History Main / MelismaticVocals

-->'''Alexis Petridis''' [[http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2002/oct/25/artsfeatures.popandrock1 reviewing]] an AliciaKeys concert.

Some singers who practise melisma also often sing {{Incredibly Long Note}}s, such as WhitneyHouston. However, another criticism levelled at melisma is that singers who ''can't'' pull off Incredibly Long Notes sometimes use the technique to give the illusion that they are doing so; stretching the syllable out without having to actually hold a particular note for very long.

** Handel was pretty fond of melismas in general--the rest of the ''Messiah'' alone is full of examples.

*** The seventh movement of the cantata ''Herr Jesu Christ, du höchstes Gut'' (BWV 113) is infamous for its abuse of melismas. In fact, it is considered almost unperformable due to the excessively long melismas.

* Edward Shippen Barnes, the person responsible for the most famous arrangement of the Christmas hymn "Angels We Have Heard On High".
-->''Glo-o-o-o-o-O-o-o-o-o-O-o-o-o-o-O-ri-a in Ex-cel-sis De-o!''

* Religious music was AMAZINGLY GOOD AT THIS. In a piece intended to be sung at Christmas Mass from the 1300s, 10 minutes were needed to sing two sentences due to the massive amounts of melisma.

*** Something he had in common with a lot of Baroque composers. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HAUNbNSYEA&feature=fvwrel "Vittoria mio core"]] is a notable example.

*** He particularly liked writing these for his lifelong muse, one-time love interest and eventual [[SettleForSibling sister-in-law]] Alosiya Weber (she originated Queen of the Night in the Magic Flute, among others.) The 'concert arias' (arias where he never actually wrote the whole opera- often having taken lyrics from a work he'd seen and deciding he could do better) are even more extreme.
** The effect of these arias, especially in Baroque work, mean that lyrics are repeated over and over. This may have been so the audience got the message- Baroque opera audiences usually talked, socialised, ate, wondered about and played cards (and made assignations with prostitutes) while at the opera; it wasn't until the 19th century that they were expected to sit still in the dark and pay attention.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' episode ''Dancing Homer'', Bleeding Gums Murphy's rendition of the American national anthem at the start of a baseball game is so full of melisma that he manages to make it last 26 minutes: he starts singing at 7:30, he finishes at 7:56, to the great relief of the audience.

* The seventh movement of the cantata ''Herr Jesu Christ, du höchstes Gut'' (BWV 113) by J.S. Bach is infamous for its abuse of melismas. In fact, it is considered almost unperformable due to the excessively long melismas.

* Seriously parodied in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', where the singer performing the National Anthem at Springfield's baseball stadium goes on. And on. And on. And on. As she drags every line out to excruciating tedious length and makes a meal of every syllable, the sky is seen to darken behind her, the moon rises, the stars come out... the audience, standing with hand on heart, are seen swaying and getting dark-eyed with exhaustion.

* In ''TheSimpsons'' episode ''Dancing Homer'', Bleeding Gums Murphy's rendition of the American national anthem at the start of a baseball game is so full of melisma that he manages to make it last 26 minutes: he starts singing at 7:30, he finishes at 7:56, to the great relief of the audience.

* Plenty of songs by SimonAndGarfunkel used this, though quite a few of their recordings were of traditional folk songs, so this was by necessity at times.

* Sharon Den Adel (WithinTemptation) does that a whole lot in "Mother Earth".

* DemiLovato

* ChinaAnneMcClain

** Of course, she's not standing alone in the Country Music Pantheon. Music/FaithHill, Music/CarrieUnderwood, and Sara Evans all do it as well, and it's fairly common amongst country singers. So much so, in fact, that new singer Kimberly Perry of The Band Perry received praise for her "unpolished" vocals.

* DreamPop bands like Music/CocteauTwins, Music/ThisMortalCoil, Music/DeadCanDance and LoveSpiralsDownwards frequently used this trope. Awesomely.

