Melody
- Contour. Contour describes the linear motion of a melody up and down. ...
- Range. Range refers to the total range of pitches encompassed in the melody: how high and low the melody goes.
- Phrases. Motives may also be incorporated into a larger melodic unit: a phrase. ...
- Idiomatic Melodies. ...
What does contour mean in music?
- Jazz musicians use the melody line, called the “lead” or “head”, as a starting point for improvisation.
- Indian classical music relies heavily on melody and rhythm, and not so much on harmony as the above forms.
- Balinese gamelan music often uses complicated variations and alterations of a single melody played simultaneously, called heterophony.
What does melodic contour mean in music?
There are four basic types of melodic motion:
- up by step
- down by step
- up by leap
- down by leap
What is a musical contour?
In other words, contour is a measurement of how a melody moves between individual notes. All melodies have contour and it’s one of the properties that’s most useful for identifying and cataloguing melodies. Music theorists examine a melody’s contour by looking at the motion between individual notes.
What is the 'contour' of a song?
Similarly, it is asked, what is the contour of a song? Contour refers to the sequence of motions between notes of a melody. In other words, contour is a measurement of how a melody moves between individual notes. All melodies have contour and it's one of the properties that's most useful for identifying and cataloguing melodies.
What is the contour of music?
Contour in music means the shape and direction of melodic lines or lines of music in a song. Contour can be smooth or jagged, and with various movement types. The best melody is one where the contour is as varied as possible.
How do you contour music?
0:072:04Melodic Contour - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipThere are three main directions that can be put together in any different order the first is up itMoreThere are three main directions that can be put together in any different order the first is up it sounds like. This. We also have down which is going the opposite. Direction.
What is the shape and contour of the melody?
The Shape or Contour of a Melody As the melody progresses, the pitches may go up or down slowly or quickly. One can picture a line that goes up steeply when the melody suddenly jumps to a much higher note, or that goes down slowly when the melody gently falls. Such a line gives the contour or shape of the melodic line.
How do you write a melodic contour?
1:155:45Melodic Contour Examples - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipFor one thing you can't keep your whole song at that one note melody you've got to just change it upMoreFor one thing you can't keep your whole song at that one note melody you've got to just change it up section by section no matter what you do with production or instrumentation.
What are the 5 melodic contour?
contour consists of five tones presented at different frequencies as follows: (1) 523 Hz for an ascending contour, (2) repetition of a single tone of 392 Hz for a staying the same contour, and (3) 523, 349, 330, 294, and 262 Hz for a descending contour. The contours were then combined in the following sets (Figure 2).
What is the melodic contour of the song up and down?
Melodies move up and down. The pattern made by the upward/downward movement of those notes is called melodic contour.
What are the 6 melodic contours?
Six sets of melodic contour. Each of the six contours are (A) ascending-staying the same, (B) ascending–descending, (C) staying the same-ascending, (D) staying the same-descending, (E) descending–ascending, and (F) descending-staying the same.
What is the shape of a melody called?
contour. The overall shape of a melodic line.
What's a meter in music?
metre, also spelled Meter, in music, rhythmic pattern constituted by the grouping of basic temporal units, called beats, into regular measures, or bars; in Western notation, each measure is set off from those adjoining it by bar lines.
What is one line of music called?
Each measure lasts for a certain number and type of beat, as determined by the time signature. There are several different types of barline. The most common, a single vertical line, is just called a barline.; it separates one measure from the next. These are extremely commonplace, occurring in almost all concert music.
How does melodic contour represent both pitch and rhythm?
Melodic contour represents a higher-level organization of the elements of pitch and time, and manipulation of materials at Page 4 the level of contour can indicate shifts of meaning. Taking the rhythmic contour [ . . .
What contour will a well written melody have?
In order to compose a good melody it should have a good contour. A good melody will have only 1 apex. This is the most important part of the phrase, so it should be set apart in its singularity.
What is contour in music?
Contour refers to the sequence of motions between notes of a melody. In other words, contour is a measurement of how a melody moves between individual notes. All melodies have contour and it's one of the properties that's most useful for identifying and cataloguing melodies.
What is a melody contour?
Melody refers to a musical idea built of individual, consecutive pitches. You also might think of it as a single musical line.
Why is it important to understand melody contours?
Understanding melodies by their contour can be useful because reproducing the contour will reproduce the melody, even in different keys. Take, for example, the tune 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.'. Understanding its individual notes as C, C, G, G, A, A, G enables you to play the melody in C Major.
How is melody different from harmony?
Melody is distinct from harmony, in that a melody is heard as single notes, one right after the other, while harmony features notes sounding simultaneously. Melodies can be built of as few as two notes and they often stretch for hundreds of notes. There are millions of different possible melodies.
How do you determine if a melody is moving?
Music theorists examine a melody's contour by looking at the motion between individual notes. When one note moves to another, it can either move up or down, and it can either move by step to an adjacent note or by leap to a note farther away. There are four possible combinations of these variables, and so there are four basic types of melodic motion. A melody can move up by step, down by step, up by leap, or down by leap.
What is contour in music?
Contour refers to the sequence of motions between notes of a melody. In other words, contour is a measurement of how a melody moves between individual notes. Likewise, what is a melodic range?
What is the melodic contour?
According to Wikipedia, melodic contour is: "the quality of movement of a melody, including nearness or farness of successive pitches or notes in a melody. This may be described as conjunct or disjunct, stepwise or skipwise, respectively". Click to see full answer. Beside this, what is the contour of music?
How do composers maintain interest in their piece?
Composers will maintain interest in their piece by varying how strongly the end of the phrase sounds like “the end” of the piece. By varying the rhythm and the harmony in a phrase, the composer can create a stronger or weaker ‘end’ sound. Often, phrases come in definite pairs, where the first phrase is like a question, ...
