Melisma

Within the tradition of Religious Jewish music, melisma is still commonly used in the chanting of Torah, readings from the Prophets, and in the body of a service.

The use of melisma is a common feature of artists such as Deniece Williams, Stevie Wonder, Luther Vandross, Whitney Houston, Céline Dion, Mariah Carey, Christina Aguilera, Brandy, Beyoncé, among others.

[7] The trend in R&B singers is considered to have been popularized by Mariah Carey's song "Vision of Love", which was released and topped the U.S. charts in 1990, and went on to be certified gold.

[9][10][11] As late as 2007, melismatic singers such as Leona Lewis were still scoring big hits, but around 2008–2009, this trend reverted to how it was prior to Carey, Dion, and Houston's success – singers with less showy styles such as Kesha and Cheryl Cole began to outsell new releases by Carey and Christina Aguilera, ending nearly two decades of the style's dominance of pop-music vocals.

George Frideric Handel's Messiah contains numerous examples of melisma, as in the following excerpt from the chorus "For Unto Us a Child Is Born" (Part I, No.