Download Elements of Music

Elements of Music
Pitch - Melody
▫ Pitch refers to the actual notes used in the music.
▫ The patterns of pitch are often called the musical
line – or melody.
▫ The melody of a song is considered to be the
pleasing series of musical notes that form the
main part of a song or piece of music.
Musical line…
▫ To figure out the musical line you need to think
about the direction of the pitches and how many
are being used …
▫ Which gives us the two ways to talk about musical
line and more specifically the melody – range and
contour.
Range
• The range of a piece is the distance between the
lowest and highest notes.
• A piece that has a narrow range is one in which
the melody centers around a few given notes.
• A piece that has a wide range takes the musician
or singer from low to high pitches.
Example 1: Mary Had a Little Lamb
Example 2: Yesterday
Choose a range for this song:
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlcIKh6sBtc
Contour
• The contour is the shape of the musical line.
• Usually, there is only one highest or lowest note,
called the peak. Although there is an endless
number of variations, there are several basic
contours that melodic lines generally follow…
Arch
• An arch begins lower, works its way up to a high
point between around or just after the midpoint of
the melody, then falls back to a lower ending note.
Inverted Arch
• An Inverted Arch contour simply flips the arch
shape upside-down, with the lowest peak occurring
only once.
Ramp
• Ramp - Melodies often save the high or low peak for
the last note. There are two types to choose from:
• An ascending ramp begins at or near the lowest note,
and gradually works its way up to the highest.
• A descending ramp contour reverses this, beginning with
the higher point, and ending with the lowest.
Listening examples:
• “For Good” Glee Cast Version
• “Take Five” The Swingfield Quartet