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Advanced Vocal Tree

This page discusses a new tree for the VocalRelationshipAttribute. It's a spin-off from PerformanceRestructuringProposal to be able to discuss this easier; for more info about the circumstances, look there. This process is being tracked through 1140.

Please note that there is a proposal to add a separate sub-type SpeakerRelationshipType to the vocal PerformerRelationshipType and NarratorRelationshipType, ReaderRelationshipType as subtypes to SpeakerRelationshipType, so speech should probably not be included in this tree.

The Tree

The idea is to split up the attribute vocal into vocal role and vocal range/tone, so those attributes could then be set separately.

PerformanceRelationshipClass

• vocal role (This attribute describes a type of vocal performance.)

  • Lead (Lead or solo vocal)

  • Background (new)

    • Choir (Choir)

    • Chorus (Chorus)

    • Backing (previously Background vocal)

    • Harmony (Harmony) --FrederikSOlesen: Sometimes vocals are listed as "harmony vocals", and I'm unsure what of the above background vocal categories it would belong to, if any.

  • Other --FrederikSOlesen: There will always be exceptions.

• vocal tone (This attribute describes a style/tone/range of vocal performance.)

  • classical (unselectable) *

    • Alto (Alto)

    • Bass-Baritone (Bass-Baritone)

    • Contralto (Contralto)

    • Baritone (Baritone)

    • Bass (Bass)

    • Contra-tenor (Contra-tenor)

    • Mezzo-soprano (Mezzo-soprano)

    • Soprano (Soprano)

    • Tenor (Tenor)

    • Recitative (Recitative)

  • modern (unselectable) *

    • rap

      • Sprechgesang

    • growl

    • scat

    • yodel

    • lilt(ing) --FrederikSOlesen: Traditional (Irish) way of 'singing' tunes

    • chant

    • whistle

    • other --FrederikSOlesen: There will always be exceptions.

    • add please.

related is also

• Speaker (as per SpeakerRelationshipType)

• narrator (as per NarratorRelationshipType)

• reader (as per ReaderRelationshipType)

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* It's currently not possible to have unselectable relationship attributes. 2113 proposes to make this possible.

Discussion

mudcrow added these to my page,i'm moving them here, I dunno what to do with them.

• Vocalese --mudcrow: closely related to scat, vocalese is similar but uses lyrics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocalese

• Voice --mudcrow: common credit on spoken word tracks, and tracks that contain spoken word, although the spoken word is usually a background, rather than the foreground. Also a common credit for shouting, screaming etc. Such tracks are specifically credited as voice instead of the usual vocals.

• Spoken Word --mudcrow: an artistic performance where lyrics, poetry or stories is spoken (or shouted), often with a musical background. Ranting is a similar form, where poetry/lyrics are spoken/shouted at a high speed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoken_word

• Toasting --mudcrow: talking or chanting over a rhythm or a beat. An African tradition that has moved in modern times into reggae and dub music. Not to be confused with rap. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toasting

• Human Beatbox --mudcrow: mostly used in rap music, using the human voice to create an imitation of purcussion instruments, scratches and a variety of other instruments. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_beatbox

Terminology

vocal tone

Rapping, growling, lilting, etc. isn't a 'tone' but a specific (or not so specific) style of singing. A word different from "tone" would be appreciated. --FrederikSOlesen

modern

Under "vocal tone", I'd like to find another wording than "modern" for non-classical since I believe yodeling, lilting, and related styles to be as old (or older) than the classical divisions. Perhaps, related to the above comment, renaming "classical" to "tone (range)" and "modern" to "singing style" (or something better, but I'm somewhat tired right now). --FrederikSOlesen

vocal role

Vocal role is also not the best choice as it coincides with the proposal of a free-text attribute for the role someone represents in a performance (like "SomeGuy performed tenor vocal as The Beast" - tenor is the "vocal role" as described here, "The Beast" would be a free-text attribute for the character that is represented). Perhaps "character" would actually be a better term for the free-text attribute, then this could stay. -- Shepard 2006-08-31 12:59:08

