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MUS 130 Sound Structures

Unit 1 Melody

Fall 2023

Music’s Melody—What is it? And What are the Relevant Concepts and Terms

I.         What is it?  Melody

•   Not allmusic has a melodic component, but many musical works have a strong melodic component

•   Melody: a phenomenon of music that has a sonically linear effect.  A succession of   sounds that have some sort of coherence as a temporal unit. Often heard as “linear.”

II.         Melodic features:

•   Melodies involve multiple sound dimensions:  pitch/sound structures, phrasing,

shape/form, rhythms, register, timbre, texture, dynamics, sometimes words, expressive character, etc.

III. Pitch/sound structure--Intervallic successions

•   Background scales or modes, e.g., raga, makams, major/minor scales, church modes

IV.      Phrases and Phrasing

•   Shorter segments, parts of a larger melodic unit Part of musical form

•   Phrases bear some similarity to sentences in language use.

V.        Other features of melodic phrases and phrasing

•   Beginnings and Endings, including cadences

•   Tension-resolution

•   Contour or shape

•   Affect

VI.      Motives, Hooks, Riffs, Licks—even shorter segments of a melodic unit

•   A short segment of a longer temporal unit.

VII.     Analyzing melodic structure

•   Representing Motive, Phrase, and other units of musical structuring:

•   Letters, Primes, and other notational devices.