R’n’B is a fusion of soul, hip hop and modern electronic dance music. It is predominantly focused on vocals and chorus hooks and has unarguably become the pop music of the 2010’s. Harmonically, R’n’B tends to use cadences found in pop music but with more emphasis on 7th chords rather than just triads. This gives the compositions a smoother, jazzier feel.
R’n’B is one of the few genres that has an almost equal number of both male and female stars, with both sexes opting to sing in traditional soul styles and by using rapping techniques, taken from its hip hop influence.
Melisma
From the mid-1980’s, soul singers like Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey popularised the melisma vocal technique and it is still employed today in modern R’n’B. This technique involves moving through a succession of notes all on one syllable of text. Western music had mainly adopted the one pitch per syllable method until this point, but there are obvious examples of vocalists such as Stevie Wonder predating this.
Mariah Carey’s 1990 hit ‘Vision of Love’ contains many uses of the melisma technique and is often cited by R’n’B stars Beyoncé and Christina Aguilera as the song that inspired them to become singers.
Pitch Correction
Modern R’n’B also became synonymous with extreme pitch correction treatment on its lead vocalists, using plug-ins like Autotune and Melodyne. The digital wobble created by these effects became the sought after sound for many R’n’B vocalists and was soon a creative choice rather than a functional one of pitch correction. Its aesthetic became one of the most easily identifiable characteristics of modern R’n’B, especially amongst male stars like T-Pain and Kanye West.
Drum Programming
After its vocal stylings, it is the programmed drums and percussion of R’n’B that makes it stand out from almost all other forms of popular music. R’n’B producers have taken influence from a huge range of genres like hip hop, funk and Latin as well as more underground sub-genres of electronic music like UK garage and dubstep, to create new syncopated grooves, often with an absence of a strong backbeat. With such variety in its rhythmical influences, it’s no surprise that a wide range of tempos and grooves can be found within modern R’n’B. Although the genre’s superstars like Beyoncé or Drake will use live drummers and percussionists for their shows, almost all drum parts on their records are programmed via drum machines and DAW’s. The sound of the Roland TR808 & TR-909 drums machines are as prevalent in modern R’n’B as they are in more underground genres like techno.
Independent Study: Try researching artists that come under the banner of Modern R&B and see what you come up with. Discuss your findings with your peers.
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