Melody

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A bar from J. S. Bach's Fugue No. 17 in A-flat, BWV 862, from The Well-Tempered Clavier (Part I), an example of counterpoint. The two voices (melodies) on each staff can be distinguished by the direction of the stems and beams.

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Voice 1

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Voice 2

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Voice 3

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Voice 4

A melody (Template:Ety), also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of pitch and rhythm, while more figuratively, the term can include other musical elements such as tonal color. It is 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 composition 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.

History

The first melodies were likely simple and vocal, tied to early human rituals, hunting and everyday life. Early humans would have made sounds using their voices, primitive instruments like flutes and even their bodies (clapping, stomping).

From 3000 BCE, music began to take a more structured form. In ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and China, early melodies were often monophonic (a single melodic line without harmony), often tied to religious ceremonies and rituals. Ancient instruments like lyres and harps allowed for the development of more distinct melodic lines.

One of the most significant early forms of Western music, Gregorian chant, is a form of plainchant that used single melodic lines. The medieval period was largely monophonic, with melodies designed to enhance religious texts. The focus was on melody rather than harmony.

As music notation began to develop, so did the complexity of melodies. The neumatic notation system was used to notate the pitch of the melody. By the 12th century, the addition of polyphony began to emerge, influencing the complexity of melodic lines.

The Renaissance period saw a major shift toward more complex polyphony. Composers like Josquin des Prez created intricate melodies that moved in different directions simultaneously. The harmonization of melodies with multiple voices allowed for the creation of more dynamic and expressive melodic lines.

The Baroque period introduced the concept of the basso continuo, where a bass line was played continuously, and melodies were often ornamented with trills and runs to make them more elaborate. Famous composers like Bach and Handel created complex, virtuosic melodies in both vocal and instrumental music. The Classical era, with composers like Mozart and Haydn, emphasized clarity, balance, and structure. Melodies became more straightforward, with a focus on well-defined phrases and clear, lyrical lines. The period favored homophonic textures (melody with accompaniment) rather than complex polyphony.

The Romantic era brought an explosion of emotional depth and expressiveness in melody. Composers like Beethoven, Chopin and Tchaikovsky wrote long, sweeping melodies that conveyed a wide range of human emotions. Melodies became more complex, irregular, and unpredictable, with greater emphasis on individual expression.

The 20th century brought with it a break from traditional forms and a push toward new ways of thinking about melody. Classical composers like Stravinsky and Schoenberg used dissonant and atonal melodies, while jazz musicians like Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker pushed the boundaries of melody in improvisation. Recently, melodies have increasingly incorporated influences from around the world. Genres like hip-hop, EDM and world music have fused different melodic styles, creating new hybrid forms that span cultures and traditions.

Function and elements

Johann Philipp Kirnberger argued: Template:Quote

The Norwegian composer Marcus Paus has argued: Template:Quote

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." Paul Narveson claimed in 1984 that more than three-quarters of melodic topics had not been explored thoroughly.

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".

Melodies in the 20th century "utilized a greater variety of pitch resources than ha[d] been the custom in any other historical period of Western music." While the diatonic scale was still used, the chromatic scale became "widely employed." 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. 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."

Examples

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"Pop Goes the Weasel" melody

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Melody from Anton Webern's Variations for orchestra, Op. 30 (pp. 23–24)

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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, and other forms of popular music and folk music tend to pick one or two melodies (verse and chorus, sometimes with a third, contrasting melody known as a bridge or middle eight) 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 musique concrète, klangfarbenmelodie, Elliott Carter's Eight Etudes and a Fantasy (which contains a movement with only one note), the third movement of Ruth Crawford-Seeger's String Quartet 1931 (later re-orchestrated as Andante for string orchestra), which creates the melody from an unchanging set of pitches through "dissonant dynamics" alone, and György Ligeti's Aventures, in which recurring phonetics create the linear form.

See also

• Hocket
• Parsons code, a simple notation used to identify a piece of music through melodic motion—the motion of the pitch up and down.
• Sequence (music)
• Unified field

Further reading

• Apel, Willi. Harvard Dictionary of Music, 2nd ed., pp. 517–19.
• Cole, Simon (2020). just BE here – the guide to musicking mindfulness
• Edwards, Arthur C. The Art of Melody, pp. xix–xxx.
• Holst, Imogen(1962/2008). Tune, Faber and Faber, London. Template:ISBN.
• Template:Interlanguage link multi (1955). A Textbook of Melody: A course in functional melodic analysis, American Institute of Musicology.
• Szabolcsi, Bence (1965). A History of Melody, Barrie and Rockliff, London.
• Trippett, David (2013). Wagner's Melodies. Cambridge University Press.
• Trippett, David (2019). "Melody" in The Oxford Handbook to Critical Concepts in Music Theory. Oxford University Press.

External links

• Template:Sister-inline
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• Carry A Tune Week, list of tunes
• Creating and orchestrating a coherent and balanced melody Template:Webarchive