Melodic Composition

Melodic Techniques

Melodic Goals

  1. Tonal

  2. Shows clear signs of internal development

  3. Clear shape

  4. memorable

  5. useful for further development


Melody- A linear succession of tones that a listener perceives as a single entity


**We write music to be perceived

**We are built to hear, use, and understand specific relationships of tones


Mysterious melody illusion


Five Features of Tonality

  • Limited marcoharmony

  • Conjunct melodic motion

  • Acoustic Consonance

  • Harmonic Consistency

  • Centricity


Conjunct Melodic motion

  • Limited range

  • Mostly conjunction motion

  • Occasional leaps


Centricity

  • One note is heard as being more prominent than the others


*Reminder that music is not about rules but expectations


Melodic Traps

Melodic Traps

  • Focus on the same note patterns

  • using the same rhythmic patterns

  • not controlling the shape

  • Having no clear direction


Fixing melodic problems

  • Attack them from the side

  • Specific melodic patterns

    • Simple melody

    • Tendency tones: Active and Inactive

      • Tendency Tones- Tones that “tend” to move in a particular direction

    • Combining scale lines and chord lines

      • Conjunct & Disjunct

    • Using rhythm effectively

    • Melodic embellishment


Ingredients of Melody and Scale Lines

Melody Writing Goals

  • Interesting note patterns

  • Interesting rhythmic patterns

  • Sense of tension and release (expectation and realization)

  • Solid Structure with embellishment

  • Clear direction and shape

  • tonal (limited macroharmony, conjunct motion, centricity)


Ingredients of Melody

  • Scale lines

  • Chord lines

  • Rhythm (regular and irregular)

  • Form

  • Embellishment


Ingredient I: Scale Lines

  • Melody that moves up and down a scale


Active and Inactive Tones

  • Inactive tones- Notes of the tonic triad; provide a sense of rest and resolution

  • Active Tones- Other notes of a scale not belonging to the tonic triad; creates msuical tension and strong gravitational pull

    EX. C MAJ Scale

Inactive tones: C - E - G

Active Tones : A - B - D - F


Active Scale Degree

  • 7 moves up to 1 (Most active- Important for determining keys)

  • 4 moves up to 3 (Important for defining tonality- Common “Amen” sound/ Cadence)

  • 6 moves down to 5 (less active than 7-1 or 4-3; stronger in minor)

  • 2 can move to 3 or down to 1 (least active)

    • Doesnt need to be treated as an active tone

    • 2-1 releases more tension than 2-3

  • Approaching from above allows you to continue going down; doesn’t require natural resolution


Chord Line Melodies

  • leaps within a specific harmony- chord line

  • leaps outside a specific harmony- appoggiatura


Chord line melody- melodies that follow chords instead of a scale


Chord line Techniques

  • Follow the notes of a specific chord

  • Limited Range- 1 ½ octaves

  • Instrumental and player capabilities- skips within an octave


**write for average intermediate players


Combining Scale lines and chord lines

Leaps

  • Small leaps- 3rds

  • large leaps- larger than a third

  • Filling in a large leap (ex2)

  • Leaping to tendency tones (ex3)


Melodic techniques

  • Move along a scale line or chord line as much as you want

  • Resolve active tones in the proper direction

  • Overcome this natural tendency by approach an active tone from the opposite direction

  • You can freely leap a third in any direction

  • large leaps should be filled in

  • Leap to active tones from the opposite direction of resolution


Rhythm

Melodic Rhythm

  • How we use weak and strong beats to create forward momentum


Rhythm- Different levels of beats that are cyclical or periodic and symmetrical

  • Pulse/ beat

  • Meter

  • Measure

  • Hypermeasure


Pulse

  • What you hear or fell as the actual regular beats

  • Not necessarily the fastest or slowest component of the rhythm

  • Also called the beat


Meter

  • Comes from poetry

  • Classify meter by how we split the pulse, or gorup the pulses


Splitting the beat

  • Simple meter

    • Each beat in a bar naturally divides into two equal parts

  • Compound meter

    • Each beat in a bar naturally divides into three equal parts


Grouping the beats

  • Duple meter- grouped into two beats a measure

  • Triple meter- Grouped into three beats a measure

  • Quadruple meter- Grouped into four beats a measure

    • Stronger beat on 1

    • Strong beat on 3

    • Accented/ unaccented beats allow control over the rhythm


Regular and Irregular Rhythm

  • Regular Rhythm- Emphases the strong beats of a meter with comparatively longer note values on strong beats

  • Irregular Rhythm- Emphasizes weak beats of a meter by having comparatively shorter note values on beats


Emphasizing a beat- Techniques

  • To create regular rhythms, longer note values should be on accented beats

  • To create irregular rhythm, shorter note values should be on accented beats


Creating new rhythmic ideas

  • Compose rhythm separately

  • Start with equal note values- note lengths with equal values are always regular

  • Split up notes- Splitting a note on unstressed beat will cause regular; splitting on stressed beat causees irregular rhythm

  • Extend notes (dots)- dotting first note in rhythmic group makes it regular; dotting last note of rhythmic group will make it irregular

  • Combine notes- Combining on an accented beat will create regular; combining on unaccented will create regular

  • Replace notes with rests- Rests take away any accent to a beat- placing on accentaed makes it irregular; placing on unaccented keeps it regular

  • Vary the degree of regularitiy and irregularity

  • Greater note length difference- large difference between short and long note will make it feel more irregular

  • Repeating irregular rhythms makes it feel a bit more regular