Abbellimento

The sweet sounds settling upon your furrowed brow burry themselves deep into your mind, body and soul. Your skin turns from rough leather to smooth silk and begins to suspend even the most massive anxiety trying to pierce your outer shell. Shake off the distant memories of yesterday and follow the flow of sound spiraling down into the roots of peace and tranquility. In music, abbellimento are musical flourishes that are not necessary to carry the overall line of the melody (or harmony), but serve instead to decorate or "ornament" that line. In the baroque period, it was common for performers to improvise ornamentation on a given melodic line. A singer performing a da capo aria, for instance, would sing the melody relatively unornamented the first time, but decorate it with additional flourishes the second time. Improvised ornamentation continues to be part of the Irish musical tradition, particularly in sean-nós singing but also throughout the wider tradition as performed by the best players. This sound uses the following file from Freesound: http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=111270