Vocality or special vocal effects are vocal or vocally inspired devices including guttural effects, interpolated

Interpolation (music)

Interpolation in music refers to an abrupt change in musical elements from the main theme.-In classical music:In music and musical composition, especially 20th century and later, interpolation is an abrupt change of elements, with continuation of the first idea...

 vocality, falsetto

Falsetto

Falsetto is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous edges of the vocal folds, in whole or in part...

, blue note

Blue note

In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note sung or played at a slightly lower pitch than that of the major scale for expressive purposes. Typically the alteration is a semitone or less, but this varies among performers and genres. Country blues, in particular, features wide variations from the...

s, Afro-melisma

Melisma

Melisma, in music, 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, where each syllable of text is matched to a single note.-History:Music of ancient cultures used...

s, lyric improvisation

Improvisation

Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...

, and vocal rhythm

Rhythm

Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...

ization. All of the listed devices are attributes of African

Music of Africa

Africa is a vast continent and its regions and nations have distinct musical traditions. The music of North Africa for the most part has a different history from sub-Saharan African music traditions....

 vocality and are used to emotion

Emotion

Emotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...

alize vocal and instrumental performances in African American

African American music

African-American music is an umbrella term given to a range of musics and musical genres emerging from or influenced by the culture of African Americans, who have long constituted a large and significant ethnic minority of the population of the United States...

 vernacular music

Popular music

Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

.

Guttural effects include screams

Screaming (music)

Screaming is a vocal technique that is most popular in subgenres of heavy metal, punk and hard rock, including metalcore, deathcore, post-hardcore, groove metal, black metal, and grindcore...

, shouts, moans, and groans. Shouts may be intoned or nonintoned (definite in pitch/sung or indefinite in pitch/spoken). Interpolated vocality is the addition of new vocal sounds or texts (interpolated verbalism) to a song while lyric variation is derived from or embellishes existing lyrics

Lyrics

Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...

.

Source

• Stewart, Earl L. (1998). African American Music: An Introduction. ISBN 0-02-860294-3.