The section of the arch that goes up gradually in pitch will somehow increase the tension of that section of the piece. The arch contour is very useful in creating tension and releasing the tension in the music.
Basically, the pitch of the notes in the melodic line goes up and later down. What matters is going up and coming down the melody line and not the exact points of the arch. Also, the note at the starting point of the arch and the one at the final point of the arch do not have to be on the same pitch. Moreover, the arch contour does not necessarily need to be symmetrical. In arch melodic contour, the highest note is usually somewhere near halfway point of the melody. And as it reached the high point of the pitch, it started coming down again. This is from a lower pitch to a high pitch. And at that highest pitch, the melody gradually comes down.Īs shown in the diagram above, the notes of the melody line of the piece started on * and gradually go up the pitch to the *. The highest pitch can actually be the midpoint of the melody. The arch contour occurs when a melody starts from a particular pitch and gradually rises to the highest pitch. When we start putting two or more of these together, we will come up with a melodic contour pattern. Also, the notes can be moved down in three ways: step-wise, skip-wise, or with a leap. As the pitches are going down, the melody is also getting lower. This movement is also known as horizontal movement.ĭescending: The notes are going down to the lower pitches. Repeated: The notes continue at the same pitch, and the pitches are just the same as the melody. The notes can be moved up in three ways: step-wise, skip-wise, or with a leap. These are known as ascending, repeated (or steady), and descending, respectively.Īscending: If the pitches are going up, this means that the notes of the melody are going higher. Typically, melody can move up or down or remain on the same plane, either at a higher pitch, a middle pitch, or a lower pitch. Some notes in the melody ascend or descend, while some stay at the same level of pitch or move in a repeated style. In this section, we will discuss the directions in which the melody moves.
The way melodies move has already been discussed in melodic motion, which is all about step, skip, and leap. The notes that make up the melody move in different ways and directions. Melodic contour is used to describe the tonal movement and direction of the melody. These shapes, called melodic contours, are in different basic patterns and defined shapes. This is a very interesting term to know.īasically, every good melody will have a distinct shape that can be used to describe it. “Melodic contour” is one of the terms used to describe the characteristics of the melody. This creates a pattern called a melodic contour that defines the shape of the melody. This direction is generally known as a melodic motion. This is very obvious because notes go up and down in a particular direction from the start to the end of a melody. Specifically, the shape of every melody is visible with the right notation on the music sheet. We will see some examples of that later in this article. The resultant shape is a melodic contour and is a visual representation of the melody. It also carved out the shape formed by linking the pitches together. The pitches here are all the pitches that make up the melody from the beginning to the end. The ascending and descending of pitches gives every good melody its expressive power.Īctually, the melodic contour is formed by linking every pitch, high or low, together. This happens in relation to their pitches without regard to the duration of the actual notes. But, the first thing we will do is to answer the question, “What is melodic contour?”Ī melodic contour is formed by the ascending and descending movement of tones. We will also discuss possible melodic contour patterns that we can have. In this article, we will take an in-depth look at the melodic contour. The unique contours they create also make them unique. In fact, most of the melodies we know can be dignified by their movements. This shape is a kind of visual representation of a melody called a melodic contour.Ī melodic contour is the shape of a melody formed from the pattern created by the up and down movement of notes in a melody. The most noticeable example is the succession of high and low-pitched notes.Ī shape is usually formed from the up and down movement of these different pitches. This is normally done by rhythmically combining different notes. The pitch is the higher or lower sound that every musical note would make.ĭifferent pitches, high and low, are generally used to create a melody.
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