* HarryBelafonte: "Daaaay-O! Da-a-ay-O! Daylight come and I wanna go home!"
* DreamPop bands like CocteauTwins, ThisMortalCoil, Music/DeadCanDance and LoveSpiralsDownwards frequently used this trope. Awesomely.

** [[WolfgangAmadeusMozart Mozart]] was very fond of melismatic lines in his operas, usually given to the soprano but on occasion to the tenor (eg originally in ''Idomeneo, Re di Creta'') or bass (''The Abduction from the Seraglio''). The more famous examples include:

* GospelMusic, to the point where you can say that its prevalence in other modern genres like R&B started here with this genre.

*** He particularly liked writing these for his lifelong muse, one-time love interest and eventual [[SettleForASibling sister-in-law]] Alosiya Weber (she originated Queen of the Night in the Magic Flute, among others.) The 'concert arias' (arias where he never actually wrote the whole opera- often having taken lyrics from a work he'd seen and deciding he could do better) are even more extreme.

* During Music/{{NSYNC}}'s heyday, both Justin Timberlake and JC Chasez could absurdly stretch out notes when they sang live. The videos for "Bye Bye Bye" and "It's Gonna Be Me" show JC really belting them out while "Gone" shows that Justin can match JC in that department as well.

->''And, inevitably, there is the Soulful Syllable Stretch. The Soulful Syllable Stretch involves elongating words with flashy arpeggios and trills: "love" becomes "lo-oh-ho-HEY-ah-ho-HO-ho-hoooooooOOOOOOOOVE!" A Soulful Syllable Stretch Grand Mistress, such as Music/{{Beyonce}} Knowles of Music/DestinysChild, can make one word last a week. Keys alternates Soulful Syllable Stretches with pregnant pauses. How Come You Don't Call Me? is so rife with the latter, you suspect the involvement of HaroldPinter.''

* [[GunsNRoses Axl Rose]] pulls it off at the end of "Don't Cry".
* "[[MaroonFive I've got the mooo-oo-oooo-oo-ooves like Jagger!]]"
* [[NationalLampoonsVacation "Holiday ro-OH-oh-oh-oh-oh-OH-oh-oh-oad, holiday ro-OH-oh-oh-oh-oh-ooooad!"]]

* Corey Glover of LivingColour.
* [=LaJon=] Witherspoon of {{Sevendust}}.

* Sharon Den Adel ({{Within Temptation}}) does that a whole lot in "Mother Earth".

* During *Music/{{NSYNC}}'s heyday, both Justin Timberlake and JC Chasez could absurdly stretch out notes when they sang live. The videos for "Bye Bye Bye" and "It's Gonna Be Me" show JC really belting them out while "Gone" shows that Justin can match JC in that department as well.

* Martina [=McBride=] has a powerful soprano, and she's not afraid to use it.

* Gary [=LeVox=] of Music/RascalFlatts is guilty of this from time to time.

* Music/LanaDelRey on "National Anthem" while she makes "ovation" sound like "ohhhVAYsheeunununun" and in "Put Me in a Movie" where she turns "action" into "axeeeeyyyhhhyum" and finally in "Yayo" multiple times. She stretches "tattoo" on this so into "tayyayyatoooo"...in fact, just listen to all of her music, it has so much of this.

Some singers who practise melisma also often sing {{Incredibly Long Note}}s, such as WhitneyHouston. This is sometimes inevitable; for one to sing a syllable in multiple notes, they naturally need to stretch that syllable.

* AutoTune singers in the realm of Music/{{T-Pain}} use this in order to bring out the "robot" effect of the Auto-Tune.

'''Melismatic''' means that you hold down one syllable while moving through several notes. This is called ''[[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment melisma]]''. It's very common in religious, Arab, Middle Eastern, African, Balkan, Indian and various other types of music, especially {{Folk}} music (such as the Portuguese fado).

More info about the abuse of this technique can be found [[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6791133 here]].

