Melisms
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Melisms
Melisma (, , ; from , plural: ''melismata''), informally known as a vocal run and sometimes interchanged with the term roulade, is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as ''melismatic'', as opposed to ''syllabic'', in which each syllable of text is matched to a single note. History General The term ''melisma'' may be used to describe music of any genre, including baroque singing, opera, and later gospel. Within the tradition of religious Jewish music, melisma is still commonly used in the chanting of Torah, readings from the Prophets, and in the body of a service. Melisma is prevalent in many forms of Gregorian chant (see e.g. Jubilus) as well as late-medieval sacred polyphony, notably in works by Guillaume de Machaut, John Dunstaple, and many early Tudor composers represented in the Eton, Caius, and Lambeth choirbooks. Today, melisma is commonly used in Middle Eastern, Afr ...
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Syllabic And Melismatic
A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are most often consonants). In phonology and studies of languages, syllables are often considered the "building blocks" of words. They can influence the rhythm of a language, its prosody, its poetic metre; properties such as stress, tone and reduplication operate on syllables and their parts. Speech can usually be divided up into a whole number of syllables: for example, the word ''ignite'' is made of two syllables: ''ig'' and ''nite''. Most languages of the world use relatively simple syllable structures that often alternate between vowels and consonants. Despite being present in virtually all human languages, syllables still have no precise definition that is valid for all known languages. A common criterion for finding syllable boundaries ...
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John Dunstaple
John Dunstaple (or Dunstable; – 24 December 1453) was an English composer whose music helped inaugurate the transition from the medieval to the Renaissance periods. The central proponent of the ''Contenance angloise'' style (), Dunstaple was the leading English composer of his time, and is often coupled with William Byrd and Henry Purcell as England's most important early music composers. His style would have an immense influence on the subsequent music of continental Europe, inspiring composers such as Du Fay, Binchois, Ockeghem and Busnois. Information on Dunstaple's life is largely non-existent or speculative, with the only certain date of his activity being his death on Christmas Eve of 1453. Probably born in Dunstable in Bedfordshire during the late 14th-century, Dunstaple was associated with Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester and Joan of Navarre, and, through them, St Albans Abbey. Another important patron was John, Duke of Bedford, with whom Dunstaple may have trave ...
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Luther Vandross
Luther Ronzoni Vandross Jr. (April 20, 1951 – July 1, 2005) was an American Soul music, soul and Contemporary R&B, R&B singer, songwriter, and record producer. Over his career, he achieved eleven consecutive RIAA certification, RIAA-certified platinum albums and sold over 40 million records worldwide. Known as the "Velvet Voice," Vandross was recognized by ''Rolling Stone'' as one of the 200 greatest singers of all time (2023) and was named one of the greatest R&B artists by ''Billboard (magazine), Billboard''. NPR also included him among its 50 Great Voices. He won eight Grammy Awards, including Grammy Award for Song of the Year, Song of the Year in 46th Annual Grammy Awards, 2004 for "Dance with My Father (song), Dance with My Father". He has been inducted into both the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame and the Grammy Hall of Fame. Vandross began his music career in the late 1960s performing at the Apollo Theater in New York City as part of a local musical ensemble. The gr ...
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Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris (; Judkins; born May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American and Ghanaian singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer. He is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. Wonder is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include rhythm and blues, R&B, Pop music, pop, Soul music, soul, Gospel music, gospel, funk, and jazz. A virtual one-man band, Wonder's use of synthesizers and other electronic musical instruments during the 1970s reshaped the conventions of contemporary R&B. He also helped drive such genres into the album era, crafting his LP record, LPs as cohesive and consistent, in addition to socially conscious statements with complex compositions. Visual impairment, Blind since shortly after his birth, Wonder was a child prodigy who signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of 11, where he was given the professional name Little Stevie Wonder. Wonder's s ...
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Deniece Williams
June Deniece Williams (née Chandler; born June 3, 1950) is an American singer. She has been described as "one of the great Soul music, soul voices" by the BBC. She is best known for the songs "Free (Deniece Williams song), Free", "Silly (song), Silly", "It's Gonna Take a Miracle" and two ''Billboard'' Hot 100 No.1 singles "Let's Hear It for the Boy" and "Too Much, Too Little, Too Late" (with Johnny Mathis). Williams has won four Grammys with twelve nominations altogether. She (with Johnny Mathis) is also known for recording “Without Us”, the theme song of ''Family Ties''. Early life June Deniece Chandler was born and raised in Gary, Indiana, Gary, Indiana, United States. She attended Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland, in the hopes of becoming a registered nurse and an anesthetist, but she dropped out after a year and a half. She recalled, "You have to be a good student to be in college, and I wasn't." Career Early years (late 1960s–1975) Williams star ...
