Melody

• The Importance of Melody
• Improvised Melody
• Characteristics of Jazz Melodies

This is a preview of the educational program A Jazz Improvisation Almanac which is under development for the Outside Shore Music Online School. Feel free to browse this preview and learn what you can from it. For a more completed product, though, check out the original freely browsable jazz textbook, A Jazz Improvisation Primer.

The Importance of Melody

Of the four primary elements of music - melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre - listeners in Western societies generally attach the most importance to the melody. We use words like "tune" or "song" - both of which have mostly to do with melody - as synonyms for "composition", thus suggesting we consider the melody to be the identifying characteristic of the composition. We can alter the harmony, rhythm, or timbre of a composition, and still recognize it as the same piece, but as soon as we change the melody, we usually consider it to be a different composition.

For most styles of music, aside from lyrics, the melody is usually the most easily identifiable aspect of a composition, and this melody remains the same from performance to performance. In jazz, however, the original melody to a composition may not be the most prominent feature of a performance of that piece. Instead, it is often the improvisation that is the focus of attention, and by definition, the improvisations will vary from performance to performance of the same piece.

A typical performance of a jazz composition may last ten minutes, of which only two minutes contain the original melody for the composition. This original composed melody, often called the "theme" or "head", is played once or twice at the beginning and end. It serves mostly to identify the piece being played and to establish a context for the improvisations. While not all jazz performances follow this pattern, a great many of them do.

This does not mean that the rest of a jazz performance has no melody. On the contrary, improvisation is largely about creating new melodies. These improvised melodies, however, will often be distinct from that of the original composition. For example, here is the melody from a jazz composition:

And here is an improvised melody that might be played during an improvisation on that composition:

Improvised Melody

Normally, in most styles of jazz, only one musician improvises a melody at a time. This is referred to as "taking a solo". This phrase further emphasizes the importance of the role of melody in jazz: the improvisation is called a solo even though other musicians may be accompanying the soloist. For example, here is how the improvised melody heard above might sound in the context of a group performance:

An improvised melody may be a simple variation on the original theme. In this case, the composed melody itself serves directly as a basis for improvisation. For example, here again is melody for the jazz composition above, this time with accompaniment:

And here is an improvised melody based directly on the original melody:

Jazz musicians typically take these types of liberties even when playing the head at the beginning or end of a performance. In between these statements of the theme, however, improvisations are often based not on the original melody itself but on the harmony of the piece - the progression of chords used to accompany the original melody. The melody of such an improvisation will then differ more fundamentally from the original melody. In these cases, the original melody serves to establish the harmony to be used as a basis for improvisation. For example, the improvised melody shown first in this section was based on the harmony of the composition above, not the melody:

The various ways of relating an improvised melody to the underlying harmony are some of most important concepts for improvisors in most styles of jazz to master. Melodies may also be improvised without regard to any composed melody or harmonies, however. This is sometimes known as free improvisation. For example, here is a freely improvised melody:

A given performance may contain any or all of these types of melodies.

Characteristics of Jazz Melodies

Not only does jazz use melody in a different manner than does most other forms of music, but the melodies themselves are often characteristically different as well. Jazz, like classical music, is normally an instrumental music, not a vocal music. The melodies in a jazz performance - whether composed or improvised - are often not what most people would consider singable, as they may contain fast runs or wide melodic leaps. The style of jazz known as bebop is especially known for the use of these types of melodies. Here is an example of such a jazz melody:

Jazz vocalists do sing these types of melodies, although they often do it without words, especially when improvising. The technique of improvising melodies with nonsense syllables is called scat:

Of course, many jazz compositions do have beautiful, song-like melodies. Most jazz ballads fall into this category. For example:

Also, there are many compositions that are faster, but still relatively simple melodically. For example:

So it is not complexity alone that identifies a melody as being jazz.

Jazz melodies are often based in part on African musical traditions. For instance, jazz uses what are known as blue notes - notes that are flat compared to the corresponding notes in European harmony. These notes have no exact equivalent in standard tuning systems, but the effect is usually approximated by lowering the third and seventh steps of the major scale, and often the fifth as well. For example, here is a major scale and a simple melody based on it:

While here is a blues scale and a simple melody based on it:

The use of blue notes entered the jazz vocabulary through a form of music called blues, which is discussed at greater length elsewhere. Another trait that jazz inherited from Africa via the blues is the use of call-and-response patterns and repeated figures known as riffs. In a call-and-response pattern, one musician states a short theme, and then another plays a second theme as if in response to the first. For example:

A riff is a repeated figure that is used as the primary melody or to accompany another melody. Here is an example of a melody based on a riff:

Another quality shared by many jazz melodies is that they use syncopation and swing rhythms; this is described in further detail in the section on rhythm.

Although the descriptions above do often characterize melodies in jazz, it is not always possible to define precisely what makes a jazz melody. Often it is the other aspects of a performance - the rhythm or harmony, the use of expression, or the presence of improvisation - that identifies it as being jazz. Indeed, jazz musicians often take melodies from songs in other styles of music such as classical or pop, and perform "jazz" versions of those compositions, by introducing elements of jazz in other aspects of the performance.

While melody may serve a somewhat different function in jazz than in other forms of music, and the melodies themselves may differ from most pop and classical melodies, it is important to realize that melody - both composed and improvised - is still an integral part of jazz.

Copyright 2000 Outside Shore Music
Authored by Marc Sabatella

Melody