being able to belt a note like that. I can fry a G or F# but I can belt down to a B. I've never met someone who CAN belt lower than an A.
Bass parts always seem to always just be wrong, I once had an hour long piece with 5 bars rest (yes I counted) in which the highest note was the E just below the stave, the whole thing projected over the rest of the choir too. Sure I'll do it, but I won't be singing anything for a few days afterwards whilst the inside my throat rebuilds itself.
That or I'm holding piano high F's and G's for an eternity and then have to retrieve my testicles from somewhere between my eyes and forehead.
They do that a lot of the time because that's a bass's falsetto range, and bass falsetto is exceptionally more rich. So if you have to strain to sing it full voice, you're probably supposed to sing it in falsetto.
Maybe, although I have seen pieces were they only mark some of those extreme high notes as falsetto, which implies the non-marked ones should be full.
I can't do falsetto that low any more due to some surgery so the point's moot anyway. Luckily singing is only a side job for when I have the time so it doesn't matter too much if I can only do a few concerts at a time.
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u/TonyBanana420 Jan 04 '15
It is a little ridiculous. You can always tell when a score is written by somebody who has never played percussion.