Information about vocal music

Vocal music is music performed by one or more singers, with or without non-vocal instrumental accompaniment, in which singing provides the main focus of the piece. Music which employs singing but does not feature it prominently is generally considered instrumental music (e.g. the wordless women's choir in the final movement of Holst's The Planets) as is music without singing. Music without any non-vocal instrumental accompaniment is referred to as a cappella.

Vocal music typically features sung words called lyrics, although there are notable examples of vocal music that are performed using non-linguistic syllables or noises, sometimes as musical onomatopoeia. A short piece of vocal music with lyrics is broadly termed a song.

Vocal music is probably the oldest form of music, since it does not require any instrument besides the human voice. All musical cultures have some form of vocal music.

Vocal music without lyrics

World traditions

Elaborate untexted vocal improvisation was and still is an important element in Turkish and Middle Eastern music traditions. Such music existed prior to the 1200s and the First Crusade into Palestine and the city of Jerusalem, possibly even before the year 900.
The modern descendants of the ancient Kung tribes and clans of Southern Africa utilize similar traditional music techniques.
A form of improvisation known as thillana is a very important feature of Carnatic music from South India.
Tuvan throat singing often features wordless and improvised song. The sygyt technique is a particularly good example of this.
The Sámi yoik is a predominantly wordless form of vocal expression.
The musical tradition of mouth music (Puirt á beul) was used in various forms of traditional music in the Anglo-Saxon and Gaelic communities.
Hasidic Jews use a form of voice improvisation called nigunim. This consists of wordless tunes vocalized with sounds such as "Bim-bim-bam" or "Ai-yai-yai!", often accompanied by rhythmic clapping and drumming on the table.
Puirt a beul, also known as "Mouth Music", is a Scottish technique based around imitating the sounds of bagpipes, fiddles, and other instruments used in traditional Scottish music. It was popularized in North America by Scottish immigrants, and has been incorporated into many forms of American music from roots music to bluegrass.

European classical vocal music

Solfege, a vocalized musical scale, assigns various syllables such as Do-Re-Mi to each note. A variety of similar tools are found in traditional Indian music, and scat singing of jazz.

Jazz and popular music

Hip hop music has a very distinct form of vocal percussion known as beatboxing. It involves creating beats, rhythms, and scratching.

Icelandic singer/songwriter Björk album, Medúlla, is composed entirely of processed and acoustic vocal music. It includes beatboxing, choral arrangements and throat singing.

Singer Bobby McFerrin has recorded a number of albums using only his voice and body, sometimes consisting of a texted melody supported by untexted vocalizations.

Vocal music with lyrics

Songs

See Song and for short forms of music with sung words.

Extended techniques that involve lyrics

The Second Viennese School, especially Alban Berg and Arnold Schoenberg, pioneered a technique called Sprechstimme in which singers half-talk, half-sing, and only approximate pitches.

Lyrics

For other uses, see Lyrical.

Lyrics are the words to a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit.
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For the supervillain, see .

Onomatopoeia (occasionally spelled onomatopœia) is a word or a grouping of words that imitates the sound it is describing, suggesting its source object, such as "click," "buzz," or "bluuuh," or animal noises
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A song is a relatively short musical composition. Songs contain vocal parts that are performed with the human voice and generally feature words (lyrics), commonly accompanied by other musical instruments (exceptions would be a cappella and scat songs).
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human voice consists of sound made by a human using the vocal folds for talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming etc. The vocal folds, in combination with the lips, the tongue, the lower jaw, and the palate, are capable of producing highly intricate arrays of sound.
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Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate,") generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significant importance.
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The music of Turkey includes diverse elements ranging from Central Asian folk music and music from Ottoman Empire dominions such as Persian music, Balkan music and ancient Byzantine music, as well as more modern European and American popular music influences.
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Middle East is a historical and political region of Africa-Eurasia with no clear boundaries. The term "Middle East" was popularized around 1900 in Britain, and has been criticized for its loose definition.
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Centuries: 12nd century - 13rd century - 14th century

1170s 1180s 1190s - 1200s - 1210s 1220s 1230s
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Events and Trends

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First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II with the dual goals of liberating the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslims and freeing the Eastern Christians from Muslim rule.
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Jerusalem (Hebrew: יְרוּשָׁלַיִם (help info ) , Yerushaláyim; Arabic:
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9th century - 10th century
870s 880s 890s - 900s - 910s 920s 930s
897 898 899 - 900 - 901 902 903
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Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30,221,532 km² (11,668,545 sq mi) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area, and 20.4% of the total land area.
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Tarana is a type of composition in Hindustani classical vocal music in which certain syllables are used in a medium-paced (madhyalay) or fast (drut lay) rendition. It was invented by Amir Khusro^[1] and now is common all over India and Pakistan.
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Carnatic music, also known as
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South India is a commonly used term that is used in India to refer to the South-of-India or Southern India. The Southern part of the Indian peninsula is a linguistic-cultural region of India that comprises the four states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu
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Overtone singing, also known as throat singing, overtone chanting, or harmonic singing, is a type of singing in which the singer manipulates the harmonic resonances (or formants) created as air travels from the lungs, past the vocal folds, and out the lips to
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Sami people (also Sámi, Saami, Lapps, sometimes also Laplanders) are the indigenous people of northern Europe inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of northern Sweden, Norway, Finland and the Kola Peninsula of Russia.
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Yoik, Joik or juoiggus is a traditional Sami form of song.

Originally, yoik referred to only one of several Sami singing styles, but in English the word is often used to refer to all types of traditional Sami singing.
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Mouth music may refer to:

Puirt a beul, a Scottish traditional music style
Mouth Music, a band who sings in that style.