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.