Melody

Melody is a sequence of single notes that is musically satisfying. Melodies are often described as being made up of phrases and are commonly considered the foreground to the background accompaniment. A line or part need not be a foreground melody.

Melodies often consist of one or more musical phrases or themes, and are usually repeated throughout a song or piece in various forms. Melodies may also be described by their melodic motion or the pitches or the intervals between pitches (predominantly consonant, passing, neighboring, etc.), pitch range, tension and release, continuity and coherence, cadence, and shape.

History

The melodies in simple folk music and traditional songs may use only the notes of a single scale, the scale associated with the tonality of the piece. A melody (also known as a "tune") is a series of pitches (notes) sounding in succession (one after the other), often in a rising and falling pattern. The notes of a melody are typically created using pitch systems such as scales or modes.

Elements of melody

Melody is a linear sequence of notes the listener hears as a single entity. Its elements include pitch (the highness or lowness), duration (the length of time each note is played), rhythm (the arrangement of notes in time), and timbre (the color or unique quality of the sound).

See also

• Harmony
• Rhythm
• Pitch
• Duration
• Timbre

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