Last night I saw an excellent group called Rag Mama, a duo from England who live in France and play American music, particularly blues and jazz. One of the songs they sang was Cab Calloway’s Minie the Moocher, which includes some scat singing in the chorus.
Wikipedia defines scat singing as “vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all.” It dates back probably to the early 20th century in the USA. The word scat in this context is probably of imitative origin [source].
In other musical traditions, such as in West Africa and South India, percussive rhythms can be sung and different types of drum beats are associated with particular syllables, but there is little or no improvisation.
Waulking songs (òrain luaidh) in Scottish Gaelic use meaningless syllables or vocables in their choruses, but there seems to be only a relatively small selection to choose from. I’ll be learning some waulking songs next at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the Gaelic college on the Isle of Skye, where I’m doing a course in Scottish Gaelic songs. Here are some I’ve learned before.
Does anything like scat singing exist in other musical traditions?
Yes. Rock has doo-wop. Jewish liturgical music has the nigun. THere are, no doubt, others.
(Oh,BTW, it’s MInnie the Moocher.)
Don’t Indian and Pakistani music use stock syllables equivalent to do, re, mi, etc. for vocal improvisation? I don’t know where one defines the line between ornamentation and improvisation in that music, but it’s definitely not 100% pre-composed.
The usual story is that Louis Armstrong dropped his music and “invented” scat singing, but that’s probably apocryphal.
It’s not improvised, but Eena Meena Deeka is a famous Hindi film song that uses nonsense syllables extensively. You can see and hear it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxJH9kXo_3o
Rap. No one can understand a word. 😀