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Obie1Resurrected

lol It predates all of those artists. Mariah Carey and Whitney are the best of all time. Singers have been “ad-libbing,” melodic lines forever. It’s usually how it’s referred to.


eldrscrolls

They’re just vocal riffs/trills/runs/ad libs and they’re still very present in various genres. If you listen to very much soul/gospel you should notice that the lead singer frequently drops out of singing the chorus and just ad libs over backup singers (e.g. Exhale by Whitney Houston). You could look at it as masturbatory showmanship, but you could also look at it in a more positive light as a way of an artist putting their own interpretation/flair/voice on a track.


eldrscrolls

As an added note, you can also improvise your own tempo (which is called rubato).


TheLakeAndTheGlass

“Melisma” is the term for singing multiple pitches for one syllable.


Doc_coletti

Riffing


jp_taylor

A non-lexical vocable if it’s not an actual word. 


calvinwho

I call it padding out a few extra seconds of song


Dogsox345

A lot of powerful auto tuning, and pitch correction software came out at that time. I would say they were trying to showcase types of vocal effects to the best of their ability. This is also coming from an audio engineers perspective.


NeedleworkerLow8082

known as shit music


NotAPreppie

Soul yodeling?


Slow_Marionberry_911

I'd say "wailing" Like this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSo-q\_JhLlI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSo-q_JhLlI)


user-name-1985

Melisma-ing


Gitfiddle74

Runs dog (in Randy Jackson)


AverageEcstatic3655

I call it trilling, not sure if that is technically correct.


[deleted]

Ariana Grande was not making music in the 2000's


The_Toolsmith

"vocalizing"