98 Par t 3:Tunes
A four-measure melody in the key of G, which hovers around the third of the scale (B).What you want to avoid is having each measure of your melody center around
a different pitch. If your melody wanders around in this type of fashion, with
no central core, you won’t know how to end the melody—you won’t know
where home is.Make Sure You End Up at Home
Many of the most memorable melodies use the home pitch to lend logic to the
melodic flow. In fact, it’s good if your audience can listen to part of your melody
and, based on the prominence of the home note, hum the end of the melody
before they ever hear it.
When you don’t end your melody on the expected note, you create an unre-
solved tension that can be unsettling to listeners. Although it’s okay to insert
that kind of tension in the middle of your melody, you don’t want to end with
that kind of tension. You want to resolve your melody so that there’s a feeling
of completion at the end.
What you want to avoid is a melody that wanders around aimlessly. Let your
ear be your guide. Play over the melody and see if it holds together. It’s a little
bit like writing a good paragraph or a good stanza of a poem; when you’re fin-
ished, the best thing to do is to read it aloud and see if it really works.The wrong way to do it—you don’t want to end your melody with unresolved tension.Stay Within the Scale
When you’re picking the specific notes for your melody, it’s good to pick a par-
ticular scale—and stay within the seven notes of that scale. For example, if you
decide to write in the key of F Major, your melody will include the notes F, G,A, B, C, D, and E. Used properly, none of these notes will sound out of place.
A melody that uses the F Major scale.