In an effort to fully understand musical structure and composition, I strive to whittle it down to its essential concepts. Here I briefly consider melody.

I had a composer friend tell me once, with no uncertain pride, that she had never written a melody in her life. Having done post-graduate studies in composition I understand where she's coming from but I also am convinced that it is wrong. Melody is a core concept of music and to ignore this is a suicidal path that most contemporary composers are on.

I believe that only a weak creative mind attempts to reach for something new by ignoring the essential tenets of his art. Music has used melody since time immemorial, so instead of saying "I don't do melody," a composer should strive to understand and use the concept of melody.

So what is the core concept of melody? Melody is a logical succession of pitches.

Yeah. Truthes are always simple and if a core compositional concept doesn't hold to be true then it was not a concept to begin with!

A logical succession of pitches incidicates that the pitches are understood by the listener as belonging together (without the need for scholarly analysis.) This is a psychological need for the listener - the aesthetic experience requires a logical, perceivable order! Everyone should know that Gestalt theory is true explanation of how our brains work, and to ignore the way our brains work is, well, stupidity.

Logical succession is traditionally created in various ways: motives, motivic development, repetition, formal sections etc. But this important tenet can be followed in a myriad of other ways, perhaps only limited by the imagination of the composer. Melodies can mean much, much, much more than a hummable folk tune!

Is a Charlie Parker solo a melody? Hell yes!

Yet, this crucial tenet is often ignored in favour of obscure, indecipherable pitch structures and processes that completely ignore how music is perceived. You don't need a freakin' course in music cognition or psychology to know that if you can't hear it, it's not there!