Summary

With this project, I learned some of the basics of a melody. One thing I learned about is the tonic, supertonic, dominate, etc. notes. I also learned that you have to start at the “home” note, rising tension and get away from “home” and then reduce tension back to “home” at the tonic note. The last thing I learned was the steps and leaps of measures and periods.

My First Melody

Lesson Melody

The lesson I learned from the melody is to have direction with the song. This song doesn’t really sound good because it sort of is just a composition of random notes. I need to learn more about melody structure to make a better melody.

One of My Favorite Melodies

For this melody, I noticed that the note structure was rising to add a happy feel, almost like a party feel to it and that they had three overlapping notes at the same time to add a more harmonic part of the melody specifically. There was a tonic note in the key of D major and it started rising after the third phrase. The revealing part of the melody was the party type of feel that it gave off.

My Second Melody

Melody Composition Terms

• Theme –  a long, flowing melodic idea
• Motive – A short, rhythmic idea
• Period –  8 measure musical sentence
• Phrase – 4 measure sub-period
• Antecedent (Question) Phrase –  First 4 measures of a period
• Consequent (Answer) Phrase – Second 4 measures of a period
• Scale Degrees
  • Tonic – is the start and stop note/home
  • Supertonic, Mediant, Submediant – lower level of tension/the weird aunt’s house
  • Dominant, Subdominant, Leading Tone – moving notes/rise tension/away from 
• Steps – a hole note
• Leaps – anything up to more than a hole note
• Conjunct motion – melody built primarily of steps
• Disjunct motion – melody built primarily of leaps
• Repetition – Repeated material (i.e. motive) used to create a link between two phrases of the period
• Contrast – Two phrases that contain contrasting material to create tension and interest
• Variation – Halfway between contrast and repetition. The two phrases include some recognizable material and some varied material (i.e. taking ideas up an octave

What I Learned and Problems I Solved