Vocal hammer-ons and pull-offs OT(sorta)

[Wayne Webb]

We're learning "Green Pastures" and I'm trying to get the "trill "vocals down on this one. I do it alot but have never learned what they're called. Wish I could do it like Ralph Stanley or Ricky Scaggs or, better yet, Vince Gill. What are the vocal "hammer-on-pull-offs" called?
Thanx

[Flowerpot]

Vocal hammer-ons and pull-offs? Ha! Now that's a great sense of humor!

I've heard them called "turns".

Now where's my vocal capo, I'd like to know. I could just sing everything out of G.

[Wayne Webb]

A vocal capo??
OUCH!
http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
thanx

[angrymandolinist]

I'm pretty sure that's called melisma.

[Bruce Evans]

Melisma is singing more than one pitch on a continuous voiced sound. Dolly, Reba and Christina Aguilera do this a lot.

[Wayne Webb]

Ok,
thanks!
That's been buggin' me too long.

[Flowerpot]

Wow, you learn something every day. I'd never heard of a melisma. I had a great uncle who could do a train whistle with his voice -- nothing in his mouth -- and get two equally loud, distinct notes at the same time. Used to freak me out. Now I know it was just a melisma.

Now the vocal turn, maybe it should be called a Lou-isma, after Lou Reid. (You listen to him much, you'll know what I mean.)

[angrymandolinist]

Hm, according to Jimmy Webb's Tunesmith, "When a composer writes two or more notes for the same [lyric] syllable it is called melisma." I probably should have put more in my post. Flowerpot, that'd freak me out too! Reminds me of my one English teacher telling us about Tibetan singers who could actually sing three notes at a time.

[Arto]

"and get two equally loud, distinct notes at the same time. #Used to freak me out."

"Reminds me of my one English teacher telling us about Tibetan singers who could actually sing three notes at a time."

It´s sometimes called throat singing and it´s typical for Mongolia, a neighborhood Russian autonomous area Tuva, and for some Tibetan styles. In Mongolia, there are at least three different styles to do this. If I have understood right, you sing it by making a low bass sound and form your throat and mouth in a way to enhance certain harmonics to a point where it is possible to hear two distinct sounds simultaneously. It sounds really wierd, especially the style where the low voice is really low continuous "growl". I think this style of singing is called khöömii in Mongolia.

I have heard that some classical flutists are able to use a similar technique, blowing a 2-note "chord" on a flute!

Arto

[angrymandolinist]

Wow, thanks for all that Arto. It's fascinating stuff!

[mandocrucian]

What are the vocal "hammer-on-pull-offs" called?


I guess I'm living on a different planet, but I don't really see that question as being comical. Actually, to me, that question demonstrates that Wayne has already made (or is just at the point to do so) a mental connectivity jump which may take his playing to another, more expressive, level.

(Huh?)

He's connecting/connected the sound of what comes out of a singer with the parallel or equivalent of how the same sort of expression/nuance would be made on a mandolin. It's one doorway which can open up his mandolin playing to a more expressive way of playing, simply by realizing that it just might be possible to sing on the mandolin.

Elsewhere on MC, people are talking about Grisman's tone. Well, that something else doesn't come from listening to just mandolin. It's probably sonic influences from a lot of non-mando sources - bluesy fiddling (ala Chubby Wise), breathy tenor sax playing, vocals..... And he just experimented until he found how to get those sort of sounds on the instrument.

Multiphonics, as it is called, can be achieved through non-standard sax/flute fingers which will produce two different pitches. #There's also the technique of singing/humming through the instrument - think of Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull) playing flute. #But he got that from Rhasaan Roland Kirk. #You can sing the same pitch as you play for a fuzz tone, or you can sing and play different pitches for something more complex. Sing/play different pitches of certain relationships, and a third (harmonic) note will be also generated higher up. Horn players can do this too. I did some (multi-instrument) workshops in Finland a few years back and I got this girl (folk) flutist to hum through the instrument while playing some blues pentatonics; I thought she was going to have an O when she heard how it sounded.

