What is a melody?

[A Lark Ascending]

I've always had the populist view that it's a 'tune' that sticks in your head, a memorable note sequence.

Though I suspect that sometimes the memorability might be in the harmony accompanying it.

Yet I get the impression that to musicians it might be a sequence of notes that has the strength to generate variations or bigger structures or provide an organising base.

I ask because I was listening to a talk at the weekend that described Harrison Birtwistle's music as full of melody. I'm not sure the person in the street would spot them. The commentator defined a melody as something that sounds like it could be sung.

Made me curious. Suspect it's a weasel (or Humpty Dumpty) word.

[sonnymax]

I understand the commentator's opinion, i.e. something that is melodic or tuneful. Strictly speaking, the melody is the part of a composition that is distinguished from the harmony and the rhythm.

[JSngry]

If a melody falls in the forest but only on deaf ears, does it still make a sound?

Like anything else, a melody is whatever you make it. The more people who want the same thing, the more commonly accepted the definition, and the less the controversy about any deviation.

Really, you're asking the wrong person. I hear melodies in drums. Hell, I can see melodies in shapes and stuff. So I guess maybe you're asking a question that I myself don't really understand. What is a melody? A melody is whatever you make it to be.

Anything else seems just seems like marketing of an agenda to me, not that that's bad or anything, there will always be agendas, and they will always be marketed, that's how shit gets done over the long haul, be it proactively and/or reactively.

But if you already know what you think it is, and you already have a disagreeable point at the ready why do you ask? Is this going to be another one of those anti-elitist rants about how musical vocabulary is the tyranny of the ruling classes or something? Well, yeah, I suppose it is. But it's how shit gets done, and when people wnat to do soemthing else, they do it as much on the battlefield of vocabulary as they do on the battlefield of action.

Melody is "something that sounds like it could be sung",eh? Well good then. Who is doing the hearing, who is doing the singing, and why shouldn't I - or you - be the one doing all that anywhere with anything that strikes our fancy?

Shapes, distances, proportions, angles, all that stuff, if its got those things it potentially has a melody to it (and yes, that means that a building potentially has a melody). The key word there is "potentially", though. But that's where it starts and that's where it ends. What happens in between is a matter of personal engineering (and all that comes with that).

And simple Newtonianism - if the most basic doggerel can be "melody", then the most tangential abstract whiffs of nothingness count as "anti melody", but as with all things Newtonian, if on the same scale, are not both really different manifestations of the same thing, in other words, are not "most basic melody" and "anti melody" still melody, just different faces of the same thing. I think yes, they are, so then, what is not melody?

I mean, everybody will accept being told some things, and be happy with not having to worry about that any more. So...pick your battles and allocate resources accordingly, I guess. For me, it's cars - don't care, just run when I turn the key, ok? For other people it's music. Same thing in the end. Battles/worries picked, and onward with whatever to wherever.

[JSngry]

I understand the commentator's opinion, i.e. something that is melodic or tuneful. Strictly speaking, the melody is the part of a composition that is distinguished from the harmony and the rhythm.

except that...when there is more than one note, or even one note followed by a silence, harmony is implied and can be inferred, although obviously the more notes that follow, the easier it is to assign specific harmonic function, but as well all know in a (at least) Post-George Russell/Ornette World, any note can serve any function within any chord. Same thing with rhythm - if one note is followed by a another - even if it is the same note - you have a mathematical relationship (not necessarily a constant one, mind you), and then you have what can be construed as rhythm.

Sure, that seems all "theoretical" and such, but that's the way it is - the more notes that follow after that first one, the more zoned in on harmony and rhythmic assignment you can get. People talk about "atonal" and stuff, and that holds true as long as you compare to "functional" harmony - but only as long as. Same thing with "a-rhythmic". No such thing either, although at some point as a practical matter...but are we concerned with practicality, or better understanding? Not always the same thing, although in the end, better understanding makes for easier games, therefore more fun, and I'm all about the fun, ok? Because in the end, fun - fun, not dumb indulgence of ongoing ignorance - is the most practical thing you can have.

