With respect to the singing of the National Anthem today. I ran across this music student commenting on this self-indulgent and irritating "melisma" in the hands of limited singers.
*****
I didn't watch American Idol much last year, and even then (and this year much so, as I caught more of it), when I tuned in got irritated by the attempt to emulate Mariah Carey by sticking multiple notes to single syllables in a way that ends up rewriting songs that are best left as written. These are called "melismas"--same as Gregorian Chant, but with a modern song that was pretty good to between with, result in mangling it.
These kids do NOT know how to write music, so when I hear something like Somewhere Over the Rainbow mangled into something that doesn't sound anything like the original, it makes me cringe. This is not "making a song your own" but showing yourself as a bad musician who does not know his or her limits. Stick to singing, NOT rewriting classics!
Someone like Aretha Franklin or even Whitney Houston can get away with this--they have some inate musicianship where they can actually craft a song "as their own" without losing the beauty of the original. However, the performers on AI--ALL of them--but noticeably among all, Clay, Tamyra(sp?), and even Kelly (particularly now)--all seem to think this is good singing. I have no idea if Clay actually has a good voice, because he keeps adding these awful warbling effects to every note.
Can he or anyone else there just sing it straight and let me know if the voice by itself is beautiful?
Panthers 17 - Patriots 16
The "UNDER" is a gimme.