Syllables three in the word “three”?
What is going on there?
Four syllables in the word “class”?
There’s not even a pair!
To me it looks quite simple:
These single words are spare.

Let’s take a look at “apple,”
a snake fruit that’s got a peel.
Two syllables, yet some folks sing
it to make my head reel.
Not matter how I say it,
there’s just two in my spiel.
Melisma’s how you amplify them amply.

But, you look at the notes found on a staff,
melisma’s not a gaffe.

How do you song the prolongs of melisma
when you’re hearing polysyllabic sound?
You’re gonna find gone-long words with melisma.
Single made triplet, a syllable spritz you’ve found.
Many a word can be so song-embellished,
many a singer does but don’t grandstand.
So if you hear someone say,
“lay-ay-ay-ay-ay” for “lay”…
something the composer on purpose planned.
So, when in a song there’s prolongs from melisma—
it’s just a way to make the word expand.

There’s no reason to be confused;
your ears haven’t been contused.
You’ll never ask again, “Where’s it I am?”
Syllables all clumped together
means a sound has been untethered—
think in terms of “ba-ah-ah”ing of a lamb.

Today we see it much less
than in chants of old, I guess.
Simple songs were much embellished in that world.
In contemporary style,
there’s less tendency to pile
up notes, make them around a single sound swirl.

Back in those days, songs ’d more prolongs with melisma.
Think of all the notes that run up and down
in a carol we often sing at Christmas
that nixes triplets: 17-syllable sound!

It’s the one that contains the word “excelsis,”
followed by “Deo,” but before it stands
a word you and I’d say
in a three-syllable way,
“Gloria,” but that word must expand.
Because the word is prolonged by much melisma.
Seventeen syllables for “or.”* Hot damn!

*Glor-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-or-oria. In Excelsis Deo.