Melisma: Wordless Song in Medieval Chant

In the written record of music in the West, there are many examples of long melodies sung to a single vowel with no other text; but in almost all cases that vowel is part of a syllable in a word, which in turn is part of a longer text; that text is interrupted—or prolonged—by the extension of its vowel to a greater or lesser extent by that string of notes. "Melisma" is the word we use to describe this series of notes. Medieval thinkers such as St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and many others spea...