subject: What Is A Melody? [print this page] For a number of great musicians melody "is music", among others, Maurice Ravel and Olivier Messiaen clearly stated "no music without a melody." So what is a melody?
If melody is so important, why can't we get a melody by randomly playing keys at the piano? With 12 notes in an octave how many (meaningful) combination there can be?
Compared to the example of monkeys hitting typewriter keys attempting to write something meaningful (if not Shakespeare), getting a melody randomly, with its specific rhythms and dynamics, is just impossible.
A beautiful melody is something of a miracle. Why there is no book dedicated to the melody, its "rules" and "exercices" to master the craft, as there are so many about harmony for example?
We say "this is a good melody" when we perceive a nice trajectory which connects the notes heard. What is "a nice trajectory?"
To investigate that, I wrote a small computer program which draws lines to reveal the "trajectory" of a given melody. This program, called "DrawMelody" is unfortunately on WindoZe platform but I can gladly provide the source code (in Pascal) to anyone wanting to port it to other decent computer operating systems. Meanwhile it can be downloaded from okonsar dot com.
Researchers found that a kid of about six months old can perceive the musical contours which make a melody. Similarly, if the melody is transposed to another key of ported to another instrument it is clearly recognized.That confirms that the melody is not "sounds" per-se but the relations in between them. Furthermore, this time with adults, it has been revealed that even when some random notes are put between the melody notes, a known melody is still easily spotted.
One other interesting fact is, for a well known melody if only the rhythm is given, by playing or singing all notes on the same pitch but with perfect rhythm the melody is often recognized. However is the melody notes are given but with a different rhythm people is lost and can not recognize the melody.
As an example of a well known one take a look at Henry Mancini's "Pink Panther" theme. This one has all the features for "a beautiful melody" according to the Western musical tradition.
Drawing, available in the online version of the article, of the "Pink Panther" theme, note the symmetries in the shapes and compare with the notes above
The "raise" starts hesitantly at first then, using the same notes, it goes up steadily and stops at the B-flat.Remaining there for a while it goes down again somewhat fast.
The drawing made by "DrawMelody" program shows the shape of it. That shape, we conceptualize in our mind when we hear the melody, is precisely what we recognize as a (beautiful) melody. Therefore is the notes are transposed to another key, played with any instrument in any range, played slower or faster (within some limits), or even if short and soft sounds are inserted between them we can still recognize it as long as the shape remains perceptible.
As a second example I can show the naive and nice melody of the Piano Sonata in C KV545 by Mozart.
Those two popular melodies exemplify what the Gestalt psychologists have formulated in the last century about perception. Wertheimer, Koffka and Kohler's Gestalt theory gives information about how we perceive the world around us. According to them, we always attempt to unify what we perceive. Then, if there are many large steps in a melody our perception of it gets much harder.
Does melody always has to follow those principles? Has it evolved through time? Many music theorists affirm that "melody" is universal. However in other cultures than the Western we find melodies which do not fit those patterns. Same for contemporary music.
Not unlike the "Pink Panther" and Mozart melodies shown above, a Rafaello portrait painting displays again "beautifully" symmetrical structures.
In classical painting similar symmetries can be seen as in example of the Rafaello auto-portrait.
Evolution is constant in all art forms. If we look at a couple of almost contemporary works of art, a melody by Arnold Schoenberg and a Modigliani painting, we can see similar twists in shape and displacements in the symmetry (if any).
Comparing this melody's contours with the Mozart and Mancini ones shows the evolution in melody.
Even though we still have a gradual stepping down here as well, there is no such things the classical symmetry in the overall shape of it.
Similarly Clemente Modigliani's (1884-1920) painting too represents a "recognizable" face but..
How about music without melody? For some when there is no line "to follow" there can't be any meaning to the music. How about abstract painting and again simultaneously emerging music without tonality and "without melody"?
This is one example from Luciano Berio. One of my favorite modern composers.
As seen from the drawing available online, we can hardly talk about "melody" (in the "common" sense of it. Instead we have lines and shapes and that leads us to abstract paintings and here is an example of one of its precursors and theorists: Kandinsky.
Just like in the Berio example where "melody" is, in a sense, "abstracted" to lines and shapes, Kandinsky, similarly, abstracts the objects he depicts.
Without the "perfect" (i.e. "beautiful") symmetries and relatively easy to recognize shapes perceived in classical music (or paintings), listeners of contemporary music or amateurs of abstract art have to "look for" other things if they want to enjoy those works.
Art, just like anything else is in constant evolution. May be faster and more radically than any other thing. Art lovers have to get to it and as soon as they leave their prejudices and start looking for what there is to look at in modern art, I believe they will start enjoying modern art as much as they - hopefully - enjoy the classics.
