In Art Music
Vocal harmonies have been an important part of Western art music since the Renaissance-era introduction of Mass melodies harmonized in sweet thirds and sixths. With the rise of the Lutheran church's chorale hymn singing style, congregations sang hymns arranged with four or five-part vocal harmony. In the Romantic era of music during the 1800s, vocal harmonization became more complex, and arrangers began including more dissonant harmonies. Operas and choral music from the Romantic era used tense-sounding vocal harmonies with augmented and diminished intervals as an important tool for underscoring the drama of the music. With contemporary music from the 1900s and 2000s, composers made increasingly difficult demands on choirs which were singing in vocal harmony, such as instructions to sing microtonal notes or make percussive sounds.
Read more about this topic: Vocal Harmony
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