Melodic Analysis and Composition

Melody is one of the most basic elements of music–we are all sung to as children, and singing is one of the oldest and most important group activities all societies partake in. But the power of melody isn’t in just any string of notes. It’s the notes that catch your ear as you listen; the line that sounds most important is the melody. There are some common terms used in discussions of melody that you will find useful to know. Below are some concepts that are associated with melody.

The Contour of a Melody

A melody that stays on the same pitch has its place in certain styles and techniques, but, overall, we expect melodies to have some change to them. 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 falls gradually.  Such a line gives the contour or shape of the melodic line. You can often get a good idea of the shape of this line by looking at the melody as it is written on the staff, but you can also hear it as you listen to the music.

Arch shapes (in which the melody rises and then falls) are easy to find in many melodies.

Verbal descriptions are helpful in quickly characterizing a melodic shape, for example, you can speak of a “rising melody” or of an “arch-shaped” phrase. You could also describe it as an inverted arch, wavelike, descending, etc. These are generally helpful, but more precise descriptions are needed.

Melodic Motion

Another set of useful terms describe how quickly a melody changes direction–not simply rhythmically, but how large the interval changes are. On the one hand, this can be affected by the rhythm and tempo–whatever shape a melody takes, how fast the notes move is one aspect of describing the changes. However, we also need to describe the space changes, i.e., the intervals.

A melody that rises and falls slowly, with only small interval changes between one note and the next, is conjunct, which means stepwise motion (“joined together”); more specifically, in our notation system, it refers to notes changing by pitch category, A, B, C, etc., or diatonically through the steps of a scale, which could mean a combination of whole or half steps. If you wanted to be even more precise, you could point out when a melodic passage moves chromatically. One may also speak of such a melody in terms of stepwise or scalar motion, since most of the intervals in the melody are half or whole steps or are part of a specific scale.

A melody that rises and falls quickly, with large intervals between one note and the next, is a disjunct melody. One may also speak of “leaps” in the melody. Many melodies are a mixture of conjunct and disjunct motions. (Tip: below, for playback anywhere in the score, click on the note you want to start with and press the play button.)

Melodic Phrases

Melodies are broken into phrases; chapter 7 covered how cadences help define and mark off the endings of phrases. A musical phrase is actually a lot like a grammatical phrase. A phrase in a sentence (for example, “into the deep, dark forest” or “under that heavy book”) is a group of words that make sense together and express a definite idea, but the phrase is not a complete sentence by itself. A melodic phrase is a group of notes that make sense together and express a specific melodic “idea”, but it takes more than one phrase to make a complete melody.

How do you spot a phrase in a melody?  Just as you often pause between the different sections in a sentence (for example, when you say, “wherever you go, there you are”), the melody usually pauses slightly at the end of each phrase. In vocal music, the musical phrases tend to follow the phrases and sentences of the text.  For example, listen to the phrases in the melody of “The Riddle Song” and see how they line up with the four sentences in the song.

One way that a composer keeps a piece of music interesting is by varying how strongly the end of each phrase sounds like “the end,” based on the cadence type. By varying aspects of the melody, the rhythm, and the harmony, the composer gives the ends of the other phrases stronger or weaker “ending” feelings. Often, phrases come in definite pairs, with the first phrase feeling very unfinished until it is completed by the second phrase, as if the second phrase were answering a question asked by the first phrase. When phrases come in pairs like this, the first phrase is called the antecedent phrase, and the second is called the consequent phrase.  Listen to antecedent and consequent phrases in the tune “Auld Lang Syne”.

The rhythm of the first two phrases of “Auld Lang Syne” is the same, but both the melody and the harmony lead the first phrase to feel unfinished until it is answered by the second phrase. Note that both the melody and harmony of the second phrase end on the tonic, the “home” note and chord of the key. 

Of course, melodies don’t always divide into clear, separated phrases. Often the phrases in a melody will run into each other, cut each other short, or overlap (“elision”). These variations keep a melody interesting.

