Melody

General

– Melody is Ordered Succession of Pitches (Just as Rhythm is an Ordered Succession of Durations of Sound)

– Melody can Not be separated from Rhythm (whereas Rhythm can be separated from Melody), for Example you can Clap a Melody without the Need of a Pitch, but you can Not Sing a Melody without using Rhythm 

– because from the Moment you Sing a Pitch, you must by Necessity give it Duration, and Duration gives Rhythm

– In Fact Rhythm contributes to the Identity of a Melody and when the Rhythm changes, a Melody may become unusable

– Melody Must Change Pitch and Move to be Melodic

– a Melody can Move either by “Direction” of the Movement (Ascending and Descending) or by the “Size” of the Movement (Intervallic Distance which is either by Steps or by Leaps), 

– 2 General Approaches for Melodies – either a Voice or a Instrument 

– the Melody should underline the Songs Tonality 

– Lead to the Key of the Music

– often you Include the Tonic & Dominant Notes of the Scales

– Most Memorisable Melodies have a Well Balance of Descending, Ascending, Stepwise and Skip-Wise Motion

– a Memorisable Melody Mostly Stays in 1 Octave Range (if you jump out it Sounds more Robotic, Glitchy, Harsh, Jerky)

Nature of Melody

– Melody Must be Melodic and Melody by Nature Must Move (Move means Change Pitch)

– there are only 4 Directions a Melody can Move, 2 Ways Deal with Direction and 2 Ways with Size

Direction of Movement

– Most Fundamental Type of Movement, because Pitch in its Nature either goes Higher or Lower

– the 2 Ways of Direction are Ascending & Descending

– a Good Melody consists of Ascending & Descending Movement (only of Direction would become Dull)

Size of Movement

– means the Intervallic Distance where we have 2 Types to choose from

– the 2 Ways of Size are Conjunct (Step Wise) & Disjunct (Skip Wise or Leap)

Example Simple Melody Creation

– with Notes from the Scale Gm

1) Create a Simple 8th Note Pattern with All the Notes from the G Minor Melodic Scale Upwards

 – starting with the Tonic to the Tonic Octave above (G,A,Bb,C,D,E,F#,G) 

2) Sounds a little boring without Real Energy 

3) So Mute the last 2 Notes E and F#, still Predictable but immediately different

4) Un-Mute the last 2 Notes back again – but Change the Notes to G,Bb,D,F#,D,F#,Bb,G

5) Has more Energy – but still just Notes from the Scale which will become boring very soon

6) Build in up & down Steps G,A,Bb,F#,D,F#,D,C,A,G – F# kind a forces Energy and the 2nd Downward Pattern “relaxes” the Energy 

7) But still the Leading Tone F# that comes towards Tonic plays to early plus the 5th should sit in the Middle of Melody

8) So change Notes to  G,A,Bb,Bb,D,F#,F#,C,G and listen how Melody goes to Dominant & via Leading Tone back to Tonic