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Popular Music
Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia'' As a kind of popular art, it stands in contrast to art music. Art music was historically disseminated through the performances of written music, although since the beginning of the recording industry, it is also disseminated through sound recording, recordings. Traditional music forms such as early blues songs or hymns were passed along orally, or to smaller, local audiences. The original application of the term is to music of the 1880s Tin Pan Alley period in the United States. Although popular music sometimes is known as "pop music", the two terms are not interchangeable. Popular music is a generic term for a wide variety of genres of music that appeal to the tastes of a large segment of the populati ...
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African-American Music
African-American music is a broad term covering a diverse range of musical genres largely developed by African Americans and their African-American culture, culture. Its origins are in musical forms that developed as a result of the Slavery in the United States, enslavement of African Americans prior to the American Civil War. It has been said that "every genre that is born from America has black roots." White slave owners subjugated their slaves physically, mentally, and spiritually through brutal and demeaning acts. Some White Americans considered African Americans separate and unequal for centuries, going to extraordinary lengths to keep them oppressed. African-American slaves created a distinctive type of music that played an important role in the era of enslavement. Slave songs, commonly known as work songs, were used to combat the hardships of the physical labor. Work songs were also used to communicate with other slaves without the slave owner hearing. The song "Wade in ...
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Flamenco
Flamenco () is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the Gitanos, gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura and Region of Murcia, Murcia. In a wider sense, the term is used to refer to a variety of both contemporary and traditional musical styles typical of southern Spain. Flamenco is closely associated to the gitanos of the Romani people, Romani ethnicity who have contributed significantly to its origination and professionalization. However, its style is uniquely Andalusian and flamenco artists have historically included Spaniards of both gitano and non-gitano heritage. The oldest record of flamenco music dates to 1774 in the book ''Las Cartas Marruecas'' (The Moroccan Letters) by José Cadalso. The development of flamenco over the past two centuries is well documented: "the theatre movement of sainetes (one-act plays) and tonadillas, popular song books and song s ...
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Sean-nós Singing
singing ( , ; Irish language, Irish for 'old style') is A cappella, unaccompanied, Irish traditional music, traditional Irish vocal music usually performed in the Irish language. singing usually involves very long melodic Phrase (music), phrases with highly Ornament (music), ornamented and melismatic melodic lines, differing greatly from Folk music, traditional folk singing elsewhere in Ireland, although there is significant regional variation within Ireland. songs cover a range of genres, from love song to lament to lullaby, traditionally with a strong focus on conveying the relevant emotion of the given song. The term , which simply means '[in the] old way', is a vague term that can also refer to Sean nós (other), various other traditional activities, musical and non-musical. The musician and academic Tomás Ó Canainn said: ...no aspect of Irish music can be fully understood without a deep appreciation of singing. It is the key which opens every lock. The o ...
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African American Music
African-American music is a broad term covering a diverse range of musical genres largely developed by African Americans and their culture. Its origins are in musical forms that developed as a result of the enslavement of African Americans prior to the American Civil War. It has been said that "every genre that is born from America has black roots." White slave owners subjugated their slaves physically, mentally, and spiritually through brutal and demeaning acts. Some White Americans considered African Americans separate and unequal for centuries, going to extraordinary lengths to keep them oppressed. African-American slaves created a distinctive type of music that played an important role in the era of enslavement. Slave songs, commonly known as work songs, were used to combat the hardships of the physical labor. Work songs were also used to communicate with other slaves without the slave owner hearing. The song " Wade in the Water" was sung by slaves to warn others trying to ...
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African Music
The continent of Africa is vast and its music is diverse, with different regions and nations having many distinct musical traditions. African music includes the genres like makwaya, highlife, mbube, township music, jùjú, fuji, jaiva, afrobeat, afrofusion, mbalax, Congolese rumba, soukous, ndombolo, makossa, kizomba, taarab and others. African music also uses a large variety of instruments from all across the continent. The music and dance of the African diaspora, formed to varying degrees on African musical traditions, include American music like Dixieland jazz, blues, jazz, and many Caribbean genres, such as calypso (see kaiso) and soca. Latin American music genres such as cumbia, salsa music, son cubano, rumba, conga, bomba, samba and zouk were founded on the music of enslaved Africans, and have in turn influenced African popular music. Like the music of Asia, India and the Middle East, it is a highly rhythmic music. The complex rhythmic pa ...
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Middle Eastern Music
The various nations of the region include the Arabic-speaking countries of the Middle East, the Iranian traditions of Persia, the Jewish music of Israel and the diaspora, Kurdish music, Armenian music. Azeri Music, the varied traditions of Cypriot music, the Turkish music of Turkey, traditional Assyrian music, Coptic ritual music in Egypt as well as other genres of Egyptian music in general. It is widely regarded that some Middle-Eastern musical styles have influenced Central Asia, as well as the Balkans and Spain. Throughout the region, religion has been a common factor in uniting peoples of different languages, cultures and nations. The predominance of Islam allowed a great deal of Arabic, and Byzantine influence to spread through the region rapidly from the 7th century onward. The Arabic scale is strongly melodic, often Phrygian Dominant and based on various maqamat (sing. maqam) or modes (also known as makam in Turkish music). The early Arabs translated and develop ...
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