Composing a Melody

One of the best ways to put all of these concepts for Melody–and chords, scales, rhythm, etc.–together is to write a melody. You’ve already been completing smaller projects up to this point, so for the final composition project, you’ll be composing a melody as well as putting an accompaniment with it.

Non-Chord Tones

As discussed in the composition project videos, nonchord tones (NCT) are a very common way of embellishing a melody. For this course and project, we will only use the neighbor and passing NCTs–shown below. Typically, there is one NCT between two chord tones; sometimes there can be more than one. In the chart below, the NCT is always shown in orange. The note before the orange NCT tone is the approach tone and the one after is the resolution tone. Each of these notes has their own column, that explains how to go to the NCT and how to leave the NCT (step or leap). There are several other NCTs, and will be covered in the next theory course.

Non-Chord Tones (NCTs)

Here is a very simple melody (top system) with a couple passing tones, and then a more elaborate version with several passing (p) and neighbor (n) tones added in for illustration (bottom system).

Performance Practices

As we prepare for your final composition, here are a few applications of how to communicate more specific directions to the performer. What is contained in this chapter are the most practical examples, especially for contemporary use.

Tempo

As discussed in Chapter 3, you’ll want to indicate a tempo for your piece. This is one of the single most important ways of establishing the mood of your piece–how fast it moves communicates a lot. You can find many online metronomes and smartphone app metronomes for free through a search. You can even find “tap” metronomes, where you tap on a digital button and it will tell you the Beats Per Minute (BPM). Mark the BPM at the beginning of your piece.

Dynamics

Sounds, including music, can be barely audible, or loud enough to hurt your ears, or anywhere in between. When they want to talk about the loudness of a sound, scientists and engineers talk about amplitude; musicians talk about dynamics. The amplitude of a sound is a particular number, usually measured in decibels (a physics term), but dynamics are relative to the instrument or voice, the acoustics of the room, whether amplification is used or not. Composers use terms that indicate relative dynamics within the piece, rather than trying to communicate absolutes. While BPM can be precise and easy to setup, dynamics have no practical way to establish the loudness baseline for the musician (short of using a decibel meter, which is not practical at all).

For this reason, traditional dynamic markings–even those based on Italian words–have stuck around. Of course, there is nothing wrong with simply writing things like “quietly” or “louder” in the music. Just be aware, a lot of musicians still use several of these Italian terms. Like many foreign words borrowed into a language, we’ve gotten used to them, and they’ve just “stuck” out of convenience. The most common ones can be found here: https://www.aboutmusictheory.com/music-dynamics.html.

Accents

We first discussed accent with beat grouping in a meter, and then with syncopation. A composer may want a particular note to be louder than all the rest, or may want the very beginning of a note to be loudest. Accents are markings that are used to indicate these especially strong-sounding notes. There are a few different types of written accents but, like dynamics, the proper way to perform a given accent also depends on the instrument playing it, as well as the style and period of the music. Some accents may even be played by making the note longer or shorter than the other notes, in addition to, or even instead of being, louder. (See articulation for more details.) The most common ones can be found here: https://www.aboutmusictheory.com/music-dynamics.html (middle of page).

Articulations

The word “articulation” generally refers to how the pieces of something are joined together. For example, how bones are connected to make a skeleton–joints–is called articulation. How syllables are connected to make a word is similar. Articulation depends on what is happening at the beginning and end of each segment.

In music, the segments are the individual notes of a line in the music–any line of music: melody, inner part, bass, accompaniment. The line might be performed by any musician or group of musicians: a solo singer or a bassoonist, a violin section, or a trumpet and saxophone together. The articulation is mostly about how a note is started and finished. The attack—the beginning of a note—and the amount of space in between the notes are particularly important.

