What is a melody?

• A melody is a set of notes, grouped in phrases (meaningful expressions) which can be divided into motifs (short musical ideas).

What is a motif?

• A motif is a short musical idea.

• An example of a motif is the two notes in "Jaws" or the opening notes of Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony."

• A melody might have lyrics but, when analyzing a melody, we don’t look at the words but the notes and rhythm.

• We will work with a song we have already used, XXXtentacion’s “Changes.”

• We will label each new motif with the next lowercase letter. Starting with “a”

Click here to hear the audio.

a

Mmm, baby, I don't understand this

b

You're changing, I can't stand it

b

My heart can't take this damage

b

And the way I feel, can't stand it

• The letters above each line represent a motif.

• The musical motif a ("Mmmm, baby...") is sung once followed by a new musical motif that is repeated three times with different lyrics each time.

• The Chorus of the song uses one motif (labled c):

c

Girl, your making it hard for me,

c

Girl, your making it hard for me,

c

Girl, your making it hard for me,

c

Girl, your making it hard for me,

• Click here to hear the audio.

• Even though the words are repeated it is the musical motif that causes the lines to all be labeled "c."

For extra help, watch these tutorials:

Go Further:

• Listen to this radio show about motifs (starts at ) and then pick another film to analyze the motifs used for each character.