Contour:
Variation in pitch, together with rhythm, defines a melody. We can describe melodies in a number of ways, and to do so it is sometimes convenient to use a visual metaphor. Already when we speak of pitch, we use the metaphor of up and down, and many of us envision time as moving from left to right, as it does in Western music notation.
Over time, melodies thus describe a metaphorical curve, which musicians call the melodic contour. Composers often carefully create contours so that, for example, the high point occurs at the climax or that the melody descends to a point of rest. Melodies can also be characterized by their range, that is, the distance between the highest and lowest pitches, and if they are relatively conjunct or disjunct, that is, if they progress smoothly by small intervals from note to note or if they leap around with large intervals between pitches.
Contour:
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One of the most important ways a composer can make a melody seem unified is through repetition, which can exist on many different levels. At the most basic level, just a few notes can form a melodic cell called a motive. A theme is a larger section of melody that we recognize as it repeats.
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Typically, melodies have points at which they seem to be at rest or otherwise seem to have "arrived." These points are called cadences, and the sections of a melody delimited by cadences are called phrases. Cadences may be signaled by a momentary pause but other musical characteristics can also let us know when a phrase is finished. A phrase is in a sense a complete musical thought, much like a phrase in language. Usually, composers group phrases into larger structures. Many folk melodies, for example, pair a phrase that ends with a less-than-final cadence with a phrase whose cadence is on the tonic and seems more final. Extending the metaphor, musicians sometimes call two phrases grouped together in this way a musical sentence. One can imagine how composers can build up forms into "paragraphs" and and other larger scale structures. Musicians often describe musical structure (alternately called form) by assigning letters of the alphabet to similar phrases or other sections. For example, the structure AAAA would indicate a structure where the melody consistently repeats (such a structure is called strophic). ABA is a common form in which we hear one melody, a different melody, then the first again. A common verse-and-refrain structure would be AABABAB. |
Phrases in the song "Amazing Grace"
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