For Wednesday, 1/21

• Read Prelude 1, Chapter 2

Melody: often (but not always!)
– the most prominently featured part
– the highest in pitch
– the most memorable part — what you walk out of a concert singing to yourself, what gets stuck in your head

Terms we use to describe melodies:
– Contour: how the melody moves: ascending, descending, arch, wave
– Interval
– Conjunct
– Disjunct

Amazing Grace




Listen for the contour of these melodies:


I drove by all the places we used to hang out getting wasted

I thought about our last kiss, how it felt the way you tasted

Do you have the time to listen to me whine

About nothing and everything all at once

I am one of those melodramatic fools

Neurotic to the bone, no doubt about it

Melodies are made up of phrases, similar to how paragraphs are made up of sentences. A typical way to put phrases together creates a question-and-answer sequence — Amazing Grace and Ode to Joy are examples of this. The musical term for this procedure is antecedent-consequent.

Ode to Joy


Stars & Stripes: listen for melody sung the first time, then repeated by instruments with a second melody (countermelody) played on piccolos.