# Poor Melody



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

In many instances, (good/catchy) melody is considered to be at best irrelevant to a composition's quality, at worst a kind of populism and cheapness.

This hasn't always been true throughout history, though - a great many composers are called "lyrical" without it being a back-handed compliment. When did melody start to become considered a lesser musical quality in comparison with harmony, structure, and all the other crap?


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

I have no idea. For me, composing a catchy melody seems to be the most difficult part of the process, requiring the most skill, talent, intuition, etc.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

For me it depends, there is a difference between bad catchy melodies and good catchy melodies. A bad catchy melody to me would be a really boring four square phrase with a really basic I-V-V-I pattern. Especially if this pattern repeats for quite a long time.

However, the soaring, winding beautiful melody that starts the beginning of Tchaikovsky's 1st piano concerto is a catchy melody that's also very good. 

So for me I guess it depends on how well handled the phrases are and how interesting the harmony is underneath. We tend to think of the three or four components of music as separate things, but they really are intrinsically connected in many ways.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I'll answer you in two ways, if you like, first with reference to my hobby horse of ideology, and then with just what I think is commonsense -



Polednice said:


> ... When did melody start to become considered a lesser musical quality in comparison with harmony, structure, and all the other crap?


1. I don't know when, but melody was kind of a no-no in the immediate post-1945 period. A lot of the generation who had lived through the war and seen how melodies could be used to manipulate the masses in Nazi Germany kind of developed an idea that melody = manipulation = not good intentions, not to be trusted. So serialism became the craze, but ended up as a dead end. Of course, many did compose non-serial music (or not "total" serial) but they were left out in the cold or just did their own thing without giving a damn about the various cliques. Various things were going on, eg. neo-classicism and neo-romanticism still maintained emphasis on strong melodies, but so did minimalism which was to come in the late 1960's, first in the USA & UK, then in mainland Europe.

2. I think melody goes together with harmony and structure and stuff as you say. Of course, some traditions valued melody more than the other things. I think esp. the Italians, eg. I'm listening to some of Boccherini's music lately, & he isn't really interested in counterpoint that much, but more on melody and his structures are more freer than say the Austro-German guys of his day. His over 100 quintets come in various forms, some have 2 movements, others 3, 4 or 5, etc. I think his harmonies are also very light and Mediterranean, Italian & Spanish. So I think guys like him did value melody more, but it doesn't mean they weren't interested in structure or harmony, it's just that they were creative & did things their own way. Same with today, some current Australian composers' music is quite melodic, modern tonal, eg. Matthew Hindson, Graham Koehne, Ross Edwards & the elder statesman Peter Sculthorpe (though he went through an earlier more experimental phase). Other current Aussies like Brett Deane & Philip Houghton are more "atonal" and not as much interested in melody, or they have fragmented melodies...


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Hang in there reading this post, I think my point in all this rambling is to be found in the single sentence fourth paragraph.

There are certain works that I've come to really "feel" and enjoy that lack conventional melody, and I am rather unabashedly proud that I know these works so intimately when so few others seem to, and thus it gives me something to recommend to people(this is an oversimplification that will be elaborated upon non sequentially throughout this post). There is a hint of vanity and shallowness to this business, but the means justify the end in my opinion, as I'm devoting my time to appreciate a great work. And in reality, it was not vanity/compulsion that was my fuel for getting to know these works so much as curiosity, but that is a tangent. 

Moving on, perhaps "experienced" listeners of classical music enjoy a challenge and they enjoy having unique tastes, and the "public" generally can easily digest and thus has heard of most of the great melodies in classical music, but it really does take a more dedicated listener to enjoy the works that aren't as melodic, further removed from their original roots in folk and pop songs. There's a certain wine taster snobbiness when it comes to harmonies and architecture because we have the satisfaction that most people don't get it, but that isn't necessarily how we started off, my motive was not wholly to acquire superior taste in music to the average person, but it was, I can honestly say, mostly just curiosity and an insatiable appetite. I was off put very much by this attitude at first, but gradually, my desire to break new territory and natural curiosity led me to find other ways to enjoy music anyway, and now I'm sitting on the other side of the fence that I found so pretentious at first, but not for as vain of reasons as one might suspect. And naturally, it goes to suppose that others undertook a similar journey. Then we get snobby I suppose, as we see the melody as the beginning of our journey. 

So in conclusion, perhaps the melody is looked down on because many experienced listeners don't reflect enough to remember the good old times that had before their curiosity took them to more esoteric places.

