Melody

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This article is about melody in music. For other senses of
this word, see Melody
(disambiguation).

Look up melody in Wiktionary, the free
dictionary.

A bar from J.S. Bach's "Fugue No.17 in A flat", BWV 862,
from Das Wohltemperirte
Clavier (Part I), an example of counterpoint. The two voices (melodies)
on each staff may be distinguished
by the direction of the beams.

A melody (from Greek μελῳδία -
melōidía, "singing, chanting"[1]),
also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical
tones which is perceived as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody
is a combination of pitch and rhythm, while, more figuratively,
the term has occasionally been extended to include successions of other musical
elements such as tone color. It may be
considered the foreground to the background accompaniment. A line or
part need not be a
foreground melody.

Melodies often consist of one or more musical phrases or motifs, and are usually
repeated throughout a song or piece in various forms.
Melodies may also be described by their melodic motion or the
pitches or the intervals between
pitches (predominantly conjunct or disjunct or
with further restrictions), pitch range, tension and release,
continuity and coherence, cadence, and shape.

Contents

1 Elements

2 Part

3 See also

4 Examples

5 See also

6 Further
reading

7 References

8 External
links

[edit]
Elements

Given the many and varied elements and styles of melody "many extant
explanations [of melody] confine us to specific stylistic models, and they are
too exclusive."[2]
Paul Narveson claimed in 1984 that more than three-quarters of melodic topics
had not been explored thoroughly.[3]

The melodies existing in most European music written before the 20th century,
and popular music throughout the 20th century, featured "fixed and easily
discernible frequency patterns", recurring "events, often periodic, at all
structural levels" and "recurrence of durations and patterns of durations".[2]

Melodies in the 20th century have "utilized a greater variety of pitch
resources than has been the custom in any other historical period of Western
music." While the diatonic
scale is still used, the twelve-tone scale became
"widely employed."[2]
Composers also allotted a structural role to "the qualitative dimensions" that
previously had been "almost exclusively reserved for pitch and rhythm". Kliewer
states, "The essential elements of any melody are duration, pitch, and quality
(timbre), texture, and
loudness.[2]
Though the same melody may be recognizable when played with a wide variety of
timbres and dynamics, the latter may still be an "element of linear
ordering"[2]

[edit]
Part

A part is the music
played by an individual instrument or voice (or group of identical
instruments or voices) within a larger work, such as a melody. It also refers to the printed copy of the music
for each instrument, as distinct from the score, which holds the
music for all instruments in an ensemble. For example
in a string ensemble you would have separate parts for Violin 1, Violin 2, Viola
and Cello, even though there might be several of each instrument (and therefore
several copies of each part).

Parts may be an inner part, the two on the top and bottom, or outer
part, those in between. Part-writing is the composition of parts in
consideration of harmony and
counterpoint.

A part in great Highland
Bagpipe music is a musical sentence. Usually each
part consists of four phrases, either one or two bars
long. Several sentences combine to produce a paragraph or complete work or
tune.

In a polyphonic context the term
voice is used to denote a single melodic line or textural layer. The term
is generic, and is not meant to
imply that the line should necessarily be vocal in character, instead
referring to instrumentation
or simply to register.

[edit]
See also

Counterpoint

This music
theory article is a stub. You can help
Wikipedia by expanding it.v · d · e

v ·
d ·
eMusical
textures

Monophony ·
Homorhythm and Homophony ·
Heterophony ·
Polyphony and Counterpoint ·
Micropolyphony

[edit]
Examples

"Pop Goes the Weasel"
melody[2]

Different musical styles use melody
in different ways. For example:

Jazz musicians use the
term "lead" or "head" to refer to the main melody, which is used as a starting
point for improvisation.

Rock music, melodic music, and other
forms of popular
music and folk music
tend to pick one or two melodies (verse and chorus) and
stick with them; much variety may occur in the phrasing and lyrics.

Indian
classical music relies heavily on melody and rhythm, and not so much on harmony, as the music contains
no chord changes.

Balinese gamelan music often uses
complicated variations and alterations of a single melody played
simultaneously, called heterophony.

