When the backup singers sing “doo wah” or “doo bee do”, what is the “doo” called?
It’s not a word, and its not a note - so what is one such sound called?
When Ella Fitzgerald improvised the whole process was called “scat”, but what are the parts called?
This question has got me Pip’d.
They’re nonsense words and nonsense syllables.
Sometimes it’s called “scat singing”.
Isn’t it “doo wop”?
That’s a name for the general style, like “scat”. It’s a better term for the style the OP is describing, I think, but it’s still not a name for the individual phrases sung:
At one point that article refers to them as “doo wop syllables”, which might be as good a term as any.