# What is vocal music



## mckalemack (Jun 26, 2012)

Sorry to ask this silly question form you all but I really want to know that what is vocal music.
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## Toddlertoddy (Sep 17, 2011)

Music that has (a focus on) voice in it...? I wouldn't call Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe vocal music because the voices are optional

Beethoven's ninth is vocal music (last movement), Stravinsky's Pulcinella is vocal music (only some movements), and every single opera and song is vocal music.

Maybe it's harder to define in the 20th century because composers exploit the voice in unusual ways.


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## veronika (Jul 26, 2012)

vocal music is one which can sing by a person.. its not like instruments.. its ... What is the name of the song that is about a girl that is in love with a guy and a girl?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Vocal = voice

Vocal music is music which, generally, features or emphasizes the voice, either solo or a group, chorus.

Early Gregorian Chant is a single vocal line sung by a number of singers, later medieval vocal music had polyphony, part singing, for chorus. The earlier forms of this were 'purely' vocal in that they used only voices and no instruments.

Unaccompanied choral music is called 'Acapella' - stemming from the early tradition of vocal music without instruments, as sung 'in the chapel.'

Later, Renaissance and to the current day, there are choral pieces with instrumental accompaniment, many masses, requiems, cantatas and oratorios are for solo singers, chorus and orchestra.

Song, whether art song or popular song, of any era, is usually for voice and one or more instruments, the vocal line (and text) being the 'spotlit' feature.

Another genre is 'the choral piece.' This is parlance for a larger work for full chorus, sometimes soloists, and orchestra - such as Mendelssohn's Elijah, Bach's St. Matthew Passion, the Mozart and Verdi Requiems, etc.

Opera is vocal music, certainly, with fully featured solo voices and chorus singing, but since it is so attached to stage drama, the term Opera is used.

A Bob Dylan song with guitar accompaniment is 'vocal music.' [The pop genre tends to simply categorize anything with voice as 'vocal,' and without voices as 'instrumental.']

Anything sung, then, generically, is 'vocal music.'

The mentioned and famous Ravel "Daphnis et Chloe" is technically an orchestral piece which uses a wordless chorus as another instrument or section of the orchestra. Debussy's 'Sirenes' from his Trois Nocturnes, uses a women's chorus, again wordless, as another 'instrument' and color in the orchestra. Technically, they could be called 'choral pieces,' but their intent and the use of the voices more as an instrument keeps them more 'a piece which uses chorus.' There are only a handful of this type, some from the late 1800's, and the remaining handful from the 20th century.

Voice - featured or as the central focus of the piece.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

One possible grey area is incidental music interspersed with spoken narrative - how about Mendelssohn's complete A Midsummer Night's Dream?


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

The subhuman sounds made by humans from Ligeti and Berio.


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

elgars ghost said:


> One possible grey area is incidental music interspersed with spoken narrative - how about Mendelssohn's complete A Midsummer Night's Dream?


Talk asbout putting the cart before the horse.
That is a play by Shakespeare interspersed with incidental music!


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

Vaneyes said:


> ... subhuman sounds ...


Suprahuman?


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Jeremy Marchant said:


> Talk asbout putting the cart before the horse.
> That is a play by Shakespeare interspersed with incidental music!


Quite, Jeremy, but if I can relocate both cart and horse just this once I meant on certain recordings of Mendelsohn's complete incidental such as the one by Abbado where Judi Dench recited certain passages in conjunction with the music.


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## Bas (Jul 24, 2012)

Haydn's Septem verba Cristi Cruce prolatis is another grey piece. It is sometimes performed with spoken text between the musical parts, but it is 'grey area' if you can/must say those belong to the piece as if they are not separable. It therefore does not necesarilly qualifie as vocal.


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## sah (Feb 28, 2012)

An example of vocal music. 400 years of music in 9 minutes.


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## indianschoolofmusic (Oct 22, 2012)

Vocal Music is a type of music which is performed by one or additional vocalists with or without musical instrument, in which the choral delivers the foremost central point of the musical piece. Vocal Music classically features harmonic lyrics, though there are distinguished instances of Indian Classical Music, that are implemented applying non lingual language units, occasionally as melodic rhetorical device. It means that by using words they imitate the sound they denote. A small piece of choral music with words is generally named as song.

Vocal Music is perhaps the older kind of music, since it does not need any musical instrument in addition with the human vocal sound. All Musical civilization has some kind of vocal melody. You can check more good information at http://indian-school-of-music.blogspot.com/


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## mud (May 17, 2012)

Isn't the spelling of grey a gray area too? Such irony.

The Pocket Manual of Musical Terms says of Vocal: "Pertaining to the voice; suitable for the singing voice. _Vocal cords_, the two opposed ligaments set in the larynx, whose vibration, caused by expelling of air from the lungs, produces vocal tones; v. _glottis_, the aperture between the vocal cords."

Pertaining to the Voice: "1. The singing voice, divided into six principal classes: soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto (alto), tenor, baritone, and bass. 2. The word _voice_ is often used instead of 'part', in imitation of foreign usage".

What does _pertain_ mean? To "be appropriate, related, or applicable". To "belong to something as a part, appendage, or accessory".

The only gray area is how pertinent its usage is to the music, whether it is referred to as vocal. Even though the part involving the voice would always be considered vocal music.


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