Singing

HISTORY

Singing is probably the way that music started many thousands of years ago.

There is a theory that human speech may have begun as singing by Neanderthals.

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Singing was a staple element of the Ancient Greek symposium, an all-male drinking and eating party. After eating, the men each sang a song (skolia) with an aulos, lyre, or barbiton providing backing music. Often they sang amusing satirical songs (silloi).

The singing of a hymn regularly accompanied everyday activities and formal acts of worship in ancient Greece. Shepherds piped to their flocks, oarsmen and soldiers kept time to music, and women sung as they did household chores such as weaving and baking. Children too sang songs (agermos) at people’s doors to receive money and candy just as carol-singers do today.

Hippocrates, considered the "Father of Medicine," once suggested a woman with a flat bustline could enlarge it by singing loudly and often.

An operatic style of singing co-existed alongside Roman choral music, and became well-known throughout the Mediterranean.

One of the events at the ancient Olympic Games in Greece was singing. At the 67AD Olympic Games, the Emperor Nero entered the singing contest and was judged the winner even though according to a source, Suetonius, some male listeners fell off the wall and feigned death in order to remove themselves from earshot without causing imperial offence.

Troubled that in the Mass one individual sang all the Psalms and hymns whilst the congregation merely listened. Bishop Ambrose introduced to the western church in the 4th century congregational singing.

St. Ambrose is considered to have introduced the antiphonant method of chanting, or one side of the choir alternately responding to the other; from whence that particular mode obtained the name of the "chant," while the plain song was introduced by St. Gregory a couple of centuries later. That form of singing, still practiced in the Romish service, is called the "Gregorian," or "Romish chant."

Benedictine monk Guido of Arezzo developed a method to learn music by ear in the early 11th century at Pomposa Monastery near Ravenna. He fitted the initial syllables of the first six lines of a Latin hymn to the notes of the hexachord to make ut (later changed to do), re, mi, fa, sol, la; si was added later. Textless singing exercises using these syllables are called solfeggio.

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Martin Luther made singing a central part of Protestant worship. In his German Mass of 1526, he dispensed with the choir and assigned all singing to the congregation. He would often call congregational rehearsals during the week so the people could learn new hymns.

William Billings (1746-1800), the first American composer, founded the continent's first singing class in Stoughton, Massachusetts in 1774 and the first church choir as well.

The singing telegram was invented by George P. Oslin, the public relations director of The New York City-based Postal Telegraph Company. He was inspired to create the singing telegram after a fan sent Hollywood singing star Rudy Vallee a birthday telegram. Oslin thought that this would be a good opportunity to make telegrams, which had been associated with deaths and other tragic news, into something more popular.

The first singing telegram was sent on July 28, 1933, to Rudy Vallee on his 32nd birthday. A Western Union operator named Lucille Lipps sang "Happy Birthday" to Vallee over the phone. The singing telegram was a hit, and the Postal Telegraph Company soon began offering singing telegram services nationwide.

Singing telegrams were popular throughout the 1930s and 1940s. They were often used as birthday greetings, but they were also used for other occasions, such as weddings, anniversaries, and graduations. However, the popularity of singing telegrams declined in the 1950s and 1960s, as other forms of entertainment, such as television and the movies, became more popular.

The first singing reality show was Sa Re Ga Ma Pa. It was launched by India's Zee TV on May 1, 1995. Until 2005, the show used to follow a format wherein experts in the field of music would judge the contestants and score them. Since then, the scoring has primarily been dependent on public voting.

TYPES OF SINGING

Acappella singing is vocal music specifically without instrumental accompaniment. The name is from Latin a (without) and cappella (musical accompaniment).

In Western classical music, singers learn to sing in a bel canto voice which uses lots of resonance in the head and makes a smooth sound. Bel canto was used in Italian opera. Later, in the 19th century, Richard Wagner wrote operas in which the singers needed to be more dramatic.

In church choirs the singers are often trained to use a lot of head voice because this sounds beautiful in large cathedrals.

Pop music singers generally sing more from the throat. They do not need to develop powerful voices like opera singers because they sing into microphones so that their voices are electronically amplified.

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Rap is a kind of singing in which the words are spoken with rhythm and in the text there are rhymes. Its roots come from ancient African music rituals of call and response and from groups of singing poets who traveled from town to town spreading news and messages.

Voices singing music from different parts of the world may sound very different. Inuit throat singing, or katajjaq, is a form of musical performance uniquely found among the Eskimo Inuits. In Mongolia there is a technique of overtone singing which sounds rather like a finger being rubbed against the rim of a wineglass. In Switzerland men often yodel.

FUN SINGING FACTS

It is against the law to sing out of tune in North Carolina.

Sound comes out of our mouths at approximately 75 miles per hour when we sing.

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When learning new phrases in a foreign language, hearing those phrases sung and then singing them has been shown to lead to better results than hearing them spoken normally and then repeating them the same way.

The author James Joyce had a good singing voice and once won a bronze medal in a Dublin singing contest. He threw it into the River Liffey.

A favorite recreation of the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George was standing around the piano at his 10 Downing Street home on a Sunday with his nearest and dearest singing Welsh hymns.

While singing in Rigoletto at Covent Garden, London, in 1948, Walter Midgely swallowed a false mustache.

Michael Jackson's pre-concert ritual included drinking Ricola candy dissolved in hot water. He claimed the beverage helped to keep his throat and his singing voice clear.

Beyoncé can run a mile while singing, which helps her to perform on stage without becoming exhausted.

NON HUMAN SINGING

Some animals, such as many types of bird and whale, sing. Other animals, such as many types of cats, make musical purring sounds. Currently, there are about 5400 species of animals that are known to sing.

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Birds sing in the morning to get the clearest, crispest sound quality they can.

With some animal species such as the gibbon, singing is a group activity.

Sources Europress Family. World History Encyclopedia