11/1/25 - Analysis Series #5: The Need-To-Know About Melody
- john koenig
- Nov 1, 2025
- 4 min read
I didn’t consciously plan my approach to the order in which I approached discussing the elements of music, but it seems apt to end this little intro series by discussing melody. As I’ve contemplated melody, I become increasingly convinced that it is the most paradoxical of the musical elements. Ask anyone to sing a familiar melody to you, and they probably can (albeit out of tune, but you get the picture). However, if you ask someone what a melody is, let alone what makes a good one, they’ll probably be at a loss for words.
Simply put, for me, a melody is one of the most memorable parts of a piece of music. If you imagine a piece of music as an entire person, the melody would be the face. It’s the part of the song that makes us say “ah yea – I know you!” Different pieces of music can share harmony, orchestrations, and rhythms and maintain some sense of autonomy. Conversely, if two pieces of music share a melody and share little else, they will still sound eerily similar. But, again, what exactly is the melody?
Some people would describe the melody as the tune of a piece of music, and this is certainly a good place to start. In vocal music, the melody is the part that has the words. Often an accompaniment will play the melody wordlessly, and it is still the melody, but if you want to pick out the melody in a piece featuring a vocalist, the part the vocalist is singing is most commonly the melody. Easy enough for vocal music, but what about purely instrumental music?
It can sometimes be harder to identify the melody in purely instrumental music, and our sensitivity to the melody often depends on who the composer is. Take Mozart and Beethoven for example. Mozart, while highly innovative in several genres, arguably left his biggest mark on opera, a highly vocal and melodic genre. This sensitivity for operatic writing often infects his instrumental pieces in the form of melodies. This is why it is often easy to add lyrics to Mozart’s instrumental works. Take a listen to his wildly famous Symphony no. 40 in G minor K. 550. Often, people will remember the first melody in this piece by singing the words “it’s a bird, it’s a plane, no it’s Mozart.” Most all of Mozart’s instrumental works have highly vocal, highly memorable melodies.
Beethoven, on the other hand, often struggled to craft memorable tunes. His music is filled with shorter melodies which are often called themes or motives (or motifs). People fight about the differences between these terms, but, honestly, they’re all kind of the same thing (take my doctorate away). Think of some of Beethoven’s most famous pieces; the fifth Symphony, opus 67, for example. If you were to put words with the “melody” it would probably just be “Beethoven’s fifth!” the entire time. Or take Für Elise (work without opus [Werke ohne Opuszahl] 59). The main melody of that tune is arguably just the two alternating notes, E and D# (ok, add the B, D, C, A…fine that melody is still only a fraction of the length and notes of a Mozart melody).
So, does a melody need to be long to really be a melody? Or can a melody just be a handful of notes? Yes and yes. I believe the answer depends on how catchy or memorable the tune is. But does a piece of music always need to have a melody? Actually…no. There are some pieces that are more atmospheric and, as a result, amelodic. But they often still have tangible guideposts that help us get a sense of the form. It’s like seeing a person without a face. They may not be instantly recognizable, but you find other ways to remember who that person is. The music of the Tristan Murail and Gérard Grisey often falls into this category as does some of the music of John Cage and other late-20th-Century avante-garde composers.
So, what is a melody? To say it’s the tune is a bit of a cop-out, but I really think that’s all that can be said definitively. I can’t speak more to melody in general, but we will learn a lot by looking at some specific ones soon. But when describing good melodies, I think it is best to paraphrase Justice Potter Stewart’s 1964 threshold for obscenity, “We know them when we hear them.”
J. S. Bach, Prelude in C, no. 1 from the Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1, Glenn Gould, piano:
Charles Gounod, Ave Maria, CG 89a, Renée Fleming, soprano:
W. A. Mozart, Symphony no. 40 in G minor, K. 550, I. Molto Allegro, London Symphony Orchestra, Claudio Abbado, conductor:
L. van Beethoven, Symphony no. 5 in C minor, op. 67, I. Allegro con Brio, Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, conductor:
Tristan Murail, Estuaire: I. Pres de rives, Marilyn Nonken, piano:
Gérard Grisey, Partiels for 18 Musicians, Akso Ensemble:
John Cage, First Construction (in Metal), The Donald Knaack Percussion Ensemble:
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