Melody

[Chuck Nessa]

from my facebook page tonight: Some days I believe Dvorak and Borodin were the world champs at melody. Other days I think of Ayler and Ornette. Borodin is winning tonight.

[paul secor]

Too many great melodists for me to narrow it down, but it's interesting to read where you're at tonight.

[JSngry]

Not the same thing, I know, but...Baby Dodds, for me, sometimes.

[MomsMobley]

if not Schubert-- and the correct answers are probably Schubert and Rossini-- then Prokofiev

who did so many things so well he's often underrated; Serge encore at 40:30 mark

Gilels Three Oranges obviously not most melodic compared to hours of melody in the ballets etc but worth seeing anyway

Ornette yes Ayler no

Edited April 15, 2015 by MomsMobley

[paul secor]

I didn't know that there were any "correct" answers.

[jazzbo]

There are as many correct answers as there are listeners!

Jobim is definitely on my list . . . as well as Beethoven, Waller, Ellington, Strayhorn and many more.

Edited April 15, 2015 by jazzbo

[MomsMobley]

I didn't know that there were any "correct" answers.

Of course there are correct answers; we're talking musicology, not your favorite cookie.

And while Beethoven has melodic moments etc... his genius is motivic

And while Schubert did some astonishing things with developement, his genius is melodic

These are the correct answers.

Where one might 'rank' these in world historical competition Chuck posits is subjective, si, but blurring bar lines of musical construction/comprehension is the answer to nothing.

And because I hestitated to start with even, say, Buxtehude or Handel... and this not even broaching the madrigals (which is as misleading as considering Schubert without lied...)

[paul secor]

Ah. I understand, almighty guru.

[JSngry]

Ok, I'll play - define "melody" in terms of how greatness is then objectively/absolutely considered and conferred.

Also advise how these criteria are arrived at without in some way at some point fixing the questions to return the desired answers, and/or if such a thing is all but unavoidable.

It's been a few decades since my musicology classes, so a refresher is certainly in order. Might as well get it right here, right now, right on.

[MomsMobley]

Ah. I understand, almighty guru.

thank you. i gotta head out now but i'll bring back black & white cookies for anyone who wants-- lemme know.

[JSngry]

I'll take some pie if it's not too much trouble, thanks!

[Larry Kart]

Based on some recent listening to D. 960 -- Schubert. Dvorak and Borodin are shrewd choices, though.

[BeBop]

When I think (jazz; improvised not composed) melody, I think Lester Willis Young.

[johnblitweiler]

I agree with everyone here.

[Chuck Nessa]

I object. WTF do u no. :-)

[jeffcrom]

Musicology ain't physics or geometry. It's more like baking cookies, with room for individual interpretations/variations of established recipes. And since no two people's taste buds are the same, those cookies will taste different to different folks.

I went on with this analogy for a while longer, until it got ridiculous and I deleted a bunch of stuff about chocolate chips and raisins. But I actually do think this issue is more like picking your favorite cookie than about some perceived musicological "correctness."

And while I ain't saying that the Victoria and Palestrina pieces posted above aren't melodic, to my ears they gain much (most?) of their impact through texture and harmony. (And yeah, I know that neither of those composers were thinking harmonically as such in the way that later composers thought. Because musicology.)

[JSngry]

Cookies or pie, make mine pie, all things being equal or not. But yes, pie, please, although I'll eat a cookie, make no mistake.

But - pie.

[Larry Kart]

My favorite Melody was a weather girl.

[JSngry]

I used to think that my favorite weather was Balmy until I experienced it for more than a few days. Just a notch too warm and a degree or two too warm, but neither warm nor humid enough to be something else, something meaningful, something real altogether for my sustained enjoyment.

I was kinda like, hum, Balmy's neither fish nor foul, just some kinda half-assed teaseweather that never gets anywhere, it just stays put and expects you to love it just for being there.

Well, that's good for people, but not for weather.

IMHO, of course.

Hopefully Melody the weather girl was not like Balmy, although if she was pretty, she would be like herself, which in fairness to Balmy, was also the case.

I guess life is too complicated for me. Life, yes, but pie, no.

Oh HELL no.

[Chuck Nessa]

and I thought this would be a simple topic without sturm und drang. silly me.

[JSngry]

Oh, you use the phrase "world champs at melody", four words out of which only one is 100% universally agreed upon (and that one a preposition, no less, and in the service of a proposition at that), and you expect a simple conversation to ensue? That's not silly, that's delusional!

[Chuck Nessa]

Nothing wrong with delusional in my world. I spend most of my time there.

Glance at my work and state otherwise.

Edited April 16, 2015 by Chuck Nessa

[johnblitweiler]

otherwise

[John L]

Chopin would be high on my list

[king ubu]

guru forgot Mozart

But wtf do I know

Maybe baroque and rokoko don't count because they're ornament (and that is crime, as we all know)