Melody

Comparing Melodies : Intro to Melody
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Important Terms:   Melody , Pitch,  Range (high/low) ,  Accompaniment, Instrumental Music, 

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

-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

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--------

****** 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*******

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

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)

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. 

Melody Delivery
Some Examples of Different Melody Delivery....

Vocal Male
Vocal Female
Instrumental Saxophone
Instrumental Violin
Scream Singing
Foreign Language
Rap/Spoken
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****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 set to that melody. *****
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****If we take away the words, there would still be music that could be played on Saxophone, piano, ETC****

In-Class Activity: Comparing Melody

Cover Song Definition: 
​In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a previously recorded, commercially released song by someone other than the original artist or composer.

In a cover song, some things will stay the same, while some change. These are choices the new artist has to make.  Generally the LYRICS and MELODY stay intact, but the delivery changes (male instead of female etc. )

Song List: 
Example 1 Cover   -   Example 1 Original 
Example 2  Cover   -  Example 2 Original 
Example 3 Cover    -   Example 3 Original
 Example 4 Cover    -  Example  4 Original

Cover Song Questions: 

1.  What has changed in the new cover version? **Could be in the melody or accompaniment** (This could be a lot, or  a little. List as many as you can .... Just go for it!)

2. Do you think these were good choices by the artist (i.e. do you like what he/she did with it)?  Why or Why not?

3.  Why do you think the new artist chose to cover this song?