Day 5

Collect Homework

Take a picture of Activity 2 ! You will need to use the same songs in homework tonight .
Homework was dealing with Instrumentation : (1) How many instruments are there, and (2) what are they
Moving forward, we will talk about the roles that each of these instruments are playing.
We should be able to dissect the song , and say instrument by instrument "This is why that instrument is part of the song

Comparing Melodies : Intro to Melody

Important Terms: Melody , Pitch, Range (high/low) , Accompaniment, Instrumental Music,

Melody
Dictionary Definition:A series of musical notes/pitches that the listener perceives as a single entity.

Easy Definition: The main part of the song. The part most easily heard.

?What does a single entity mean?
Rule of thumb: What is being sung OR what you would sing back

-In most popular music today, the melody is generally provided by the Vocalist, or the Lyrics
-Music Where the Melody is Provided by Instruments only is called INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC

Question #1 When Dealing with Melody : What instrument is Providing it

Pitch / Note
Definition: Any Single Pitch. The smallest unit of sound.

A Notes and be either HIGH or LOW ,This describes it's Range

---------HIGH---------
Very High Notes

Soprano

Tenor

Basso Profondo
---------LOW--------

ACCOMPANIMENT:
****** Anything going on in a song other than the melody would be called accompaniment , or accompanying music . I.E. Singer would be Melody, Drums, Piano, Guitar, ETC. would be accompaniment*******

Pitch

****Pitch and Note with be used interchangeably !! *****
Press play on the recording to the right >>>
Here we have one sing note . It repeats 4 times, but never changes notes, or moves up and down in pitch. it is stagnant.

Press play to the right >>>>
Now we are hear 2 separate pitches , switching back and forth and back and forth between them

Here are those same 2 pitches played simultaneously ( at the same time - as in i acutally pushed the keys on the piano at the same time )

*** It is important for us to make this distinction between notes played Simultaneously (like here) or in succession/one after another (like in the last example)

Remember that a Melody is a Series of Pitches - This implies that it is multiple Notes and is in a Specific Order

The OG of 'a series of pitches in a specific order' is The Scale - Remember this from Grade School Music lessons ?

Musical Scale: In music theory, a scale is any set of musical notes ordered by fundamental frequency or pitch.

OR

A group of notes played in succession that sound Good/Right together

The greeks had specific groups of notes that they believed when played together represented and would even inspire certain emotions when humans heard them

They called these MODES

They believed in this so much that they would use these groups of notes to compose songs

Depending on the USE for the song (celebration, mourning, sporting, war)
they would choose notes only from the appropriate mode

Scales

The biggest thing that scales Share with melody is that Order is Very Important ! Scales go in order from low to high to low . Although Melodies don't necessarily follow those directions, the order is IMPERATIVE just like with a scale .

EX - The Mary Had a Little Lamb Melody is actually only 4 different notes - If i put those 4 notes in a different order, you wouldn't recognize it has 'Mary Had a Little Lamb"

Visualizing Melody......

So, essentially, a Melody is a bunch of Notes mixed together going up and down and up and down in range
Imagine we visualize the notes in a melody.

We wouldn't have a straight line, because that would just be one long note that doesn't change, which wouldn't make for a very interesting song

<<< Push play To hear what this 'straight line' song would sound like

Hear how there is only 1 Pitch / Note - Calling this a 'song' or 'music' doesn't really even seem right.... at this point it's really more like a 'sound' than a 'song'

Now imagine a song that goes up and down in range (high / low notes) like the squiggly line below. We start on one note, then go down, up, down, up etc. in a steady motion.

<<< Push play To hear what this 'steady squiggles' song would sound like

Now imagine a song like the squiggly line below - Not so different from the last semi-squiggly line, but now we are going up and down and up and down in an unpredictable way . Sometimes by a lot, a little, etc. We start on one note, then move up a little, then down a little, then up a lot, the down a little etc.

<<< Push play To hear what this 'really squigly' song would sound like

The notes are constantly changing ranges, going low to high in different increments (sometimes jumping around from VERY low to VERY high, and sometimes just moving a little bit)

SO - Let's say that when moving from note to note in a melody, pitches can do one of three things , They can : (1) Move Up in range, (2) Move Down in Range, or (3) Stay on the same note / not move in range. Take a look at this line below, Each movement from note to note is labeled .

<<< Push play To hear what this 'up/down/same' song would sound like

Check out how we see the same movements on the sheet music here - can you make a visual comparison ?

Look Below - Although we do not all read music, look at the "Happy Birthday" sheet music below: We can see that the dots (representing the notes) don't just stay on one line or space (like the straight line), but they move around jumping to higher lines (higher range) to lower lines (lower range) and all around.

See If you can sing along with the song and hear the pitches moving up and down as you can see the visual notes going up and down

So Remember - We can think of melodies as though they are a moving line of sound / pitches. Multiple pitches put together in a specific order.

???? What are some instruments that typically provide Melodic Material in a song ?????

Melody Delivery

When we talk about Delivery, we are Referring to:
1. What Instrument is providing it
1a. How do we describe how the melody is treated (rap/scream etc.)

Let's assume that each instrument is present in a given song to serve a purpose - think of :
-rock song - the singer is providing the melody
-a rap song - the vocalist is rapping the melody
just to name a couple.....

????
*** Think of song on the radio - by far the most common method of Melody Delivery is ___________________ *****

Some Examples of Different Melody Delivery....

Vocal Male
Vocal Female
Instrumental Saxophone
Instrumental Violin
Scream Singing
Foreign Language
Rap/Spoken

T-Pain Videos
Remember the T Pain Videos from the first class - this was an example of Him changing the delivery of the melody but keeping the same song/lyrics ETC.

**Can you describe the change ? It changed from ____________ to __________ ?

Remember how much it changed the vibe of the song just from that change ?

Melody = Lyrics + Notes
****Keep in mind that when dealing with vocal melody, there are two parts: The Lyrics + the Melody - I.E. the Melody is made up of the musical notes, and the lyrics words/poem set to that melody. *****

****Remember the Stevie Wonder song I played on trumpet - there were no Words / Lyrics when I played it, just the Musical Notes****

Class Activity : Melody Delivery

Find examples of 5 different styles of melody delivery. You can only use "vocally sung" once ! (1) Give a link for the song/what to search for to find song , (2) describe the melody delivery, and (3) give a Genre for the example

Example:
1. Heavy Metal - Screamed Lyrics
2.
3.
4.
5.

Homework

For each of your 10 songs you used yesterday in activity #2 Tell me

1. What instrument is providing the melody
2. Can you describe the delivery at all ?
3. Finally after you have done all 10, do you notice any trends / similarities ?