W
hat makes a good melody? Pat Metheny in an interview remarks that you can do six years of school in rhythm, you can do six years of school in harmony, but there's no program out there for melody. Melody is the mysterious art -- its rules are so much subtler than those of the other aspects of music.
A great melody, at least for a philistine like myself, seduces with its simplicity. With nearly all my favorite melodic lines, they tempt me to think "I could have written that!" They break so naturally upon the mind, that they seem to have almost been there before they're heard; we're reminded of great melodies.
And anyway, what's in a melody? Usually, the sweetest sounding are within a typical voice range of notes -- that means there are rarely even two octaves covered in the line, and often only one. How hard could it be to arrange eight lousy notes? Even further, most catchy melodies are mostly stepwise; each note is either one note down or one note up on the scale, with interval jumps supplying variation, but rarely being the rule. Making a pleasing melody should be simple as pie. But it just isn't.
Melodies can bring me to tears. I love them, and they supply me with my deepest experiences in music. From Christmas Carols, to Gregorian Chant, to classical music, to jazz, I am always drawn most by those with cunning, powerful melodies, and one of my greatest desires is to be able to write them myself. Hmm. As I sit here pondering it, I wonder if a supplement to this blog could be trying to write a melody every day. Would this drive me to frustration, or be a good outlet and experimentation? Only time will tell if I go through with it. I leave you with some of my favorite melodies: