What Is a Melody?

Play the eight notes in the listening block: E, E, F, G, G, F, E, D. That is the opening of Ode to Joy, the theme from the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Only one note sounds at a time. Your ear strings them together into a single line with a direction: up from E to G, then back down past E to D. That line is a melody.

Chords can sit underneath it, and often do, but the melody itself is one line. What Is Harmony? covers what goes underneath. It is the part you would still recognize if someone whistled it.

Pitch and rhythm. The pitches are which notes you play. The rhythm is when each note starts and how long it lasts.

Play the eight notes backwards: D, E, F, G, G, F, E, E. Every note is still there, the lengths are unchanged, and it is a different tune.

Rhythm alone changes a melody just as much. The fourth bar of Ode to Joy holds an E for a beat and a half, then plays D for half a beat, then holds D for two beats. Play those same three notes as three equal beats and the phrase loses its hesitation at the end. Note Values and Rests covers those lengths.

From one note to the next, a melody either steps or leaps. A step goes to the neighboring note of the scale, one or two semitones away. A leap skips over at least one note.

The opening of Ode to Joy never leaps. It repeats, steps up twice, repeats, and then steps down three times. Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star does the opposite in its first move: after two Cs it jumps straight up to G, seven semitones away.

Melodies in most styles use steps far more often than leaps, so a leap stands out. Twinkle shows what usually follows one: after the jump to G it climbs one more step to A, then walks back down by step all the way to C.

Usually the notes of one scale. Both phrases of Ode to Joy use just five notes, C, D, E, F and G, all from C major and all white keys.

Melodies can step outside the scale, and plenty do for a note or two. Staying mostly inside it is why a melody sounds as though it belongs with its chords, because the chords are built from the same seven notes. The Major Scale has the seven notes, and Melody and Harmony shows how a melody note relates to the chord playing under it.

A melody breaks into phrases, units short enough to sing in one breath. Ode to Joy has two phrases of four bars each, and they start identically:

The only difference is the last bar. The first phrase ends on D and sounds unfinished. The second ends on C, the home note of C major, and sounds complete. Two phrases like that, one open and one closed, are one of the most common shapes in melody. Motifs and Phrasing goes into how phrases are built.

Put several phrases together and you have a section: a verse, a chorus, a bridge. Put sections in an order and you have the form of the song.

A typical pop song repeats its sections in a pattern such as verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. The chorus usually carries the melody people remember, and it comes back unchanged each time. Song Forms lays out the common patterns side by side.