Now I know (and will agree with, at least up to a point) the argument that "functional" harmony (and "dance" rhythm) is hard-wired into the species. But is it hard-wired to the point that expansion of perception is perversion, or that rejection is ultimately either anti-human or else paradigmatic evolutionary shift, a "point of no return"? Or is it just a hey, grow up, it all works, or can be made to work, type thing?

As I said earlier, you're asking the wrong guy, at least if you want an answer to a question that is still very much playing itself out in real time.

However, I do think that it all comes down to that it is all what you want it to be, and what you want it to be is usually what you need it to be (I'm of the school that need drives want, not the other way around, although I would imagine there's a counter-argument to be made...because if we had all our needs met, we would be without want, and then we would be "fully defined", right? and then...would we still have a need - or even a want - to continue to exist? Really?). It's like, we are defined by friction, and de-defined by its absences. "All one", right? Well, ok, what then, what next? All what one?

By the same token - if some melody, then all melody. You jsut don't want it all at once, because then you have it all, need removed, game over. Music no longer needed/exists. Maybe someday, maybe not. Not in my lifetime, I hope. But since it is all there, it can all be extracted in whatever way. Infinite parts from infinite whole? Why not? How not?

So ultimately...interpretation. Name it, claim it, own it for as long as it runs, when it doesn't...oh well!

[JSngry]

Another thing - "symmetry" is often conflated with "logic", and,um, uh,er, ah.....no. I'd not do that if it were me.

[A Lark Ascending]

The 'singable' thing makes some sense to me.

The four note theme at the start of Beethoven 5 is certainly memorable (as much rhythm as melody) and generates virtually the whole symphony. But I find it hard to think of as a melody - I've read terms like motto theme or melodic cell used. Whereas the blazing passage that opens the fourth movement sounds to me like a melody (built from that cell).

I suspect musicians/composers and ordinary listeners have different meanings for the term.

[xybert]

Not to get all "duuuuuuude" about it (well, that's pretty much the level i operate on) but man, the concept of Melody is pretty mindblowing. Monk just blows my mind; at times i wonder where the melody ends. From another angle, if i listen to a solo saxophone free improv song, you can think of the song as one long continuous melody. It's long, but if you listen to it enough you can 'know' it.

[7/4]

When Zappa's Shut Up and Play Your Guitar came out I was excited and mentioned it to a friend. He said it wasn't melodic. In fact, there's nothing but melody. Perhaps that was just his way of saying it didn't sound like the Allman Bros.

[A Lark Ascending]

Seems to confirm the massive disconnect between the popular and academic use of the word.

Listeners to programmes like this would not recognise Birtwistle or Zappa as 'melodic'. Or to a record like this:

Edited May 28, 2014 by A Lark Ascending

[page]

For me everything starts with the melody. It is what sticks with me. I can fall for a melancholy in a tune and I simply can't forget it. It is like it haunts me or something. For a tune to stick or make it recognizable, I think the harmony does have everything to do with it too. A harmony can so much support a melody that it actually can make or break a tune. I do feel like the melody is the most important thing though. It is the story, the phrase gives you the emotion, the feel. The harmony supports that by emphasizing (is that a word?) the mood, the atmosphere. I'm still lin the middle of learning about harmonies but I can hear that I need to choose my changes carefully to make them support the words I chose in my lyrics to express the emotion I want with them and make them to be felt true by the listener.

Edited July 1, 2014 by page

[CJ Shearn]

To me, everythingfrom the aforementioned Beethoven's Fifth ( even moreso the Eroica) Miles' "Agitation",even some of the Stockhausen stuff I've heard on YT like "In Freundschaft" (though it's not my favorite thing to listen to) Pharell's "Happy", to some of the piano pieces from Conlon Nancarrow it's all melodic. Most people though, Nancarrow and the like would hardly classify as "melodic", neither would "Ornithology", but I think like Jim said, if melody had a wider definition, then some non traditional melodies wouldn't be as strange to the population.