ELEMENTS IN MUSIC - What is Melody?

What is Melody?

Melody is a series of notes that are place at different pitch creating a tune. When you hear a saxophone playing “Amazing Grace” you will recognize the song because of the tune or melody. A good melody has a beginning, development and an ending. Some important aspects of melody are tonality (the key of the music), intervals, phrasing, articulation and cadence.

A melody is created when notes are assigned one after the other creating movements called intervals. An interval is the distance in pitch between two notes. For example, when an individual sings the major scale (doh, ra, me, fa, soh, lah, te, doh), they are singing from one interval to the next. In other words, “doh” to “ra” and “me” to “fa” are intervals.

In the melody of a song, the distance between some notes can be small while there may be other notes in the song that have a larger distance between them. The smaller distance or intervals are called steps while the larger intervals are called leaps.

Steps are notes that falls immediately next to each other according to pitch. A perfect example of steps are (doh, ra, me, fa, so). Notice that each note falls adjacent to each other (naturally come right after each other in music).

Leaps are any interval larger than a step. For example, (doh, me, so). You should notice that “ra” and “fa” are skipped out of the melody. So therefore, when you move from note to another skipping out one or more tones (notes) it is called a leap.

There are several songs with steps, but one popular song that is dominated by steps is “Mary had a Little Lamb”.

 The notes used for “Mary had a Little Lamb” are naturally beside each other in the musical alphabet.

(When you move from C to D and D to E you are moving in steps)

There are lots of songs that have leaps in them, however you hardly find songs that is composed with only leaps as the melody. But the song “Amazing Grace” has a number of leaps in it. Look at some parts of the melody for a better understanding.

(A number of letters are skipped out in this song, hence forming leaps. Example G to C, E to C and D to high G)

Even though the concept of melody as an element of music is very wide, one can say that melody is a combination of both steps and leaps used at different pitches. And so the way in which we use steps and leaps are very important in musical composition.

Source: Music an Appreciation by Roger Kamien

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BUJU BANTON - UNTOLD STORY - BUJU BANTON GETS 10 YEARS IN PRISON.

Buju Banton’s song “It’s not an easy road” rings in the minds of is fans both in Jamaica and aboard. But looking at the situation he is in, one could say that he is singing his own song to himself today.

It has not been an easy road for Buju Banton over the pass two years. Buju Banton one of Jamaica’s greatest reggae artiste was busted by an informant working under cover for the Drug Enforcement Administration in 2009. Since then, Buju Banton has been on trial for conspiracy to distribute cocaine and the possession of a fire arm.

After the long wait, Judge James Moody read the verdict on June 23, 2011. Buju Banton was sentenced to 10 years in a United States federal prison for his conviction for conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine. Even though Buju Banton is now in prison, only he can tell the real untold story to a number of his fans around the world but his mistakes cost him consequences.

Ten years in prison is a very long time for a musician and artiste. The great stage shows will be missed and he will be missing the greatest reggae show on earth “Reggae Sumfest”. One would wonder and ask these questions; “What will Buju Banton be doing while he is locked away in prison? Will he be able to create some unique musical single like Jah Cure?

Well all will have to wait and see. In ten years time more reggae artiste will be on the local and international seen and so he has a lot of work to do to keep up to date with the music industry. The true is, after ten years he will have to do a lot of work to maintain his reggae status in Jamaica and the rest of the world.

PHOTO CREDIT GIVEN TO:  http://www.bujubanton.net/

Buju Banton was born Mark Anthony Myrie on July 15, 1973, at Salt Lane in Kingston. He started his musical career during the late 1980s and attracts the attention of many Jamaican’s with his deep voice and unique performance style.  During the 1990s Buju Banton’s musical career started to grew rapidly with the release of many great singles.

Some of his hits in the 1990s were;

Love Mi Browning

Love Black Woman

Willy (Don't Be Silly)

Murderer

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Article by: Carlinton Singh

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DJ POWA - "The Bus Can Swim" - This months number 1 music video in Jamaica.

