One of the most simple, yet striking realizations to come from the SEA theory is the fact that melody is a relationship. It’s so often talked of as all about the pitches, what they convey, and that’s not wrong. Many point to the value of rhythm – Ornette Coleman’s saying that rhythm is like oxygen for the notes* is an outstanding example – and some have studied rhythm for its energy-producing properties, but few have pointed to the relationship as such in music theory. Realizing that melody is a relationship opens the way to understanding that virtually everything meaningful about music is due to shifting relationships between elements, and that points toward insights regarding its importance to humans.
Almost anyone who has ever tried to compose a melody will have encountered the experience of having it just about right, then changing the duration of an early note and throwing off the whole melody. Changing a duration is of course to change the rhythm, and everything that follows comes in a different place in relation to the remainder. The impact of it all is transformed, however slightly.
Here is an example of a melody in two versions, the second having a longer second note. Listen to the two as many times as you want to fully absorb the difference in feel that results: it is subtle but quite important when you start really paying attention to its impact.
Beyond the pitch-rhythm relationship, many other relationships are important in our perception and processing of melody. Already, I’ve demonstrated the impact of changes in volume on individual items, and changes in volume during the course of a melody transform the energy (impact, emotion, mood) of a melody as well.
Here’s an example, using the second version of the melody and growing louder:
Compare that to the same melody, now diminishing in volume:
Having also mentioned articulation and the alteration of energy that comes from its state, you might anticipate that articulation alters perception of energy or what we call emotion in the melody. Here’s the version of the same melody that rises in volume, now with alterations to articulation.
As I mentioned when describing articulation, in terms of the acoustical reality, articulation is about how notes are begun and ended, so has to do with volume (sudden bursts are accents, for example) and duration (staccato articulation is basically a note that ends before the next one is begun, leaving space between the notes).
Let me ask you: is all this rather obvious? I think so, but so much of what is taught as music theory overlooks the more obvious things that affect the way music impacts us, and gets “lost in the weeds” with much more complicated issues – issues that are quite important but take training to understand. What’s wrong with dealing with music on the level that most directly impacts us? In my opinion, we ignore the obvious at our peril. As I say regularly to my students, especially when trying to understand modern classical music, “The obvious is in control… expose it!”
Up for a more convincing example of melody as a fundamental relationship of pitch and rhythm? Follow this link to participate in a little study I’ve been carrying around to schools to demonstrate the reality. It provides a series of different rhythmic settings of the same series of pitches and asks you to rate the energy of each.
* In 1981, Ornette Coleman said “To me rhythm is the oxygen that sits under the notes and moves them along and blues is the colouring of those notes, how they’re interpreted in an emotional way.”