“Melody is the essence of music,” said Mozart. “The true goal of music—its proper enterprise—is melody,” said composer, theorist and pupil of Bach, J.P. Kirnberger. For millennia, right across the world, pretty much everybody agreed with this. Folk songs, religious chant, the music of the indigenous people of every continent, the classical music of China, the Middle East and most other parts of the world – all these have always consisted essentially of melody. Still today, the great majority of music sung, played and heard throughout the world – pop music, musical theatre, jazz, classical, film music, “world” music – whether heard live or via recordings, emphasizes melody more than the other elements of music.
Of course there are exceptions. Some world music is based almost entirely on rhythm, such as Yoruba or Taiko drumming, and in rap or hip hop music (really a form of rhythmic chanting) the lyrics and the rhythms are central – but these exceptions constitute a minutely small proportion of the world’s music.
There is also music in which rhythm is almost as equally important as melody, such as Indian classical music, in which the rhythmic patterns, the tala, are complex, highly sophisticated, and an essential feature of the music. But even here it’s the melodic element, the raga, that is vital, and it’s the raga the music is named after. In the great majority of music from all eras and regions, from ancient Greece (1) through the classical music of Europe, India, China and the Middle East, to the popular and film music of today, melody is vital, and central. As Willi Apel put it in his Harvard Dictionary of Music (2): “Among the various components of musical composition, such as melody, harmony, rhythm, and orchestration, melody is, from the historical as well as from the creative point of view, by far the most important…. [It is] the only element in common to music of all times and all peoples… It is the cornerstone and touchstone of musical quality.”
In contemporary classical music, however, the importance of melody has largely been forgotten. Amongst contemporary composers of what is sometimes called “art music”, writing tunes is infra dig, a sign that you are writing down, creating work that is insufficiently sophisticated. Contemporary music that includes recognizable tunes is, to the contemporary classical music establishment, almost by definition not “classical”, not “serious”, not “art”, however expertly written and expressive it may be. (In fact there is a good deal of contemporary music that is classical in style and technique and also tuneful, but it is dismissed by placing it in different genres and labelling it “light music” or “film music”.)
In his Harvard Dictionary, Apel adds the comment, “the real importance of melody is still far from being fully and generally recognized.” But as we have seen, it was fully recognized in the time of Mozart, and has been in most other times and places. It was only during the 20th century that some European composers, influenced by the anti-traditional ideology of modernism, began to avoid melody, and to take the attitude that melodic music was somehow not as serious as music that deliberately avoided melody.
As a composer I find this attitude stifling, and disheartening. Avoiding melody drastically limits music’s expressive, creative and stylistic range. The neglect of melody in contemporary classical music has limited its potential, and is also one of the reasons why it is so unpopular in comparison to other musical genres and to the classical music of previous centuries, which continues to be played, sung and heard far more often.
Why do I (along with Mozart, Apel and countless other people) consider melody to be important? Because it’s melody more than anything else that gives music its sense of meaning and continuity. Music is a language (yes, that’s a cliché, but as Robertson Davies said, “one of the most difficult tasks for the educated and sophisticated mind is to recognize that some clichés are also important truths”). Like any language, music conveys information from one person to another. In verbal languages (written or spoken), a sentence is constructed from words that are related meaningfully to each other, that have specific functions in the sentence – it’s this interrelatedness that gives verbal language its power to communicate. (A series of words that are not meaningfully related to each other does not communicate – it’s what psychiatrists call a “word salad”.) Similarly in music, a melody is constructed from notes that are related meaningfully to each other, that have a functional place in the melody. (In fact the notes are related to each other mathematically. Melodies are not arbitrary intellectual constructs, they are products of the human imagination playing with the physics of sound and the way the human ear processes it (3).)
Listen to anything by Mozart or Bach, or to a folk song, or to this folk-like melody in my Siciliano and notice how the notes seem to follow each other naturally, each note implying or setting up expectations for the note or notes that follow. Composers like Mozart often play with these expectations and surprise us with notes that don’t fit the expected pattern; surprises like these would not be possible if meaningful connections between the notes did not exist in the first place.
This similarity between verbal and musical languages is not accidental, it’s because both communicate meaning. They do this in different ways and often on different levels of consciousness (“where words fail, music speaks,” as Hans Christian Andersen and many others have said (4)) – and it’s precisely for this reason that words and music can be complementary and work so well together.
Of course, when they do work together, in song, it’s the lyrics that convey the explicit meaning, but the music underlines and enriches this, and has implicit, non-verbal meanings of its own that greatly contribute to the song’s effect – the structure and coherence of the melody provide an important part of the overall sense of what the song is conveying. This is why the most memorable songs are songs with a good tune, and why those same songs also work so well in instrumental arrangements.
Melody is the grammar that holds the language of music together and gives it its power to communicate. (A more scientific-sounding way of saying this might be: “melody is a non-random sequence of tones” – but “non-random” simply means “meaningful”!) There are exceptions, as there are to any rule, but in almost all music, regardless of style, period, or country of origin – whether it’s a pop song, a Mahler symphony , a medieval dance , the classical music of China , the traditional songs of Australian aboriginal people , Gregorian chant (which, musically, consists of nothing but melody), a Bach fugue , or the folk songs of any country – it’s melody that holds the music together and gives it most of its power to communicate, to arouse emotions, and to tell non-verbal stories.