Jamaica has some great musical talents. Todays number one video in Jamaica is "The Bus Can Swim" by DJ Powa. The video was remixed from an original news clip that was done on TVJ Jamaica's number one Tv station. DJ Powa does these musical remixes as an hobbie. However, he is really a gospel disk Jockey .
This unique musical art attracts the attention of about 2.5 million persons in Jamaica. Check it out!

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MUSIC THEORY - Ties and Dots in Music. What does this mean?

The value and beat of a musical note can be affected by several signs and symbols used in music. Two symbols that affect the beats of notes are "Ties and Dots".

What is a Tie?
A tie is a curve line that joins two or more notes of the same pitch. This means that a tie can only join musical notes that are on the same line or in the same space. The notes joined can be in the same bar or in bars that follow each other.

Here are some examples showing how notes are joined together by ties.

(A semibreve joined with a crotchet)


(Two semibreves joined together)


 (Two dotted minims joined together)

When notes are joined by ties the beats of the notes are added creating one sound. In other words the sound is as long as the number of beats for each note when they are added together.
The tie goes from the head of the first note to the head of the next, on the other side.

The illustration above shows a crotchet and a minim joined together by a tie. When both notes are tied together they create one sound lasting as long as 3 beats.

What are dotted notes?

A dotted note is basically a musical note with a dot place immediately after it.

This is what a dotted crotchet looks like.

A dot extends the beat of a note by half the note's value. Therefore a crotchet equals 1 beat but a dotted crotchet equals to 1 1/2 beat. So the purpose of a dot is to make the beat or beats of a note longer.

Here are some examples of other dotted notes. 

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TIMBRE/INSTRUMENTATION: What does the word Timbre means? Timbre ( Pronounce Tamber) an element in music.

Timbre/Instrumentation in Music

Hi! Today we will continue to look at one important element of music.

When ever an individual listen to music they tend to hear the voices or instruments first. This is because voices and instruments are the easiest components to be identified in music. But it does stop there. How can you differentiate male vocals from female vocals? How are you able to say what instruments are used in the music? Well today we are going to find the answer for these two questions and other related questions that one would ask.

We are able to identify the different voices and instruments in music because of the tone colour. Some instruments are rich and thick while some are smooth. Some voices are rough while some are bright. The element in music that has to do with tone colour is “Timbre”.

Timbre (which is pronounced tam’-ber) refers to the quality of sound that differentiate one from another. We are able to identify a trumpet different from a saxophone in music because of the timbre or tone colour of the instrument. When we are asked to give a report on the timbre of a piece of music we are been asked to describe the instrumentation.

Instrumentation includes the wide variety of musical instruments that exist based on an era and culture of the composer. All musical instruments have its purpose and time in music. Some categories of musical instruments are; voice, brass, keyboard, electronic (electrophone), percussion, string and woodwind. Let us look at some category of instruments.

Voice

The human voice is a unique instrument because both words and musical tones are fused together. Male and female has their own unique tone colour whenever they perform. Females are able to sing much higher than males because their vocal cords are shorter and tighter. However, both males and females have a normal pitch range for singing. Take a look at the table below to the natural pitch ranges for male and female.

Musical Instruments

As mentioned earlier, musical instruments are place into different categories based on the way they produce sound. Some instruments are bowed while others are plucked; some musical instruments are blown while others are scrape, hit or shake. In this article we will only look at the musical instruments that make up the orchestra. The Orchestra is a combination of four families or sections of instruments performing a symphony for about 20 to 40 minutes. In this type of performance most of the elements of music are been used (especially the expressive ones). The table below shows the four main families of the orchestra and instruments that are classified to each category.

Source: Roger Kamien - Music An Appreciation - 4th Edition

Other Topics on Elements of Music

The Elements of Music

Rhythm. An Element in Music


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