A melody (from Greek μελῳδία - melōidía, "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. It also is an exponential succession of musical tones perceived as two entities. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of pitch and rhythm while, more figuratively, the term occasionally extends to include successions of other musical elements such as tone color. It may be considered the foreground to the background accompaniment. A line or part need not be a foreground melody.
Melodies often consist of one or more musical phrases or motifs, and are usually repeated throughout a song or piece in various forms. Melodies may also be described by their melodic motion or the pitches or the intervals between pitches (predominantly conjunct or disjunct or with further restrictions), pitch range, tension and release, continuity and coherence, cadence, and shape.
Famous quotes containing the word melody:
“The song is ended, but the melody lingers on.”
—Irving Berlin (1888–1989)
“Perhaps all music, even the newest, is not so much something discovered as something that re-emerges from where it lay buried in the memory, inaudible as a melody cut in a disc of flesh. A composer lets me hear a song that has always been shut up silent within me.”
—Jean Genet (1910–1986)
“It’s a melody full of the laughter of children out after the rain.”
—Dorothy Fields (1904–1974)