vocable

A vocable is a word composed of various sounds or letters without regard to its meaning. In music, vocables are often used in vocal improvisations, particularly in jazz, where they take the form of emotive, onomatopoeic, or nonsense syllables instead of words. This style, known as scat singing, was popularized by Louis Armstrong and is characterized by singers improvising with syllables to mimic instrumental sounds or express musical ideas. While vocables themselves are simply words without inherent meaning, their use in music, especially in jazz, allows for creative and expressive vocalizations.12