The Daily Book of Classical Music

DAY 97

MUSIC THEORY

Melody

HUM A FEW BARS

Melody is commonly defined as one pitch or note after another in time. A more purely musical definition: It’s the first thing you think of when a song starts running through your mind.

The above C major scale is a melodic ascending scale, left to right, from C to C, encompassing a range of eight letter-named notes, or an “octave.” To play it, set a metronome to 60 beats per minute and play one note for each beat.

Of course, that doesn’t qualify as a real melody that anyone would remember. A real ...