Arto, Do you know Sauli Heikkila (has a graphics business in Helsinki called Pienihuone) who's in the Finnish Throat Singing Society? #Debbie and I went to this jam at the Kantri Starr and got Sauli up onstage for a Tuvan throat solo on "Foggy Mt Special". #I think the Berryhill Boys thought we were "hullu"! (crazy)

Niles H.

[Bruce Evans]

Flowerpot, I obviously didn't do a good job of defining melisma.

Sing the first two notes of The Star Spangled Banner.

That's melisma. It doesn't mean producing two different pitches simoultaneously, but rather two succesive pitches on the same sound.

[luckylarue]

Anyone interested in Tuvan throat-singing should check out the film, "Genghis Blues" - a documentary about blind bluesman Paul Pena who travels to Tuvan land to participate in a throat-singing competition. He wrote "Jet Airliner", made famous by Steve Miller.

[Flowerpot]

No, Niles, you're not on another planet. The question was serious, but it made me laugh none-the-less. Just the unexpected connection between singing and doing hammer-ons -- well, that's the essence of humor anyway, isn't it? Discovering connections between seemingly unrelated items? That's why if you've already made the connection, it's not funny to you.

But your point is well taken, that we can take influences from anything, saxophone, drums, or singing, and weave them into our playing. Some of it will work, some will not, but you keep what sounds good and make it an element of your style.

But speaking of polytones, I was trying to mimic the sound of a Martian ray gun to amuse my twins, who were then 18 months old. Well, it sort of works to hum and whistle at the same time, as it makes a rather unearthly sound, especially if you can make the whistle modulate with a wild vibrato and point your finger at whoever you intend to "vaporize". (You had to be there.) My girl was amused enough that she tried to reproduce the sound, and by golly she did pretty good; by sucking air in and making a growling sound in her throat, she made two tones at the same time, her first polytone. She did it regularly for a while, pointing her finger and vaporizing me with a polytone, and then stopped to my disappointment when she turned two. I commented to my wife that she must have inherited some of Uncle Tut's genes, Tut being the human train whistle.

[jom]

There was also a Scientific American article on Tuvan throat-singing a few years back.

[Flowerpot]

OK, Tocotodo, now I understand melisma. I'm the one on another planet today.

I never new there was vocal pull offs and whatnot. When you sing you just sing. Interesting.

[mandodebbie]

Is that what Slim Wittman did? Or am completely off topic?(Yodeling!?) http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

[Wayne Webb]

Yodelin?.....AKKKKKKK! http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif

Here's an example:
Talk about suffering here below and let's keep lov(pulloff-hammer-on pulloff)ing Jesus
Talk about suffering here below and let's keep following Je(pulloff)sus
Oh..can't you hear it Fa(Pulloff-hammer-on-pulloff)ther
And don't you want to go
And leave this world of sor(pulloff-hammer-on-pulloff)row
And trouble here below

And another:
The sun is slow(pulloff)ly sinkin'
The day is al(hammer-on pull-off) mo(hammer-on)st gone
Still darkne(pulloff-pulloff)ss falls all(pulloff pulloff) around us
But we must jour(hammer-on)ney(pulloff pulloff) on

And Ralph Stanley:
My latest sun is(pulloff-pulloff) sinkin' fast(pulloff pulloff)
My races is near(pulloff-pulloff) run

Thanks for the great replies guys

[Andyp]

The turns/trills/etc are, I think, the hardest part of old time music to execute successfully (I had to use "execute" because "pull off" would be confusing....)

It is easy to put a little rise or laugh at the end of a line to give an old time sound, but it has to be one of the hardest things in singing to emulate accurately some of the turns and twists of old time singers.

I saw Hazel Dickens once in a Q&A style concert and she was talking about her father's singing...of course she is probably one of the names that springs right to mind today when people think of old time singing...but she said that it was very tough for her to duplicate the turns that her father sang...that she could only sing that way right after listening carefully to the recording.

Maybe this is just a consequence of each singer having their own style and their own preferred placement of turns and embellishments, but it impressed on me that you can't just throw a few little blips into a melody wherever you feel like and expect it to come off as 100 years old.