Melody

Melody is one the most important dimensions of composing, yet also one of the most difficult to pin down and define. What makes a good melody? Most people know it when they hear it, yet like describing the taste of salt it's often difficult to say exactly what makes a melody "good." Much of the process of creating melody is artistic and creative, but there are some practical and definable aspects as well.

When composing songs it is often difficult to know if the harmony or the melody should be written first, or if both should be written at the same time. I've experimented with all these methods, and there's no right answer. Every song is different, but for the purposes of this article I'm going to analyze a melody I wrote in my head and then later transcribed and harmonized. Here's the entire melody:



This melody was intended to be sung (it has lyrics), and so the range of notes is intentionally narrow, so it's accessible for most vocalists. The piano has a very wide range, of course, and instrumental melodies need not be confined to the same limits as vocal melodies. The lowest note in this song, the D immediately above middle C, appears in measure 8:


and is repeated two more times in measure 12:


The highest note in this song appears in measure 9:


In addition to the range, every melody has a contour. Some melodies use a lot of "steps" (adjacent notes) and others use a lot of "skips." Measure 5 provides a good example of both steps and skips:


The first interval is an ascending skip, in this case an interval called a perfect fifth. Then the next five notes are steps (adjacent), and finally the measure ends with a skip (a descending major third).

One of the most important dimensions of any melody is motif. A motif is a "signature" set of notes that identify a song (the opening notes of Beethoven's 5th Symphony are a well-known example of a motif). It holds a melody together and helps it make sense to the listener. Sometimes motifs are repeated exactly, as in measures 1 and 13:



Other times the rhythm and pitch of the motif are modified, or extra notes are added to make it sound different from the original (but still related), as in measures 1 and 5:




Rhythm is an essential characteristic of melody. Most people wouldn't recognize their favorite melodies if they were played using different rhythms. In general, songs should have a steady beat and the composer must decide how to use repetition and change to keep the listener interested. Rhythms don't have to be complex to be enjoyable, but there needs to be a good mix of consistency (similar rhythms) and variety (unexpected changes).

This short 16 measure melody was written in an A-B-A format. Measures 1 through 8 introduce the theme, measures 9 through 12 are quite different to provide contrast, and measures 13 through 16 reintroduce the opening theme and bring the listener back "home" again. The song "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" was written in A-B-A format, with "Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky" providing a mild contrast to the identical first and last lines.

Another dimension of melody that a composer must consider is whether and how to use repeated notes, such as the ones used in measure 12:



Typically the melody is simply the highest note played, but occasionally composers and arrangers will place the melody in a lower register while playing an ostinato (repeated theme) or quieter notes in the higher registers to ensure that the melody still stands out.

Learning to write good melodies requires experimentation and trial and error. Like other aspects of composing, sometimes good melodies come in a flash of inspiration and other times they are the result of painstaking hard work and patience.