But I agree with KC, I have always been in awe of a composer who can produce a great melody, it seems to require an unfathomable quality of intuition and inspiration. 

Anyway, I hope this adds to the discussion, I feel like there is more I want to say on this topic, but I'll get this out there.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Melody can be nice but theme and variation is probably more important. Beethoven or Haydn were not that great/born to write catchy melodies but relied on theme and variation. My guess would probably be late Classical, to answer Poledince's question as far as intrumental music was concerned? 

With opera, it has always been relatively more valued to retain a few catchy melodies for folks to whistle to. Verdi, Puccini etc. though there are of course exceptions, say Wagner.


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

I'm afraid that, especially to the masses, it has always been what catches the ear.


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## graaf (Dec 12, 2009)

Polednice said:


> In many instances, (good/catchy) melody is considered to be at best irrelevant to a composition's quality, at worst a kind of populism and cheapness.
> 
> This hasn't always been true throughout history, though - a great many composers are called "lyrical" without it being a back-handed compliment. When did melody start to become considered a lesser musical quality in comparison with harmony, structure, and all the other crap?


Nice to see someone to call out "all the other crap", and emphasize the importance of melody.

As you said - sometimes even decent melody is enough for music to be called cheap, on the other hand it's equally easy to call music without decent melody, but filled with structure, counterpoint "and all the other crap" a mere intellectual... self-pleasure (hope censors are OK with this euphemism). As Couchie said, and I agreed, it can even be a substitute for other, purely intellectual, disciplines. I remember reading a book on musical theory which emphasized that, after all, music remains an art, not a science. Thus, I like to stick to the quote by Debussy, that I had as a signature for a while, that says: _There is no theory. You have only to listen. Pleasure is the law_. I respect all of the theory as a mean to an end, but it seems tome that theory is too often used as a goal, instead of being one of the means to a goal.

TLDR: If I wanted melody without structure, counterpoint, variations and such, I wouldn't be listening to classical music in the first place. But I simply don't need structure, counterpoint, variations on a lousy a melody - when I need dry intellectual stimuli I can find it in other things, tyvm.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

kv466 said:


> I'm afraid that, especially to the masses, it has always been what catches the ear.


oooh awkward....


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^That's the scene I most remember from _Amadeus_. It's as memorable as Mozart's "toons!" ...


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

Sid James said:


> ^^That's the scene I most remember from _Amadeus_. It's as memorable as Mozart's "toons!" ...


Yeah,...I've been trying to figure out what so 'awkward' about it. Love your new siggy, Sid.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

kv466 said:


> Yeah,...I've been trying to figure out what so 'awkward' about it. Love your new siggy, Sid.


Its awkward because the priest guy doesn't know any of Salieri's tunes but he remembers Mozart's music in front of Mozart's rival.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

HELLO

I'M GOING TO WRITE SOMETHING

MAY I



> With opera, it has always been relatively more valued to retain a few catchy melodies for folks to whistle to. Verdi, Puccini etc. though there are of course exceptions, say Wagner.


How wrong. What kind of exception is Wagner? As someone who grew on Italian tradition he never underestimated melody and his works are full of great tunes. Here is a quote of his showing how important he considered melody to be:

_Music has taken a bad turn; these young people have no idea how to write a melody, they just give us shavings, which they dress up to look like a lion's mane and shake at us. It's as if they avoid melodies, for fear of having perhaps stolen them from someone else._

It's from his wife's memories so some could say that it's unsure source and it is not certain if he truely did make such statement. Och, well.

The true culprit is Debussy. Take his P&M - even Richard Strauss (who despite writing couple of beautiful melodies can't be considered the man of good tunes) was repulsed by it's amelodic quality. He was the first one to be great composer who didn't write great melodies and next generations which he influenced brought us many composers who neither wrote great melodies nor were great. Schoenberg and his school can be blamed to much lesser extent, I don't think their unfluence was so destructive in this matter. The melody was somehow brought back to favor in times of Prokofiev and Shostakovich but these fellows wrote mostly one of two kind of tunes: lucid but annoying melodies and bland melodies.

There is great gap in line of great melodists between Tchaikovsky and me.


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

'Appy 'Arry! Glad to see ya again!


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Aramis said:


> There is great gap in line of great melodists between Tchaikovsky and me.