Performing Articulations

Descriptions of how each articulation is done cannot be given here, because they depend too much on the particular instrument that is making the music.  In other words, the technique that a violin player uses to slur notes will be completely different from the technique used by a trumpet player, and a pianist and a vocalist will do different things to make a melody sound legato. In fact, the violinist will have some articulations available (such as pizzicato, or “plucked”) that a trumpet player will never see. For our purposes 1) you need to be aware of the wealth of options available to performers and composers; 2) for the composition project, you can try some of the articulations below—Noteflight will give a pretty good approximation!

Common Articulations

Stacatto

Staccato notes are short, with plenty of space between them. That doesn’t mean that the tempo or rhythm goes any faster. The tempo and rhythm are not affected by articulations; the staccato notes sound shorter than written only because of the extra space between them.

Legato

Legato is the opposite of staccato. The notes are very connected; there is no space between the notes at all. There is, however, still some sort of articulation that causes a slight but definite break between the notes (for example, the violin player’s bow changes direction, the guitar player plucks the string again, or the wind player uses the tongue to interrupt the stream of air).

Legato is marked by a slur, which is a curved line joining any number of notes. When notes are slurred, only the first note under each slur marking has a definite articulation at the beginning. The rest of the notes are so seamlessly connected that there is no break between the notes. A good example of slurring occurs when a vocalist sings more than one note on the same syllable of text. This is not the same as portamento—“scooping” or “sliding” between notes.

Slur

All notes within the slur are “connected,” so the start of each note is not pronounced.

NOTE: Reminder, a tie (Ch. 3) looks like a slur, but a tie is between two adjacent notes that are the same pitch. A tie is not an articulation marking—it is a rhythm concept. When notes are tied together, they are played as if they are one single note that is the length of all the notes that are tied together. Ties and Slurs actually have nothing to do with one another.

Slur versus Tie

Look & Listen to this example.1) Ties must be two of the same pitch, and must be adjacent. Slurs are different pitches and can connect two or more notes.
2) Notice that individual notes that are not slurred have a noticeable “attack”–articulation–at the start of each note; it’s easiest to hear the difference on the last slur of grouped notes.

A slur marking indicates no articulation—no break in the sound—between notes of different pitches. A tie is used between two notes of the same pitch. Since there is no articulation between them, they sound like a single note that has been extended in value. The first tie above turns the 1/2 note into a dotted 1/2 note that crosses the barline. The last tie connects the 1/8th note to the 1/2 note, lengthening it just slightly, but there is no way to create this with a dot, so the tie is needed.

Here is a more advanced example that shows how slurring affects articulation. Each measure would be played legato (smooth and connected); a pianist would use their finger technique and/or the pedal to achieve this, but a violinist would have to use one bow direction, or motion, for the first measure and a separate direction for the second measure.

Advanced example of a slur.

Watch this sample from Mendelsshon’s Violin Concerto. You can see/hear how the violinist (:51-54) plays multiple notes with only one bow motion, and then at the end of the clip (near :54-56), plays several notes with separate bow motions.

Transposition—Changing Keys

Changing the key of a piece of music is called transposing the music. When an entire piece is written in a new key, it is called transposition; when it occurs in the middle of a piece, then it is called modulation, or “key change” (covered in later courses). Music in a major key can be transposed to any other major key (Happy Birthday played in D, Eb, A, etc.; music in a minor key can be transposed to any other minor key.

A piece will also sound higher or lower once it is transposed (depending on how large an interval it is transposed by). Transposing a piece in D major to Eb major would only be a minor 2^nd shift; transposing from D major to Bb would be more dramatic, depending on whether you moved the music up a minor 6^th, or down a major 3^rd (see how all these concepts come back?). There are some ways to avoid having to do the transposition yourself (computers and talented friends), but learning to transpose can be very useful (sometimes necessary) for performers, composers, and arrangers.

Why Transpose?