* ChinaAnneMcClain

Melisma migrated over to pop music at some indistinct point (credit for popularising it varies between Music/StevieWonder, Music/MariahCarey or some others), and now it's pretty common in R&B or R&B-influenced pop music. Remember Music/WhitneyHouston's "I Will Always Love You"? That's melisma.[[note]]Though to be fair, Music/DollyParton did it in the original version, too, though not nearly as much.[/note]] It's easy to see why it ended up in pop music: used properly it can have a great effect. The only problem is that there have been many singers recently who just blindly abuse it to lend their songs some sort of "soulfulness" or whatever, and it just becomes annoying, as demonstrated by the above quote. A frequent way to deride these singers is to note that they take simple words like "yeah", "I" or "whoa" and stretch it to something like [[MemeticMutation over 9000]] syllables. But the real problem is that some artists don't have the skill or vocal range to actually pull it off.

Melisma migrated over to pop music at some indistinct point (credit for popularising it varies between Music/StevieWonder, Music/MariahCarey or some others), and now it's pretty common in R&B or R&B-influenced pop music. Remember Music/WhitneyHouston's "I Will Always Love You"? That's melisma.[[hottip:*:Though to be fair, Music/DollyParton did it in the original version, too, though not nearly as much.]] It's easy to see why it ended up in pop music: used properly it can have a great effect. The only problem is that there have been many singers recently who just blindly abuse it to lend their songs some sort of "soulfulness" or whatever, and it just becomes annoying, as demonstrated by the above quote. A frequent way to deride these singers is to note that they take simple words like "yeah", "I" or "whoa" and stretch it to something like [[MemeticMutation over 9000]] syllables. But the real problem is that some artists don't have the skill or vocal range to actually pull it off.

->''And, inevitably, there is the Soulful Syllable Stretch. The Soulful Syllable Stretch involves elongating words with flashy arpeggios and trills: "love" becomes "lo-oh-ho-HEY-ah-ho-HO-ho-hoooooooOOOOOOOOVE!" A Soulful Syllable Stretch Grand Mistress, such as {{Beyonce}} Knowles of Music/DestinysChild, can make one word last a week. Keys alternates Soulful Syllable Stretches with pregnant pauses. How Come You Don't Call Me? is so rife with the latter, you suspect the involvement of HaroldPinter.''

Melisma migrated over to pop music at some indistinct point (credit for popularising it varies between StevieWonder, MariahCarey or some others), and now it's pretty common in R&B or R&B-influenced pop music. Remember WhitneyHouston's "I Will Always Love You"? That's melisma.[[hottip:*:Though to be fair, DollyParton did it in the original version, too, though not nearly as much.]] It's easy to see why it ended up in pop music: used properly it can have a great effect. The only problem is that there have been many singers recently who just blindly abuse it to lend their songs some sort of "soulfulness" or whatever, and it just becomes annoying, as demonstrated by the above quote. A frequent way to deride these singers is to note that they take simple words like "yeah", "I" or "whoa" and stretch it to something like [[MemeticMutation over 9000]] syllables. But the real problem is that some artists don't have the skill or vocal range to actually pull it off.

** WhitneyHouston

** ArethaFranklin

* DreamPop bands like CocteauTwins, ThisMortalCoil, DeadCanDance and LoveSpiralsDownwards frequently used this trope. Awesomely.

*** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwQYXRRkvFk "Martern aller Arten"]] from ''The Abduction from the Seraglio'' -- described by Salieri in ''Theatre/Amadeus'' as "ten minutes of ghastly scales and arpeggios, whizzing up and down like fireworks at a fairground".

*** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwQYXRRkvFk "Martern aller Arten"]] from ''The Abduction from the Seraglio''.

** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvuKxL4LOqc "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen"]] and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EUOmdxo2jE "O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn"]] from ''Theatre/TheMagicFlute''.
** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwQYXRRkvFk "Martern aller Arten"]] from ''The Abduction from the Seraglio''.

** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvuKxL4LOqc "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen"]] and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EUOmdxo2jE "O zittre nicht, mein lieber Sohn" from ''Theatre/TheMagicFlute'']].