And me someday.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

What's melodious is often in the ear of the listener. Back in the 19th century, many critics ,composers and listeners complained that Wagner's music was "devoid" of melody !
Rossini is probably the best-known of these. Yet Wagner's music is chock-full of memorable ones ! 
Today, Elliott Carter's music,for example, makes Schoenberg's sound positively melodious ! And yes, there are most definitely recognizable themes in Schoenberg's music, even if not the kind that are immediately hummable. 
This is not to say that I dislike Carter's music ; just that I find it extremely challenging to listen to. Instead of recognizable themes, at first, his music seems to be a thick welter of 
many different notes ; there is no sense of theme one, theme two, a return to theme one etc. But if you take the time and effort to give his music repeated hearings, it begins to make some sense. 
Carter's music is rather like getting lost in a maze at times. But still, it's very much worth hearing. Probably his most approachable mature work is the Variations for orchestra . Then there are the five string quartets, the piano concerto, and other orchestral works etc. 
His early works, such as the symphony , are more in the populist Copland style, but he devised his own intricate methods of composing beginning in the 1950s with his acclaimed first string quartet.


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## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

I love melody in music. Melody does not equal cheap or simplistic. It is pure and sincere musical expression.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

superhorn said:


> What's melodious is often in the ear of the listener. Back in the 19th century, many critics ,composers and listeners complained that Wagner's music was "devoid" of melody !...


Similar things happened long before. Eg. Monteverdi's _Vespers of 1610 _were frowned upon by some hard conservatives back then for being too dissonant (which is the exact words they used, if I remember correctly). Maybe it was a case of too much melody in Monteverdi's case, too much steamy and passionate emotion, which these hard brick heads said belonged to the world of theatrical music (eg. the then newly emerging opera) not in sacred music. Of course, the naysayers lost out, Monteverdi's masterpiece filled the churches in Italy, & it's done that to this day, as well as spread across the world in concert halls over 500 years later.



> ...
> Today, Elliott Carter's music,for example, makes Schoenberg's sound positively melodious !
> ...


Well, yes Carter does tend to be more fragmented than Schoenberg to my ears as well, but it depends which work. I can follow the journey of the opening theme right through the end of Carter's _String Quartet #1_ (1951) & similarly with his _Violin Concerto _(1980's). His _Piano Sonata _(1948) & _Clarinet Concerto _(1980's) are not too hard to grasp either, at least to some degree. But other things (esp. his orchestral & the other SQ's, esp. 2-4) by him largely allude me, they are ultra-complex (but I still like the sounds in themselves, it's like a jigsaw that I can't put together, but I don't have to put it together to enjoy it, in a way).


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Aramis said:


> ...
> The true culprit is Debussy. Take his P&M - even Richard Strauss (who despite writing couple of beautiful melodies can't be considered the man of good tunes) was repulsed by it's amelodic quality...


Well, some people here in Australia, a third of the people at a concert, left during interval before R. Strauss' _Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings_ came up in the second half. I would say it does have good melodies, repetition of themes, etc. but is in one long 30 minute extended movement and the tonality is ambigious. So _Metamorphosen_ is like the _Pelleas_ of chamber music in a way. But basically if people's minds are stuck in 1900 or whatever, even if you give them reasonably good melodies & repetition, etc., their view of music is so restricted that they can't even take in what is basically a late-Romantic piece with some add-ons like _Metamorphosen_. I'm puzzled by this as it's like 2011 & it was written in about 1946. What's going on there? 



> ...He was the first one to be great composer who didn't write great melodies and next generations which he influenced brought us many composers who neither wrote great melodies nor were great...


I think that's going too far, the other extreme of the post-1945 ultra-progressive ideology/dogma, eg. that tunes were bad. What I see you as saying is that unless something has a "good" or "great" tune, it can't be good/great, or of value, whatever. I don't think this is really balanced.


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

My opinion on melody is that if you can't write a good melody, steal it from someone else! Plagiarism is totally okay!


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## jdavid (Oct 4, 2011)

I think an age old argument is: does harmony come from melody or does melody come from harmony? If you go waaaaay back we know that there were chants, incantations, laments, hymns (to the sun and to Apollo etc.,) and such which were doubtless monophonic. So, melody seems to be the origin. However, if one takes a scientific stance they might say that the natural overtone series suggests harmony as the major chord can be found in the first 5 overtones including the fundamental = octave, 5th, 4th, and then the 3rd. Sequential to be sure (as melodies are), but still interesting to think about. I think some composer's are 'seized by a theme' but I think they understand the harmonic implications simultaneously. Me, I like something I can whistle.


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