In one song the guitar riff or bassline may not be the melody, i think that whats bruce was trying to say, however the bass line or guitar riff can be the melody, it just depends on the song i guess.
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Melody - Just what is it?
- Thread starter miccheck1516
- Start date
In one song the guitar riff or bassline may not be the melody, i think that whats bruce was trying to say, however the bass line or guitar riff can be the melody, it just depends on the song i guess.
Originally posted by Bruce Lindfield
Again I'm not sure - I've heard people humming or singing riffs - guitar riffs or even bass lines, that are definitely not melodies and a lot of great melodies are too difficult for most people to sing or to get right anyway!!
Well Jazz improvacation or soloing is called the art of spontanious composition. Most good soloist are humming or singing there solos at least to themselves to help phrase.
Who says a melody has to be easy to sing. Look at modern classical vocal music it is not easy to sing for th average person. Melody is melody no matter how simple or complex it is. It may only sound good to the creater of the melody.
Well - if we are talking about a song with a bass ositinato - over which the melody is played - then you cannot consider that ostinato or riff to be the melody - but people may still hum it or sing it to themsleves - and somebody else may use that riff as a melody in another piece - but it is not the melody in the context in which we were talking!!
You have taken my post out of context !!
So - I never said that a melody had to be easy to sing and I never said that Jazz soloists don't hum or sing their solos - I have done this myself!!
Go back and read all the posts in context and don't take individual comments out of the context in which they were made!
I think the melody is impossible to pin down in a given performance of a piece.
Say a group of us sits down to play a standard like Autumn Leaves. Arguably, the melody is the sequence of notes written down on the lead sheet. However, we could produce a creditable performance without any of us ever playing that particular sequence note for note and rhythm for rhythm. If someone sat in who had no previous knowledge of the tune and who didn't have the music they might go away with a good grasp of the song but without being able to score out a leadsheet that would match the one the rest of us had been playing from.
Therefore, I think we need to take a somewhat fuzzy approach to melody - its a recognisable tune, but 'recognisable' is a very subjective word.
Wulf
Say a group of us sits down to play a standard like Autumn Leaves. Arguably, the melody is the sequence of notes written down on the lead sheet. However, we could produce a creditable performance without any of us ever playing that particular sequence note for note and rhythm for rhythm. If someone sat in who had no previous knowledge of the tune and who didn't have the music they might go away with a good grasp of the song but without being able to score out a leadsheet that would match the one the rest of us had been playing from.
Therefore, I think we need to take a somewhat fuzzy approach to melody - its a recognisable tune, but 'recognisable' is a very subjective word.
Wulf
I agree with you - but conversely I can tell you what is not the melody!!
So - if I was playing a repeating bass riff under a performance of Autumn Leaves or a bass pedal - that would definitely not be the melody - but somebody hearing that riff might think - hmmm nice... easy to programme into my mobile phone ring tone.
I think we need to start this debate again - it's all "kirbywrx"'s fault for introducing mobile phone ring tones into the argument!!
So - my comments are only applicable as answers to what he said : "If you were going to put a song as a mobile phone ringtone, you would put the melody into the phone. "
So - none of my comments apply to a general definition of what melody is - but are rather in the context of answering that question based on my experience last week of travelling to Woking every day last week and hearing endless mobile phone ring tones going off on the train - none of them were melodies as far as I was concerned - mostly just irritations!!!
But seriously they were all little riffs - mostly from instrumental tunes - vocal melodies are usally too long and complex for this(but no other) purpose!!
So - if I was playing a repeating bass riff under a performance of Autumn Leaves or a bass pedal - that would definitely not be the melody - but somebody hearing that riff might think - hmmm nice... easy to programme into my mobile phone ring tone.
I think we need to start this debate again - it's all "kirbywrx"'s fault for introducing mobile phone ring tones into the argument!!
So - my comments are only applicable as answers to what he said : "If you were going to put a song as a mobile phone ringtone, you would put the melody into the phone. "
So - none of my comments apply to a general definition of what melody is - but are rather in the context of answering that question based on my experience last week of travelling to Woking every day last week and hearing endless mobile phone ring tones going off on the train - none of them were melodies as far as I was concerned - mostly just irritations!!!
But seriously they were all little riffs - mostly from instrumental tunes - vocal melodies are usally too long and complex for this(but no other) purpose!!
