Vocalise
Encyclopedia
A vocalise is a vocal exercise (often one suitable for performance) without words, which is sung on one or more vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...

 sounds.

In classical music

Vocalise dates back to the mid-18th century. Jean-Antoine Bérard's 1755 compilation L'art du chant includes a selection of songs (sans paroles) by composers such as Lully
Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste de Lully was an Italian-born French composer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered the chief master of the French Baroque style. Lully disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. He became a French subject in...

 (1632–1687) and Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François...

 (1683–1764), chosen for their value as exercises in vocal technique. Accompanying the exercises were instructions on mastering the technical challenges they posed. By the 19th century vocalises were commonly composed specifically for pedagogical purposes rather than being adapted from existing songs.

A related tradition of vocalise sprang up in the 19th century, with wordless technical etudes set to piano accompaniment, following the fashion of the time of setting even the most mechanical of étude
Étude
An étude , is an instrumental musical composition, most commonly of considerable difficulty, usually designed to provide practice material for perfecting a particular technical skill. The tradition of writing études emerged in the early 19th century with the rapidly growing popularity of the piano...

s to piano accompaniment with the thought that this would inspire the performer to execute the music more artistically.

In the early 20th century, many orchestral scores incorporated wordless choruses (especially female choruses) for coloristic effects, and such choruses may be found in works by Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...

, Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

, Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...

, Holst
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....

, and in many film scores.

Famous examples

  • Louis Spohr
    Louis Spohr
    Louis Spohr was a German composer, violinist and conductor. Born Ludewig Spohr, he is usually known by the French form of his name. Described by Dorothy Mayer as "The Forgotten Master", Spohr was once as famous as Beethoven. As a violinist, his virtuoso playing was admired by Queen Victoria...

    's Sonatina for Voice and Piano (1848)
  • Gabriel Fauré
    Gabriel Fauré
    Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...

    's Vocalise-étude (1906)
  • Sergei Rachmaninoff
    Sergei Rachmaninoff
    Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...

    's Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 14
    Vocalise (Rachmaninoff)
    Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 14 is a song by Sergei Rachmaninoff, published in 1912 as the last of his Fourteen Songs, Op. 34. Written for voice with piano accompaniment, it contains no words, but is sung using any one vowel...

     for soprano (1912)
  • Nikolai Medtner
    Nikolai Medtner
    Nikolai Karlovich Medtner was a Russian composer and pianist.A younger contemporary of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin, he wrote a substantial number of compositions, all of which include the piano...

    's Sonata-Vocalise, Op. 41, No. 1 (1922) and Suite Vocalise, Op. 41 No. 2 (1927)
  • The first, slow movement of Heitor Villa-Lobos
    Heitor Villa-Lobos
    Heitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer, described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the best-known and most significant Latin American composer to date. He wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works...

    's Bachianas Brasileiras
    Bachianas Brasileiras
    The Bachianas Brasileiras constitute a series of nine suites by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos, written for various combinations of instruments and voices between 1930 and 1945...

     No. 5
    (1938)
  • Reinhold Glière
    Reinhold Glière
    Reinhold Moritzevich Glière was a Russian and Soviet composer of German–Polish descent.- Biography :Glière was born in Kiev, Ukraine...

    's Concerto for Coloratura Soprano and Orchestra, Op. 82 (1943)
  • Kate Bush
    Kate Bush
    Kate Bush is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Her eclectic musical style and idiosyncratic vocal style have made her one of the United Kingdom's most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years.In 1978, at the age of 19, Bush topped the UK Singles Chart...

    's Night Scented Stock, from the album Never for Ever
    Never for Ever
    - Personnel :* Ian Bairnson: Guitar, Bass vocals* Brian Bath: Acoustic & Electric Guitar, Background Vocals* Andrew Bryant: Vocals, Background Vocals* Kevin Burke: Violin...

     (1980).

In jazz and world music

Vocalese
Vocalese
Vocalese is a style or genre of jazz singing wherein lyrics are written for melodies that were originally part of an all-instrumental composition or improvisation. Whereas scat singing uses improvised nonsense syllables, such as "bap ba dee dot bwee dee" in solos, vocalese uses lyrics, either...

(with the -ese suffix) refers to a type of jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 singing in which new words are created and sung to existing instrumental improvisations. Both The Swingle Singers
The Swingle Singers
The Swingle Singers are a mostly a cappella vocal group formed in 1962 in Paris, France by Ward Swingle with Anne Germain, Jeanette Baucomont, Jean Cussac and others. Christiane Legrand, the sister of composer Michel Legrand, was the group's lead soprano through 1972. Until 2011 the group...

 and Jon Hendricks
Jon Hendricks
Jon Hendricks is an American jazz lyricist and singer. He is considered one of the originators of vocalese, which adds lyrics to existing instrumental songs and replaces many instruments with vocalists...

 famously combined both these techniques. This style is pre-composed (ie. not improvised); therefore, it is not to be confused with scat singing
Scat singing
In vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. Scat singing gives singers the ability to sing improvised melodies and rhythms, to create the equivalent of an instrumental solo using their voice.- Structure and syllable choice...

, which is wordless improvisation.

In Indian classical music
Indian classical music
The origins of Indian classical music can be found in the Vedas, which are the oldest scriptures in the Hindu tradition. Indian classical music has also been significantly influenced by, or syncretised with, Indian folk music and Persian music. The Samaveda, one of the four Vedas, describes music...

, the tradition of aakaar is used as a vocal exercise before singing, and also to a certain extent adds to the singing and the melody.

In March 2010, a vocalization
Speech production
Speech production is the process by which spoken words are selected to be produced, have their phonetics formulated and then finally are articulated by the motor system in the vocal apparatus...

 titled "I am very glad, because I'm finally going home" (Я очень рад, ведь я, наконец, возвращаюсь домой in Cyrillic), sung by Eduard Khil
Eduard Khil
Eduard Anatolyevich Khil , sometimes anglicised as Edward Hill, is a Russian baritone singer and a recipient of the People's Artist Award of the RSFSR.- Early life :...

 became an internet meme
Internet meme
The term Internet meme is used to describe a concept that spreads via the Internet. The term is a reference to the concept of memes, although the latter concept refers to a much broader category of cultural information.-Description:...

.
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