I sing in a male chorus, in the bass section, and I’ve noticed some really odd facts:
Several guys in the chorus suffer from chronic depression. All in the bass section.
Several guys have type 2 diabetes. All in the bass section.
There are 4 math teachers in the chorus. 3 are basses, 1 baritone.
Amost everyone in the chorus has played a musical instrument. Most of the tenors quit when they were young; some of the baritones and most of the basses still play.
There are 3 ministers in the chorus. All basses.
Can anyone come up with any possible explanation for any of this, especially the depression and diabetes? Or are they merely statistically random occurrences?
No - I don’t know anything about choruses. But I have observed a similar pattern in my line of work.
I’m an Electrical Engineer (EE), and work with other EE’s, Mechanical Engineers, and Aerospace Engineers.
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineers tend to be quite normal. Very normal. Electrical Engineers, on the other hand, are the most depressed group of individuals I’ve ever seen. Mind you, I’m not depressed, but I would estimate over half of my EE college classmates and over half the EE’s I work with suffer from manic depression. I swear they do. What is it about Electrical Engineering that attracts manic depressives??
Ahem. Sorry about yelling. But surely you guys realize that anecdotal evidence about samples of less than a few hundred cannot be used to draw useful conclusions about large chunks of the population.
And web searches on variants of combining “electrical engineers”, “basses”, “mental health”, and “diabetes” came up dry too, so it doesn’t look as though there are real numbers out there either. We’ll have to submit humbly for the present to remaining in ignorance about whether these are genuinely attested statistically significant phenomena and if so, what causes them.
Apparently there are less bass voices than tenor voices. So a lot of music teachers will take a lower tenor and try to make a bass out of him. First make sure that what you are talking about are pure bass singers.
Perhaps the bass singers were attracted to the choir in hopes of lifting their depression? That would explain why the unusual number in your choir.
We tend to look at any group and see what we want to see to justify our internal prejudices. For example, when I went to college I thought Chemical Engineering students were drunks. The truth is most of the students in college were drunks, regardless of their major. I had a prejudice and when I saw a Chem. Eng. major drinking, I felt justified in that prejudice. I was blinded in that I didn’t see that all the students (including myself) were drinking right along with them.
When we are part of a group (no matter if it is profession, vocal range, or even race) we tend to see things that justify why our group is different than other groups. We want to build the comradely of our group and fortify our group. The truth is we aren’t so different from each other, and while we are members of different subgroups, we are all part of one massive group: humankind. We should strive to find what we have in common, rather than our differences.
Well, how about this. Basses tend to be larger and older? Larger, older people might be more prone to diabetes, certainly, and perhaps depression as well. Can’t help with the math part.
FTR my father sings bass. He’s a retired minister with diabetes who played piano until he was in his 40’s or 50’s, although he has since let it slide. He’s terrible at math, though and not at all depressed, as far as I know.
I know some may think my assertion is without merit, but I swear it is not my imagination. My career has given me the opportunity to meet and talk with hundreds of engineers, and I sincerely believe a majority of the EE’s I’ve met are manic depressive. There is a very distinct difference between EE’s and other engineering disciplines. Just curious if any other engineers have observed this…
Coming out of High School I was a very depresseed young man who sang bass in choir and thought I wanted to be an EE. I never followed through with my plans to go into engineering, but I am now happier. I still, but for most intents and purposes, I would be considered a tenor (range similar to Steve Perry), though I can still sing the lower notes too.
Maybe my change in career plans and focusing my vocal talents on my upper registers has had an impact on my depression. Or, perhaps, lifting my depression has had the effect of changing my voice and career plans. Who knows?
As an aside, I am mildly hypoglycemic and have a history of diabetes in my family. Strange…
Several guys in the chorus suffer from chronic depression. All in the bass section.
Well, if you had a low voice most of your life, of course you’re going to have some depression. There are people out there that think bass-voiced people are not bright or smart and let you know with horrible impersonations of your voice.
…amazes me. As a non engineer who is, however, a programmer analyst who has worked on some major projects,
I would have thought that few careers could be so well rewarded. I mean, isn’t there a tremendous satisfaction that comes from designing and/or building something, especially when you come up with elegant solutions to
the relevant problems? And it isn’t as if any EE’s have to
settle for jobs at McD’s after college, is it?
I don’t know whether or not it helps, but I starter out singing in the bass section of my high school choir. I now sing second tenor and am a freshman in college. I’ve never been diagnosed as manic depressive, but I wouldn’t have ruled it out for a couple years in high school. And there is also a history of diabetes in my family. I’ve not been tested yet, but have an appointment as I am recently thirsty all of the time. Hope I helped a little bit.
There are differant types of EE and in my experience it tends to be the ones who work in electronics rather than the power heads that seem to be the depressive ones.
I can quite understand those who are involved in working with intelligent systems being miserable as it can become a personal battle between an intransigant system that does not do what you have programmed or, even worse, it does exactly what you programmed it to do.
Electronics is sometimes described as being half maths and half art, especially in broadcast communications, and lets face it artists are not recognised as being the most stable in folk in society.