Discussion from old PerformanceRestructuringProposal page

ok, as discussed on the mailing list when this has come up, i think rap is a really bad role to include. it is not a concrete style, like the classical ones (which refer to a specific vocal range), and a lot of rap type singing strays between the 'real' singing, and rapping, if not a combination of the two. it's just a horribly grey area and there's no real need to make the distinction. i mean we don't define any other type of contemporary singing - eg 'growling' for death metal, 'whining' for radiohead, etc (all of which i find equally silly btw!). everything contemporary should be kept as 'lead'. --Gecks

• I agree that it is perhaps not correct to group vocal styles together with vocal ranges/tones. Nonetheless I would like to have this AR to be a bit more descriptive. I mean we have tons of instruments now but only a few vocal styles. It was proposed somewhere to use SurvivalOfTheFittest on the instruments to see which we need and which we can combine and whatever. I think somehow they are also a grey area but we do implement them!

  • Well an instrument is different, because you know categorically what instrument is used (invariably from the liner notes) whereas a singing 'style' is almost completely subjective these days. I don't consider the two areas similar --Gecks--

    • You run issues without the "rap" option with groups that have multiple vocalists where one's role is singing while the other's role is rapping. THC!! has three vocalists - a female singer, a male singer, and a female rapper. ハレンチ☆パンチ also has 3 - one does lead singing, second does rap and some backup singing, and the third does just chorus singing. m-flo has Verbal as rapper and various guest vocalists for the actual singing. CRIMSON has a lead singer/samisen player and a rapper/harp player for their two vocalists. With all of them its divided into the one(s) doing the lead singing and the other doing the rapping; putting all of them under "lead vocals" simply feels inaccurate. Rapping in general might not be as clearly defined as the different roles in classical singing but with groups that have both singers and rappers it's very clear in their specific cases. It'd be more useful to the people with that music to have that info in the database than to simply lump all the vocalists together as having performed lead vocals. --DJKC

  And one thing: what do you think about recitative? Keeping it in my proposal and perhaps building it in with a separate link type or something? I'm not quite sure if I used a good translation for what I wanted to say.. in german we have "Sprechgesang" - directly translated this would be "speech-singing". My dictionary said recitative but when I translate that back to german it says either "Sprechgesang" or "Rezitativ" (which is not what I want). Compare http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recitative and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprechgesang. --Shepard

  • At least in my personal singing experience, "Recitative" in English useage tends to actually be used to indicate what the term Sprechgesang is intended to indicate. Sprechgesang also is occasionally used in English, though much less frequently, and always is used in such context as a synonym for Recitative. Rezitativ is not ever used in English, but my understanding is that it is closer to the Italian term, which is also used in English, "Recitativo". (And speaking of which, "recitativo" ought to be added to the above listing. -- BrianSchweitzer 2007-08-15 04:59:04

    • What I wanted to say here was: recitative seems to me like a rather classical style of singing while what I call Sprechgesang is something which you would find in modern music - it gets very near to rap, just it's more monotonous. An excellent example is Schiller's "Die Nacht ... Du bist nicht allein" (I think it's this one). If you anyhow can listen to it, you'll know what I mean. -- Shepard 2007-08-15 23:19:07

Maybe I misunderstood the proposal (or the current inplementation), but I think we need a way to mark chorus vocals. All too often is there one vocalist doing the lead in the verser and another doing the hook/chorus/refrain. It feels weird to mark this as either background (because it's not) or lead (because... well, it /is/ lead, but only in a small and well defined part of the song). Who's with me, or why am I wrong? //bnw

I disagree with making "modern" and "classical" non-selectable. There are many situations where it is easy to recognize that the style is classical, but unlisted and difficult/impossible to identify which particular vocal range is involved. Disallowing the selection of "classical" in this type of a situation would lead to our being forced to choose to either be less specific than we can be in adding the AR, or more specific than can be verified based on the information available. -- BrianSchweitzer 2007-08-15 04:53:13

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