As a pianist I am sensitive to vocal acrobatics and the like. This one I hear everywhere but I just don’t know what it is or why it’s so ubiquitous. It’s hard to pin down, maybe someone can help me figure out what it is?
At the end of the famous Sia song Chandelier, she repeats “‘Cuz I’m just holdin’ on for tonight”. When she sings the word “tonight” her last syllable (the word “night” goes down like two whole steps, from Db to Bb, I believe.
It’s also in the Ariana Grande Song “Break Free” at around 3:40, where she sings “And I can’t resist it no more”. The word “more” is another two step jump, from Bb to G.
In Katy Perry’s “Firework”, whenever she sings the word “Firework” the last part of the syllable “work” goes down maybe a half step.
Why is it so popular these days? Is there a name for it or am I just going crazy?
It’s that specific one-syllable drop at the end of a word. I ask because whenever my girlfriend sings pop songs, she always does it at the end of a word. It’s a one or two step drop in pitch, and I think you can hear it pretty well in the examples I gave.
It’s different from a melisma because it seems unintentional, or at least not thought out beforehand. It might be in other songs by Adele or Kelly Clarkson now that I think about it.
No, it’s a deliberate minor third drop. I only listened to the Ariana example, and nothing sounds odd about it to me. It’s the type of embellishment I might make on a lead.
It’s just a fall. The first one doesn’t even seem to be an actual minor third, just an indeterminate end. The second one does seem to be a minor third, and it seems to be because the chord is the relative minor, so she’s falling to the root of the chord, from “do” to “la”. The third one, the last note is on “mi,” so she’s falling to “do” just that’s the natural pull of all music.
Either way, yes, it is an ornamentation, and, no, you shouldn’t do it every time. Though it is natural, since you’re relaxing your vocal chords. To avoid it, you cut off the sound before that can happen, either by stopping the air, or, more likely, by disengaging the chords.
As for why it’s popular? Since there are three different reasons for it, it’s hard to say. The first one, it’s just something to make the end different, saying the song is over. The second one, it’s just an interesting sound. The third one, it’s because the actual note is higher than expected, so it seems incomplete.
Thanks BigT. I thought it was specific to pop music, because I hear it all the time on WPLJ, Z100, and all those pop stations around the New York Area. Your explanation was very good, thanks.
I might be overthinking this, but it seems like this “fall” carries a kind of rebellion with it. Almost like “look at me, I don’t need to stay on the same note like all those classical singers! I can drop the note and it will sound good because I am just awesome!”
I think it may be a type of backlash, if you will. What makes me think that is that I don’t hear it anywhere else…just in the “stuff kids listen to these days.”–i.e. the pop genre.
It does sound like a minor third to me, Db to Bb, as stated in the OP. But that sounds pretty normal to me. But even if it is just an indeterminate end, you see that sort of ornamentation in all sorts of music. If you read through transcription of sax or guitar solos or whatnot, it’s not unusual to see the end of a musical phrase end with a little slur down, indicating a fall in pitch (major second/minor third/indeterminate, etc.) I certainly hear these sorts of vocal embellishments in the Beatles music all the time, for instance. They’ll do downward falls on syllables, upward inflections, mordent-type things (there’s a lot of this, where they’ll start the syllable on pitch, then go up and back down, or up-down-down-up, etc.) It’s not something I associate with current music exclusively.
