SESSION #4 – MELODY

On our 4th Monday session, we started out by performing our song following the ‘Groovy’ criteria. What we came up followed the tropes given to us during the last session & sounded authentic. Although there was a few mistakes on my behalf & the absence of Robyn, I was happy with the outcome, we got some good feedback & criticism. This was all helpful as I haven’t played within these genres boundaries or working with the tropes associated so I had to kinda learn off my own back how to fill out the Explicit Beat Layer & what sounded authentic.

Once all the performances were finished, we started looking into melody. We learnt what a melody is, how melody is a combination of rhythm & pitch & that it’s a musical unit. We discussed unstable & stable notes, the concept of contour in a song, chord variations & worked within these fields in Logic to get a better understanding of them.

We were then tasked to ‘Write an original diatonic melody, in any major key, that contains four two-measure
phrases, with the following creative restrictions:

1. the first phrase must begin on a stable tone and end on an unstable tone.
2. the second phrase must begin on an unstable tone and end on a stable tone that resolves the last note of the first phrase.
3. the third phrase must begin on an unstable tone and end on an unstable tone.
4. the fourth phrase may begin on either a stable or an unstable tone. it must end on a
stable tone that resolves the last note of the third phrase.

This interesting as scales & chords are something I want to develop my knowledge on in the duration the course. It was interesting to hear to the affect that unstable & stable notes can have on the overall tone & mood of a song. I worked on a synth-pop esque track as it sounded authentic & was out of my comfort zone. Overall I am happy with the outcome.

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