Amelody (from Greek μελῳδία (melōidía)'singing, chanting'),[1] alsotune,voice, orline, is a linear succession ofmusical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination ofpitch andrhythm, while more figuratively, the term can include other musical elements such astonal color. It is the foreground to the backgroundaccompaniment. A line orpart need not be a foreground melody.
Melodies often consist of one or more musicalphrases ormotifs, and are usually repeated throughout acomposition in various forms. Melodies may also be described by theirmelodic motion or the pitches or theintervals between pitches (predominantlyconjunct or disjunct or with further restrictions), pitch range,tension and release, continuity and coherence,cadence, and shape.
The true goal of music—its proper enterprise—is melody. All the parts of harmony have as their ultimate purpose only beautiful melody. Therefore, the question of which is the more significant, melody or harmony, is futile. Beyond doubt, the means is subordinate to the end.
Melody is to music what a scent is to the senses: it jogs our memory. It gives face to form, and identity and character to the process and proceedings. It is not only a musical subject, but a manifestation of the musically subjective. It carries and radiates personality with as much clarity and poignancy as harmony and rhythm combined. As such a powerful tool of communication, melody serves not only as protagonist in its own drama, but as messenger from the author to the audience.
Given the many and varied elements and styles of melody "many extant explanations [of melody] confine us to specific stylistic models, and they are too exclusive."[4] Paul Narveson claimed in 1984 that more than three-quarters of melodic topics had not been explored thoroughly.[5]
The melodies existing in most European music written before the 20th century, and popular music throughout the 20th century, featured "fixed and easily discernible frequencypatterns", recurring "events, often periodic, at all structural levels" and "recurrence of durations and patterns of durations".[4]
Melodies in the20th century "utilized a greater variety of pitch resources than ha[d] been the custom in any other historical period ofWesternmusic." While thediatonic scale was still used, thechromatic scale became "widely employed."[4] Composers also allotted a structural role to "the qualitative dimensions" that previously had been "almost exclusively reserved for pitch and rhythm". Kliewer states, "The essential elements of any melody are duration, pitch, and quality (timbre),texture, and loudness.[4] Though the same melody may be recognizable when played with a wide variety of timbres and dynamics, the latter may still be an "element of linear ordering."[4]
Balinesegamelan music often uses complicated variations and alterations of a single melody played simultaneously, calledheterophony.
In westernclassical music,composers often introduce an initial melody, ortheme, and then create variations. Classical music often has several melodic layers, calledpolyphony, such as those in afugue, a type ofcounterpoint. Often, melodies are constructed frommotifs or short melodic fragments, such as the opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.Richard Wagner popularized the concept of aleitmotif: a motif or melody associated with a certain idea, person or place.
While in both mostpopular music and classical music of thecommon practice period pitch and duration are of primary importance in melodies, thecontemporary music of the 20th and 21st centuries pitch and duration have lessened in importance and quality has gained importance, often primary. Examples includemusique concrète,klangfarbenmelodie,Elliott Carter'sEight Etudes and a Fantasy (which contains a movement with only one note), the third movement ofRuth Crawford-Seeger'sString Quartet 1931 (laterre-orchestrated asAndante for string orchestra), which creates the melody from an unchanging set of pitches through "dissonant dynamics" alone, andGyörgy Ligeti'sAventures, in which recurringphonetics create the linear form.
^abcdeKliewer, Vernon (1975). "Melody: Linear Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music",Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music, pp. 270–301. Wittlich, Gary (ed.). Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.ISBN0-13-049346-5.