Like most other composers in most parts of the world and most historical periods, I give a central place to melody in my own music. Rhythm, harmony, texture and form have important roles to play too, but it’s melody that holds centre stage and is the central organising principle and source of meaning.
I do this because it feels right to me, intuitively. And I do this because I want my music to communicate to as wide a range of people as possible. Working with community choirs, I was often inspired by the joy that people with no musical background took in singing classics such as Handel’s Messiah. Some could not even read music and had to learn their (sometimes quite complex) parts by ear, but they were as keen to sing and as uplifted by the music as everyone else (as I think can be heard in the recording of one of these choirs singing the Hallelujah Chorus, linked to below (5)).
Classical music has depth, subtlety, complexity and an expressive range unlike any other genre. It arouses and expresses an incredibly broad range of human emotions and experiences. This richness should be available to everybody. Of course we can stream, download or buy CDs of classical music from any period, and in this sense it is available to all. But it’s not physical accessibility I’m referring to here, it’s psychological accessibility – it’s a question of whether the music communicates or not. Contemporary classical music too often walls itself off in obscurity and declines to communicate to the average music lover. One of the things that would make it more accessible (and more popular) would be to allow the inclusion of melody – that is what, more than anything else, makes the classical music of the past accessible to everyone. (Tonality and the inclusion of positive moods and feelings have a role in this too – but those are issues for another discussion.)
I think it is high time for a revival in contemporary classical music circles of the idea that melody matters. In popular music, musical theatre and other genres, this goes without saying, but in contemporary “art music”, melody has become almost a taboo subject. Contemporary musicians, composers and music academics know instinctively that melody is the primary carrier of meaning in music (6), but this knowledge goes unspoken, almost as if melody is something shameful and enjoying a tune is a sin. The role and importance of melody need to be brought back to consciousness. Why should “art music” not have as many good tunes as any other genre and still be considered “art”?
With my blogs and in my music I’m hoping to contribute to a raising of awareness of what it is about music that enriches life and brings people together. As Mozart and many others have always known, melody has a central role in this. I also want to encourage other contemporary composers – whether or not they call their music art music – not to be afraid to write melodies. By reinstating melody to its rightful place we can bring contemporary classical music back to music lovers generally, regardless of their social, cultural or educational backgrounds, and enrich the lives of many more people.
Obviously I can’t do this single-handedly, and I hope to cooperate with other people who share similar aims. I encourage other composers who recognize the value of melody (I know you exist!) to contact me so that we can support each other in getting our music out to performers and to the listening public. I’ll be encouraging readers of this blog and anyone who likes my music to explore other modern music that is similar in approach (suggestions and links in a future blog), and to support the composers and performers who produce it. Working together, maybe we can bring some life, heart and joy back into contemporary classical music, and open it up to everybody.
In a future blog I’ll take a closer look at melody, what it is, how it works, and what it is about melody that carries meaning and communicates.
Neil Buckland
1. In the few fragments of music that survive from ancient Greece, it is only the melody that is written down – see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_system_of_ancient_Greece.
2. Apel, W. (1969). Harvard Dictionary of Music (2nd edition). London: Heinemann
3. More on this in a future blog.
4. “Where words leave off, music begins” – Heinrich Heine; “Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends”― Alphonse de Lamartine; “Music reveals the nature of feelings with a detail and truth that language cannot approach” – S K Langer, Philosophy in a New Key.
5. A recording of an all-amateur community choir, including many people with no musical training and some who could not read music, singing the Hallelujah chorus from Handel’s Messiah with precision and gusto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guRpDByfGvU
6. That is why the analysis of musical form (binary, ternary, rondo, sonata, variation form, etc.) has always been based primarily on “subjects” or “themes” (i.e. melodies).
Sound clip details:
Siciliano for two instruments (played on two clarinets) by Neil Buckland (more info: https://bucklandmusic.com.au/chamber-music/)
Instrumental arrangement of memorable song: Lennon & McCartney, When I’m 64, arranged Neil Buckland for recorder quintet (more info + free score: https://bucklandmusic.com.au/arrangements/)
Mahler symphony: Gustav Mahler, Symphony no.1, 1st movement (orchestra and conductor not identified): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGb14LGomls
Medieval dance: Anon. ‘English Dance’ (Estampie) arranged Neil Buckland for recorder trio or 3 flutes (more info + free score: https://bucklandmusic.com.au/arrangements/)
Classical music of China: ‘Flowing Waters’ played on qin (guqin) by Cai Shan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nuvbtl0jP4
Traditional songs of Australian aboriginal people: (singers and songs not identified): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ID86UIivvk
Gregorian chant: The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNllFdDN5P8
Bach fugue: JS Bach, ‘Little’ Fugue in G minor BWV578, arranged Neil Buckland for wind quintet (more info + free score: https://bucklandmusic.com.au/arrangements/)
Leave A Comment