(Marion Cowings, photo courtesy of the artist)

Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Jon Hendricks, Betty Carter, and many more of Jazz’s legendary vocalists were noted for their ability to sing scat vocals. The use of wordless syllables and sounds enabled vocalists to take instrument-like solos and stretch out their vocal capabilities in some of the most extroardinary improvisations put to record.

But what is scat singing, and how do you practice it?

For what scat singing is, we start with the wonderful vocalists Michael Mwenso and Brianna Thomas, who give us a definition and provide a wonderful sung example:

How do you practice it, and how do you approach it with a musical ear? We invited the master vocalist Marion Cowings to join us and give us a demonstration on the topic. You can watch his full video–which also also contains warm-up techniques–below, but if you want to skip ahead to the scat vocals section, click here.