Melisma: Classic or DUD?

too many people think "melisma" means "oversinging."

Stars who have used melisma
Beyonce
Ray Charles
Stevie Wonder
Aretha Franklin
Mariah Carey
Jennifer Hudson
Christina Aguilera
Pink

― pfunkboy (Algerian Goalkeeper), Wednesday, February 15, 2012 10:11 AM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao at this, its like they listed a bunch of black people and then realized what that looked like so they added xtina and pink at the end

I have nothing against melisma but overused in pop, it takes the spotlight off the song and makes the singer look like a braggart. Properly dosed, it's awesome.

I'm pretty sure this is one of the reasons I'm not fond of Mariah Carey.

But the term "melisma" is still relatively obscure within the pop music industry

Wha?

Melisma is used in so many traditions from Arabic to Jewish to Gregorian chants to Fado to carols, etc...

ha I was just about to post g) listen to "Angels We Have Heard On High"

Houston also selected vowel sounds that would conserve air so she could hold the mammoth notes. For example, singing "luv" instead of "love", according to Dale.

ey oop chook, i'll allas luv tha. honestly tho plz explain difference in pronunciation here.

But perhaps what Houston nailed best was moderation. In a climate of reality shows ripe with "oversinging", it's easy to appreciate Houston's ability to save melisma for just the right moment.

I'm not the biggest fan of show-offs and I feel ambivalent about Whitney 'cause I friggin' loved her when she first came to our attention and then felt disappointed by a lot of her material but I'm glad this person purportedly got paid for this 'article' 'cause it's about 90% padding w/maybe two or three sentences of any value whatsoever and I know in this kind of economy money is still hard to come by.

Also, my solution is not to watch reality shows but whatever.

lmao at this, its like they listed a bunch of black people and then realized what that looked like so they added xtina and pink at the end

is Mariah Carey not white anymore? Or was she ever? Blimey.

I-I-I-I-I-I-I will probably always be an enemy of melisma.

Love it best when it's in quarter-tones.

mariah carey is biracial fyi

now I know.

John Lennon stretches "I" into seven notes on the very first word of this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfWVYuUWkyA

This was in 1963. The writer of this article is a moron.

"Other artists may have used it before Houston"

lmao

Hearing "I Will Always Love You" about 1000 times in the last few days it's actually surprising to me how utterly flat/non-melismatic she makes the first half of her drawn-out "I" - pretty much any singer would automatically put a little vibrato in there but it's like she's saving it all up for the end of the note

it was her rendition of Dolly Parton's love song that pushed the technique into the mainstream in the 90s.

this is a super-dubious claim

I mean I personally am pretty cranky on the subject of overuse/poor use of melisma in pop music but it's a tool in the box, saying "the problem is melisma" is like saying "the problem is people like F# too much, down with F#"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRVZ_HbtuVU

it's especially lame to paint melisma solely as some kind of grim vehicle of gratuitous technique since it's provided so many of the most infectiously joyous vocal performances in pop history.

Well F# can gtfo to be honest. It's a shitty key for bass players.

I don't mind melisma in religious contexts, especially middle eastern adhan or cantillation. But when singers go into masturbatory paroxysms exorting me to dance or get into their pants I rapidly lose interest. Probably WH's greatest crime.

yeah I think that's most people's complaint really - that melisma in pop sort of seems naturally (whether through tradition or some inherent quality of the technique in the context) to express excitement, some need to reach beyond the cue sheet to something more joyful. Or that, anyway, is I think the way people receive it, and certainly the way a lot of performers express it: "Here is the part in the song where I bust out the melisma as the music crescendos," etc. Which works better or worse depending on 1) the source material 2) whether the singer is a convincing performer 3) how much the listener already likes the performer

imo

too many people think "melisma" means "oversinging."
too many singers overuse melisma

just listened to what may be the worst song in the world, some boyband version of The First Noel (a dreadful song in its own right) completely trashed by oversinging, the kind of melisma that makes you angry at life

Leona Lewis' version of Run is excruciatingly ribald with this. Melismatic to the point of absurdity.

Why do I adore melisma in Indian, African, Middle Eastern and Eastern European music but loathe it in 95% of contemporary r&b? Can someone with theory chops help me understand this? It’s been bugging me for a while now. I don’t have the vocabulary for it but my general hunch is that contemporary r&b veers more readily towards the major key – is there any truth to this? I generally enjoy the stuff when it’s more melancholy and/or reserved.

(Inspired by that new SZA single, whose form and production are compelling to me, but I can’t cope with the melodic lines and it makes me feel like a total weirdo).

I’m not crazy about baroque operatic melismas either fwiw.