In western classical
music, composers often introduce an
initial melody, or theme, and then create
variations. Classical music often has several melodic layers, called polyphony, such as those in
a fugue, a type of counterpoint. Often,
melodies are constructed from motifs or short melodic
fragments, such as the opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Richard Wagner
popularized the concept of a leitmotif: a motif or
melody associated with a certain idea, person or place.

While in both most popular music and
classical music of the common practice
period pitch and duration are of primary importance in melodies, the contemporary music
of the 20th and 21st centuries pitch and duration have lessened in importance
and quality has gained importance, often primary. Examples include musicale
concrete, klangfarbenmelodie,
Elliott Carter's
Eight Etudes and a Fantasy which contains a movement with only one
note, the third movement of Ruth
Crawford-Seeder's String
Quartet 1931 (later re orchestrated as
Andante for string orchestra) in which the melody is created from an
unchanging set of pitches through "dissonant dynamics" alone, and György Ligeti's
Aventures in which recurring phonetics create the linear form.

Melody from Anton Webern's
Variations for Orchestra, Op. 30 (pp. 23-24)[4]

[edit]
See also

Unified
field

Parsons code, a
simple notation used to identify a piece of music through melodic motion—the
motion of the pitch up and down.

Appropriation
(music)

Hocket

Klangfarbenmelodie

Musique
concrète

Melodic patterns

Sequence
(music)

Line
(poetry)

[edit]
Further reading

Wikiquote has a
collection of quotations related to: Melody

Apel, Willi. Harvard Dictionary of Music, 2nd ed.,
p. 517-19.[2]

Edwards, Arthur C. The Art of Melody, p.xix-xxx. Includes "a
catalog of sample definitions."[2]

Holst, Imogen (1962/2008). Tune, Faber and Faber, London. ISBN
0-571-24198-0.

Smits van Waesberghe, J. (1955). A Textbook of Melody: A course in
functional melodic analysis, American Institute of Musicology. Includes
"an attempt to formulate a theory of melody."[2]

Szabolcsi, Bence (1965). A History Of Melody, Barrie and Rockliff,
London.

[edit]
References

^ Melodia, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A
Greek-English Lexicon, at Perseus project

^ a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
Kliewer, Vernon (1975). "Melody: Linear Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music",
Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music, p.270-301. Wittlich, Gary (ed.).
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ISBN
0-13-049346-5.

^ Narveson, Paul
(1984). Theory of Melody. ISBN
0-8191-3834-7.

^ Marquis, G.
Weston (1964). Twentieth Century Music Idioms, p.2. Prentice-Hall,
Inc., Inglewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

[edit]
External links

MelodyCatcher: An accurate Search Engine for Melodies

Melodyhound: A Search Engine for Melodies

Tunespotting: Another Search Engine for Melodies

DoDoSoSo: Yet another Search Engine for Melodies

Carry A Tune Week List of Tunes

Access to IMSLP 12 collections of 1000 melodies arranged for solo
instrument, with melody-specific historical notes

v ·
d ·
eMusical
notation and development

Staff

Bar & Bar
line · Clef · Da capo · Dal
segno · Key
signature · Ledger
line · Musical
mode · Musical
scale · Rehearsal
letter · Repeat
sign · Time
signature · Transposition · Transposing
instrument

Notes

Accidental
(Flat · Natural · Sharp) · Dotted
note · Grace
note · Note value (Beam · Note
head · Stem) · Pitch · Rest · Tuplet · Interval · Helmholtz
pitch notation · Letter
notation · Scientific
pitch notation

Articulation

Dynamics · Ornament
(Trill · Mordent · Grace
note) · Portato · Accent · Legato · Tenuto · Marcato · Staccato · Staccatissimo · Tie · Slur · Fermata · Tonguing

Development

Coda · Exposition · Harmony · Melody · Motif · Ossia · Recapitulation · Rhythm (Beat · Meter · Tempo) · Theme · Tonality · Atonality

Related

Chord
chart · Figured
bass · Graphic
notation · Lead
sheet · Eye
music · Modern
musical symbols · Neume · Tablature

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melody"

Categories: Musical
texture | Harmony | Melody | Polyphonic
form | Music theory
stubs | Greek
loanwords | Formal
sections in music analysis

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This page was last modified on 12 February 2011 at
14:49.

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