Here are the most common situations that may require you to change the key of a piece of music:

• To put it in the right key for your vocalists. If your singer or singers are struggling with notes that are too high or low, changing the key to put the music in their range will result in a much better performance.
• Instrumentalists may also find that a piece is easier to play if it is in a different key. Players of both bowed and plucked strings generally find fingerings and tuning to be easier in sharp keys, while woodwind and brass players often find flat keys more comfortable and in tune.
• Instrumentalists with transposing instruments will usually need any part they play to be properly transposed before they can play it. Clarinet, French horn, saxophone, trumpet, and cornet are the most common transposing instruments.

Avoiding Transposition

In some situations, you can avoid transposition, or at least avoid doing the work yourself. Some stringed instruments—guitar for example—can use a capo to play in higher keys.

A good electronic keyboard will transpose for you. If your music is already stored as a computer file, there are programs that will transpose it for you and display and print it in the new key (like Noteflight!). Even with all of these “tricks,” it’s still good to understand how transposition works.

NOTE: If you think about the role of leadsheet symbols, transposing music based on the chords is just a matter of transposing the leadsheet symbols for the accompaniment part. If you play a chordal instrument (guitar or keyboard), you may not need to write down the transposed music of the melody, if you can learn to do it “in your head,” as many musicians do.

How to Transpose Music

There are four steps to transposition:

1. Choose your transposition.
2. Use the correct key signature.
3. Move all the notes by the correct interval.
4. Take care with your accidentals.

Step 1: Choose Your Transposition

In many ways, this is the most important step, and the least straightforward. The transposition you choose will depend on why you are transposing. If you already know what transposition you need, you can go to step two.

If not, please look at the relevant questions below first:

• Are you rewriting the music for a transposing instrument?
• Are you looking for a key that is in the range of your vocalist?
• Are you looking for a key that is more playable on your instrument?

Step 2: Write the New Key Signature

If you have chosen the transposition because you want a particular key, then you should already know what key signature to use. If you have chosen the transposition because you wanted a particular interval (say, a whole step lower or a perfect fifth higher), then the key changes by the same interval.

Step 3: Transpose the Notes

Now rewrite the music, changing all the notes by the correct interval. You can do this for all the notes in the key signature simply by counting lines and spaces. As long as your key signature is correct, you do not have to worry about whether an interval is major, minor, or perfect–the key signature takes care of that.

For diatonic transpositions–no accidentals in the music–then the key signature takes care of all changes, after the overall interval shift has been done. These are from the Noteflight example above.

   
Moving from C to D moves all notes up a M2.                                   From C to Ab, down a M3.

Step 4: Be Careful with Accidentals

Most notes can simply be moved the correct interval number. Whether the interval is minor, major, or perfect will take care of itself if the correct key signature has been chosen. But some care must be taken to correctly transpose accidentals. Put the note on the line or space where it would fall if it were not an accidental, and then either lower or raise it from your new key signature.

For example, an accidental B natural in the key of E flat major has been raised a half step from the note in the key (which is B flat). In transposing down to the key of D major, you need to raise the A natural in the key up a half step, to A sharp. If this is confusing, keep in mind that the interval between the old and new (transposed) notes (B natural and A sharp) must be one half step, just as it is for the notes in the key.

NOTE:  If you need to raise a note which is already sharp in the key, or lower a note that is already flat, use double sharps or double flats.

Check any accidentals. All chromatic alterations should match the same halfstep shift.

All notes shifted up M2 to D major scale. Notes that are chromatically altered need to match the original halfstep shift. The green notes are enharmonically spelled to be easier to read for the performer, as they use the more common white key spelling: C nat could have been ascending chromatic as B#; F natural could have used descending chromatic Fb. In both cases the given spelling is more common and easier to read.

All notes shifted down from C a M3 to Ab.

Flats don’t necessarily transpose as flats, or sharps as sharps. For example, if the accidental originally raised the note one halfstep out of the key, by turning a flat note into a natural, the new accidental may raise the note one halfstep out of the key by turning a natural into a sharp.