Melody
Join Simon Sloth for a fun melody lesson for kids! Discover what melody means in music, how notes move higher and lower, and how melodies create recognizable tunes. Through listening, singing, and creative music activities, elementary students will learn about melodic contour and explore ways to create their own melodies.
What Is Melody in Music?
A melody is a linear combination of pitches and rhythms that our brain recognizes as a musical idea. It’s the part of music we remember and can often sing back.
The Elements of Melody
- Pitch – The highness or lowness of a sound.
- Rhythm – A combination of different durations.
- Contour – The shape of the melody as it goes up and down in pitch.
- Phrase – A musical sentence.
- Intervals – The distance between two pitches.
- Range – The lowest note to the highest note of a melody.
- Cadence – The resting point of the melody at the end.
How Does a Melody Move? Steps, Skips, Leaps, and Repeated Notes
Melodies move from one pitch (or note) to the next. The distance between those two notes is called a repeat, step, skip, or leap. Notes can start on either a line or a space on the staff.
Test Your Knowledge of Steps, Skips, Leaps, and Repeated Notes with Gabriel
Scales
Scales are an ordered set of pitches spanning one octave that tell us the key a song is played in. Melodies use the pitches in a scale to create a pleasing sound to our ears. Sometimes the key can change during a song. That’s okay. In Western music, the most common scales are major and minor. Major scales sound happy and minor scales sound sad or spooky.
Understanding Melodic Contour
Melodic Contour is the shape of the melody. Even though there are only 12 notes in a Western chromatic scale, there are endless combinations that we can make into melodies. Some melodies have little to no leaps in them. These melodies are called conjunct melodies. Some melodies have many leaps. When a melody has a lot of leaps it’s called disjunct.
Simon Sloth’s Scarf Melody Activity
Listen to Franz Schubert’s Impromptu Op. 90, No. 2. This is an example of a conjunct melody. Use your scarf to show the melodic contour as it goes up and down.
Other Activities
- Explore: Draw lines going up and down, then follow them with your voice and finger.
- Listen: Identify melodic contour in a song and draw what you hear.
- Create: Use a ribbon to invent a melodic contour and sing it for the class.
The Leitmotif
A leitmotif is a short melodic phrase, melody, chord progression, or rhythm that is associated with a character. Think of the movie Star Wars. Each character has its own leitmotif. Every time the character makes an entrance, you hear it and begin to associate the leitmotif with that character. Sometimes a leitmotif is used in a romantic story to express the feeling of falling in love.
Embellishing a Melody
During the Baroque era, it was popular to heavily ornament or embellish melodies. Johann Sebastian Bach was a master at embellishing his melodies. We still embellish melodies in music today. Can you name a song that has an embellished melody?
Polyphony – The Battle of Melodies
Polyphony is a type of music where more than one melody is performed at the same time. A fugue is an example of polyphony. Listen to this Bach fugue called the Little Fugue in G minor, BWV 578. It starts with one melody and then adds three more, so there are four distinct melodic lines battling it out. Actually, there were very strict rules during the Baroque era about composing fugues and they were often improvised! Can you imagine composing a fugue on the spot. That’s what Bach did during his famous visit to the court of King Frederick the Great of Prussia at Potsdam on May 7, 1747.
Create Your Own Melody
Now, it’s your turn to create a melody. Use the worksheet below to give you inspiration.
