MELODY

A melody can be defined as a memorable sequence of notes. When we mention a sequence, we mean that the notes must not overlap in their durations. This means that in each moment of time, there are no two or more notes sounding together. The next figure shows an example of a beautiful melody from the beginning of Chopin’s Prelude No. 7 in A major.

Figure: The melody from the beginning of Chopin’s Prelude No. 7 in A major

Melody and texture

Ancient music and music from the middle ages contained only melody. Such music is called monophonic. For instance, monophony is when one singer sings a melody or when few singers sing the same melody. Since a human can sing only one tone at a time, it is natural that music started this way. 

The Renaissance and Baroque period established compositions having two or more independent melodic lines sounding simultaneously. Each melodic line had an independent contour and rhythm. Such music is called polyphonic. From polyphony, counterpoint was developed. Counterpoint is the technique of combining two or more melodic lines in a musically satisfying way. A counterpoint is a study on itself. 

The classical and romantic period established compositions in which there is one distinct melody while all other parts play the role of an accompaniment. Such compositions are called homophonic. Homophonic compositions are heard most often today.  

Monophony, polyphony and homophony are the different types of textures. Generally, homophonic compositions are the most convenient for harmonic analysis because they usually imply the chords quite strongly. However, any texture can imply chords. Even monophony can imply chords. The convenience of a composition for harmony analysis depends on how strongly it implies the chords. Since this is a book on harmony, we shall examine the compositions that strongly imply chords.    

Perception of melody

The following psychoacoustic phenomena try to explain the human perception of melody when listening to complex music. Early humans had to listen to sounds of nature and distinguish the important ones from the unimportant. For instance, sounds that came from the approaching of dangerous animals or sounds that came from animals that could be hunted for food were important and had to be listened to very carefully. Important sounds usually occurred together with the unimportant ones. Maybe this is the reason why we tend to hear complex music as divided into a main melody and the rest and we tend to listen to the main melody more carefully than the rest.

Humans must be able to hear a baby’s cry, even in the presence of other sounds. This was particularly important for the early humans who lived surrounded by dangerous animals and only had primitive weapons. A baby’s cry has a frequency of 3500 Hz and it is not a surprise that human hearing is best at this frequency and declines at the lower and higher frequencies. Since the pitch of A7 is 3520 Hz, it is evident that we hear the higher pitches better than the lower ones. This is probably the reason that composers almost always write music in such a way that melody is composed of the notes with the highest pitch. For instance, if we look at Chopin Prelude No. 7 in A major (which is a typical homophonic composition) and extract only the note with the highest pitch at every moment of time, we shall obtain the melody. The next figure shows this for the beginning of the composition. The melody is shown in red. 

Figure: Extracting melody (shown in red) from Chopin's Prelude No. 7 in A major, as the notes with the highest pitch

There are examples in music when the melody is in lower pitches. Then melody must be played louder so that the listener can notice it even in the presence of higher pitches. Composers use this infrequently as a special effect. For instance, the next figure shows the melody phrase from Schumann‘s Arabesque, which occurs first in the high pitches and then is repeated in the low pitches.

Figure: The melody phrase (shown in red) from Schumann’s Arabesque, first in the high then repeated in the low pitch

Surprisingly, melody can sometimes occur in middle pitches. Again, in such a case, melody must be played louder so that the listener can notice it. Brahms had a tendency, in his piano compositions, to put melody in middle pitches. For instance, the next figure shows the beginning of Brahms Intermezzo in C major Op. 119 No. 3. In the figure, melody is marked in red color.

Figure: Melody (shown in red) in the beginning of Brahms Intermezzo in C major Op. 119 No. 3