"What Is Melody?"
Melody is:
- a sequence of single notes that is musically satisfying
- a tune
- the aspect of musical composition concerned with arrangement of single notes to form a sequence
- principal part of harmonized music
- it can come with or without words
- tends to be significant to to a particular feeling, place, person, character, story-line
Our brains automatically decode melody as it contains sub-text, even if we don't realise it.
We looked at two examples in the lecture; Ride of the Valkyries and The Girl With The Flaxen Hair. When Ride of the Valkyries started to play, the first thought of a few people in the class thought it was the Star Wars theme tune. When we discovered that it was Ride of the Valkyries it became apparent why we thought it was the Star Wars theme tune. The main instruments in the Ride of the Valkyries are drums and trumpets which are also in the Star Wars theme tune which are also in War tunes like The Last Post.
In simplistic terms:
In simplistic terms:
- rising melody can seem uplifting and happy
- descending melody can make you feel instantly sad
- melody instruments tend to be pitched - flute, piano, trumpets etc - each of them bringing their own 'colour' to the melody.
- the voice is the easiest of all melody instruments
