Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- In music: Melodious, Ornamented; adorned.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective music of, relating to, or being a
melisma ; the style of singing several notes to one syllable of text – an attribute of someIslamic andGregorian chants .
Etymologies
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Examples
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The Wolof and Bamara people from the Senegal River delivered the melismatic singing and stringed instrumentation that led to the banjo and the blues.
The Bushman Way of Tracking God PhD Bradford Keeney 2010
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One might argue that the English alone would suggest that, but we do well to recall that the Latin Gradual of ancient origin is actually the most melismatic chant of the entire Mass – and the purpose is to inspire extended reflection and preparation.
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Britten telegraphs some dramatic hints when in the last scene he has her sing the same unsettling melismatic line that Quint has used all along, and after the boy's death intoning his "Malo" lament.
Rodney Punt: Turn of the Screw Gets a Stunning New Turn at LA Opera Rodney Punt 2011
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Intervals of the fourth note on the scale rise while intervals of the fifth fall, as fragments of a melismatic figuration sinew throughout.
Rodney Punt: Turn of the Screw Gets a Stunning New Turn at LA Opera Rodney Punt 2011
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Intervals of the fourth note on the scale rise while intervals of the fifth fall, as fragments of a melismatic figuration sinew throughout.
Rodney Punt: Turn of the Screw Gets a Stunning New Turn at LA Opera Rodney Punt 2011
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And English is an awkward language to set to melismatic chant, given the hard endings to words.
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He ended his time with a melismatic acapella singing of Barack Obama's name to the tune of his “Take Me Up To Paradise” as he was led off.
Archive 2009-01-01 2009
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She says that for the Psalm "syllabic, rather than melismatic, settings would seem to be more in keeping with this point in the Liturgy of the Word."
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He ended his time with a melismatic acapella singing of Barack Obama's name to the tune of his “Take Me Up To Paradise” as he was led off.
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Britten telegraphs some dramatic hints when in the last scene he has her sing the same unsettling melismatic line that Quint has used all along, and after the boy's death intoning his "Malo" lament.
Rodney Punt: Turn of the Screw Gets a Stunning New Turn at LA Opera Rodney Punt 2011
jcreed commented on the word melismatic
I was waiting for the bus one day, and the word "melismatic" popped into my head out of nowhere. I wasn't sure if I had ever heard it before. I went to a dictionary soon as I got a chance and found out it was a real word — with such a lovely meaning, too. Maybe I had heard it a long time ago and it just lurked in my subconscious for an unmeasured time.
January 3, 2007