What are some words that describe the direction of a melody?
Words that we can use to describe the direction or shape of a melody are: rising or ascending, falling or descending, or an arch-shaped phrase. Another set of terms we can use to describe the melody are those that refer to the distance between each note.
What is a melody line?
The melodic line is a string of notes played together that make up the melody. Extra notes, such as trills or grace notes are not part of the melodic line but are added as ornaments or embellishments. If we just played the same notes over and over music would be very boring. As the music progresses, the melody rises and falls, slowly or quickly.
When the notes are close together, it is called "conjunct motion"?
When the notes are close together: A melody that rises or falls gradually with only small changes in pitch between notes is called conjunct motion. When the notes are only a semitone or a tone away from one another, it is moving in step-wise or scalar motion. READ:
What is a melodic phrase?
A melodic phrase is a group of notes that make sense together ...
What is a longer section of melody that keeps reappearing in the music called?
A longer section of melody that keeps reappearing in the music – for example, in a “theme and variations” – is often called a theme. Themes generally are at least one phrase long and often have several phrases.
What is a melody that is shorter than a phrase?
Another term that usually refers to a piece of melody (although it can also refer to a rhythm or a chord progression) is “motif”. A motif is a short musical idea – shorter than a phrase – that occurs often in a piece of music.
What is a leitmotif in music?
Richard Wagner popularized the concept of a leitmotif: a motif or melody associated with a certain idea, person or place. While in both most popular music and classical music of the common practice period pitch and duration are ...
What is the shape of a melody?
The shape or contour of a melody. A melody that stays on the same pitch gets boring pretty quickly. As the melody progresses, the pitches may go up or down slowly or quickly. One can picture a line that goes up steeply when the melody suddenly jumps to a much higher note, or that goes down slowly when the melody gently falls.
What is the melody line?
First of all, the melodic line of a piece of music is the string of notes that make up the melody. Extra notes, such as trills and slides, that are not part of the main melodic line but are added to the melody either by the composer or the performer to make the melody more complex and interesting are called ornaments or embellishments.
What is the term for the alterations of a single melody in Balinese gamelan music?
Balinese gamelan music often uses complicated variations and alterations of a single melody played simultaneously, called heterophony. “The continuity and diegetic function of almost all vocal melody draw us along the linear thread of the song’s syntagmatic.
What is the name of the layer of melody in classical music?
Classical music often has several melodic layers, called polyphony, such as those in a fugue, a type of counterpoint. Often melodies are constructed from motifs or short melodic fragments, such as the opening of Beethoven’s Ninth.
What is the basic song structure?
Basic song structure consists of an intro, verse, pre-chorus, chorus and bridge (many times, this is all tied together in an outro, too). Below, consider this breakdown of song building blocks.
What is the intro of a song?
Intro. This is an easy one – it is found at the beginning and sets up the song , establishing many of the song's important elements, such as the key, tempo, rhythmic feel and even its energy and attitude. You will find that the intro is often the same music without singing over it as the verse or even the chorus.
How long should a commercial song be?
Considering that most commercial songs are between 3 and 4 minutes long, many people ask how many lines should be in the verse of the song. A good rule of thumb is to keep the song verses under 1 minute, or just a few lines.
What is bridge in music?
Bridge. The bridge is a section that provides relief from the repetitive nature of many songs. Not only does it have different lyrics from the verse and chorus, but the music is a little different as well. It usually will start on a different chord from what the verse and chorus start with.
Is a pre chorus a chorus?
The pre-chorus is not a necessary component and is often shorter than a verse or chorus. For the listener, it usually creates a feeling of wanting to be thrusted towards the chorus.
Why do composers add horizontal lines?
Over time, composers and performers started adding horizontal lines to make sure that when the same pitch returned it would be written at the same height, which made their contour drawings more specific, more accurate, and easier to read. They started with only one line, but they soon began adding more.
What is the musical equivalent of sentences, clauses, or lines of poetry?
Motives may also be incorporated into a larger melodic unit: a phrase. Phrases are the musical equivalent of sentences, clauses, or lines of poetry. They can be divided by commas in lyrics (for vocal music), breaths (for voices and wind instruments), rests (silences), or simply by the shape of the melody. Phrases tend to be lyrical (singable, ...
What is it called when a melody is written for a particular instrument?
This is called composing idiomatically. For example, some melodies are more suited to instruments than voices: those that use large leaps (intervals) between pitches, those that are too high or too low for voices, or those with very fast passages, for example. Voices , on the other hand, are often considered more expressive than instruments, particularly because they are uniquely capable of performing lyrics. So, when composers are writing melodies, they consider these strengths and weaknesses and adjust their compositions accordingly.
Why is the range important in music?
If the score does not indicate which voice or instrument should be used to perform the music, the range can be used to help determine which voices and instruments are appropriate for use. For example, if the range includes pitches that are too high or too low for a voice then it must be played on an instrument.
Why does the antecedent phrase sound unfinished?
The antecedent phrase sounds unfinished or unresolved when it ends because its final pitch is not the tonic pitch. The consequent phrase then responds to the antecedent and finishes with a stronger sense of resolution, often by landing on the tonic pitch.
What is contour map?
A contour map is a map illustrated with contour lines, for example a topographic map, which thus shows valleys and hills, and the steepness or gentleness of slopes. Moreover, what is the contour of a song? Contour refers to the sequence of motions between notes of a melody.
What is a wavelike contour?
Wavelike describes melodic. contour. Click to see full answer. In this manner, what is the meaning of melodic contour? According to Wikipedia, melodic contour is: "the quality of movement of a melody, including nearness or farness of successive pitches or notes in a melody.
