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Music Composition The Elements of Music; Melody Melody A melody is a sequence of notes or pitches, one after the other, which create the “tune” of a piece. Most times, when you sing a song, you are singing its melody. Choosing the Notes When writing a melody, you may want to limit yourself to a set of notes, (for example a scale or a key), unless you want it to sound atonal or somewhat random. Here are some common scales and their characteristics: 1) Major Scales ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ C Major scale • Major scales use 7 notes (8 if you count the repeated note at the top of the scale). • The distance between the notes is whole-­‐tone, whole-­‐tone, semi-­‐tone, whole-­‐
tone, whole-­‐tone, whole-­‐tone, semi-­‐tone. • The two semi-­‐tones in this scale create a tendency to pull upward and downward. • Major scales are the most common scales in Western classical music. • Major scales have an uplifting quality. Listening example: Mozart Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Bob Marley
“Stir it Up”, and from the Sound of Music “Doe, a Deer”
1 2) minor Scales ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ a natural minor ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ a harmonic minor ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ a melodic minor •
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Minor scales use 7 notes (8 if you count the repeated note at the top of the scale). There are three different types in common use: o Natural minor scale, which uses the key signature of the relative major, starts on scale degree six of the relative major and has no other alterations. o Harmonic minor, which is used mainly for harmonic purposes. It’s the same as the relative major, only scale degree seven is raised to create a leading tone at the top of the scale. o Melodic minor, which raises scale degree six and seven ascending and lowers them descending (therefore it’s the same as a natural minor scale descending.) Minor scales have a melancholy or ominous quality to them. Listening example: Rockwell “Somebody’s Watching Me”, Irish
traditional “What Shall We Do With a Drunken Sailor?”, J.S.
Bach “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” and Carl Orff “O
Fortuna from Carmina Burana”
2 3) Pentatonic Scales ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Pentatonic scale using only the black keys on a keyboard • These are five-­‐note scales. They can be any five notes within an octave, but most commonly they are 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 of a major scale. • An easy way to see a pentatonic scale on the keyboard, is to use only the black notes (Db, Eb, Gb, Ab, Bb). These notes make 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 of a Db Major Scale. • Pentatonic scales are common in many cultures. Listening examples: Freelance Whales “Dig Into Waves”, The
Temptations “My Girl” and Gotye “Somebody That I Used to
Know”
4) Chromatic Scales ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ C chromatic scale (notes are written as sharps ascending and flats descending) •
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Chromatic scales are 12 note scales that use all of the possible notes between any note and it’s octave. Chromatic scales are often used in short passages for colour or emphasis and rarely throughout a whole piece.
Descending chromatic scales sound like something is falling. Ascending chromatic scales sound like something is flying away. Listening examples: Georges Bizet “Habanera from Carmen”,
Modeste Mussorgsky “Night on Bald Mountain”, and RimskyKorsakov “Flight of the Bumblebee”
3 5) Blues Scales ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ C blues scale • Blues scales are six-­‐note scales, which are altered forms of Major scales. • Here are the alterations from a major scale to a blues scale:
Major scale: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 Blues scale: 1 b3 4 #4/b5 5 b7 1 th
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• Blues scales are mostly harmonized with dominant 7 chords or minor 7 chords, due to the minor 3rd between 1 and b3. • The altered notes, called “blue notes” give blues melodies a distinctive soulful sound.
Listening examples: Etta James “I Just Want to Make Love to
You”, Muddy Waters “Hoochi Coochi Man”, Nine Simone
“Feeling Good” George Gershwin “Rhapsody in Blue”
6) Whole-­‐tone Scales ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ C whole-­‐tone scale •
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Whole-­‐tone scales are six-­‐note scales where each note is one whole-­‐tone apart from the next. Chromatic scales are often used to create a feeling of mystery or weightlessness. This is because they don’t contain a leading tone, so they don’t seem to end anywhere. Listening examples: R. Murray Schafer “Epitaph for Moonlight”,
Claude Debussy “Voiles” (sails)
4 7) 12-­‐Tone or Atonal Music •
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Atonal melodies are not written according to any scale. Pitches are chosen from the 12 possible notes in Western music either randomly, or according to mathematical principals. The result is highly unpredictable music. Atonal melodies are effective in creating a feeling of craziness. Listening examples: Anton Webern “Symphony Op. 21”, Claude
Debussy “Voiles” (sails), Arnold Schoenberg “Pierrot Lunaire”
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