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Wailing woman
Musical motif and solo vocal effect / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The wailing woman is a musical motif and solo vocal effect that features "an exotic-sounding, ululating female singer" traditionally heard in the soundtracks of epic films and historical dramas.[2] Generally composed in half-steps and featuring heavy vibrato, the "ethnic sounding" wailing woman technique is a "melodious lament" with unintelligible words and an "ethnic" vocal timbre, usually set in the natural minor, harmonic and/or melodic minor scale.[1]
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The mournful wail, typically sung in alto, may often deal with a tragic subject matter or a foreign locale, where it heightens the emotional moments in the scenes while expressing a dramatic mood. It has since been used in scores of film genres outside of drama, and as well as in television shows and video games.[1] Other nicknames for this musical technique include, wailing female or moaning woman.[3][4][5]