My Melody, Miffy

In music, a melody, also tune, voice, or line, is a series of linear events or a succession, not a simultaneity as in a chord (see harmony). more...

Home
Building Toys
Classic Toys
Educational
Electronic, Battery, Wind-Up
Model RR, Trains
Models, Kits
Outdoor Toys, Structures
Pretend Play, Preschool
Puzzles
Radio Control
Robots, Monsters, Space Toys
Stuffed Animals
TV, Movie, Character Toys
Alf
Arthur
Barney
Batman
Bear in the Big Blue House
BeyBlade
Big Comfy Couch
Blues Clues
Bob the Builder
Caillou
California Raisins
Clifford the Big Red Dog
Curious George
Digimon
Disney
Dora the Explorer
Dr. Seuss
Dragon Tales
DragonBall Z
Dukes of Hazzard
ET Extra Terrestrial
Fairly Odd Parents
Family Guy
Flintstones
Futurama
Garfield
Gumby
Hamtaro
Harry Potter
Hello Kitty
Howdy Doody
Invader Zim
Jay Jay the Jet Plane
Jimmy Neutron
Lamb Chop, Shari Lewis
Land Before Time
Lost in Space
Maisy
Munsters
Muppets, Sesame Street
My Little Pony
My Melody, Miffy
Noddy
Other
Peanuts Gang
Pee-Wee Herman
Pokemon
Popeye
Popples
Powerpuff Girls
Rocky & Bullwinkle
Rudolph
Rugrats
Scooby-Doo
Simpsons
Smurfs
South Park
Speed Racer
Spider-Man
Spirit
SpongeBob Squarepants
Strawberry Shortcake
Teletubbies
Theodore Tugboat
Thomas the Tank Engine
Three Stooges
Veggie Tales
Warner Bros.
Wiggles
Winnie the Pooh
Toy Soldiers
Vintage, Antique Toys

However, this succession must contain change of some kind and be perceived as a single entity (possibly Gestalt) to be called a melody. Most specifically this includes patterns of changing pitches and durations, while most generally it includes any interacting patterns of changing events or quality. "Melody IS said to result where there are interacting patterns of changing events occurring in time."

Change is necessary for events "to be understood as related or unrelated." Melodies often consist of one or more musical phrases, 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 conjuct or disjunct or with further restrictions), pitch range, tension and release, continuity and coherence, cadence, and shape. "Many extant explanations confine us to specific stylistic models, and they are too exclusive."

What melody does

In the more specific definition, applicable to the common practice period and popular music, melody may be contrasted with the accompaniment or the harmony it provides. As accompaniment implies, the melody is understood to be the focus of attention, with other parts providing background.

"The continuity and diegetic function of almost all vocal melody draw us along the linear thread of the song's syntagmatic structure, producing a 'point of perspective' from which the otherwise disparate parts of the musical texture can be placed within a coherent 'image'". In other words, a vocal melody line tells a story or narrative over the musical form, uniting and placing in context the various parts vertically and/or rhythmically.

Elements

"The essential elements of any melody are duration, pitch, and quality ."

The melodies in most European music written before the 20th century features recurring "events, often periodic, at all structural levels" and "recurrance of durations and patterns of durations" are also important in 20th century music.

While in the 20th century pitch includes "those aspects of sound that are classed as having higness or lowness" earlier music included almost exclusively sounds having "fixed and easily discernible frequency patterns" and composers have "utilized a greater variety of pitch resources than has been the custom in any other historical period of Western music." While materials from the diatonic scale are still used, the twelve-tone scale became "widely employed."

Read more at Wikipedia.org