Screaming (music)

Screaming is an extended vocal technique that is mostly popular in "aggressive" styles of Western popular music including many styles of heavy metal and some styles of punk rock (especially hardcore punk) and industrial. In metal, the related death growl vocal technique is also popular. Intensity, pitch and other characteristics vary between different genres and different vocalists.

Genres

The following is a summary of notable genres in which screaming is often used:

Classical and experimental music

Although screams are often suggested in stories performed in the grand opera tradition, they were never performed literally, always being sung. The first significant example of an actual scream in an opera is in Alban Berg's Wozzeck (1922), where the eponymous character screams "Murder! Murder!" in the fourth scene of Act III. Even more strikingly, Berg's unfinished Lulu, written mainly in 1934, features a blood-curdling scream as the heroine is murdered by Jack the Ripper in the closing moments of the final scene. In Mascagni's 1890 CavalleriaRusticana the final line "They've murdered Turiddu!" is spoken, not sung, and often accompanied by a scream.