Rococo vocals

Rococo was an 18th-century artistic aesthetic that took the rigid but ornate baroque style further into a freer, yet even more ornate direction. When I use the word to describe vocals, I'm referring to the modern practice of adding trills and runs to every long note in the song, something which has gotten out of hand in recent years.

Where did it all start? I think Ray Charles might have planted the seed, adding the occasional scalic warble to the ends of long notes to establish his signature style. Not many singers could even do that, so not many copied him until Stevie Wonder came along. He could sing anything, and I believe it was his influence that has resulted, second and third hand, in the epi-diva-ic of today. But Stevie always sang with taste, exploding into a little vocal arpeggio for only a moment before returning to the melody, just enough to make you stagger backward in amazement.

The habit of ornamentation as a standard part of every vocal performance crept in as Whitney Houston put out hit after hit full of runs, and that led to the Christina Aguilera school of adding arpeggiated frills at every possible opportunity. Nevertheless, both those ladies were capable of singing a recognizable melody in between the sixty-fourth notes.

Now I hear singers who bury the melody so far under a barrage of embellishment that it would take a trained musicologist months to discover it. My ears get dizzy listening to them, and if they ever had any emotional connection with the lyric, it's been lost in the quest for ever more showy technical proficiency.

It's worth remarking that not every new singer has fallen into this trap, and though perhaps capable of any run, the likes of Adele and Bruno Mars can still break your heart with a long uninterrupted note. Will it come full circle? Will the habit of ornamentation for its own sake be put in the rear-view mirror of musical history like the rococo period of visual art before it? Let's take a little trip down memory lane and hear how it's supposed to be done: