dissecting music

In the last article, we devised some kind of checklist that can be used to clarify, with what type of situation one is dealing with and how to cope with it. The skills needed for that have been elaborated on in further articles or will be soon. I mentioned strong and weak beats several time, so let’s have a look at this now.

The basics of good voice leading

First of all, we have to really understand what a measure of music means. For a solid understanding of this you can read the Introduction to Rhythm. The strongest beat of a measure is always the first one. Not because it might mark the beginning of a new chord being played, but rather because it has the power of concluding the one played last. This has to do with functional harmony, but also with voice leading, which is an important topic, we’ll take a first glance at now. In simple terms: Melodies and Harmonies tend to resolve on the first beat of a measure. All the remaining space after that first beat should already be seen as the preparation for the first beat of the next measure. This is the key of having a fluent sounding melody, as the attention lies on the connections between the individual measures, as opposed to lying on the measures themselves. A less refined method would be, to compose bits for every measure individually and make them fit to the harmony that is being envisioned (or actually played), with the method explained in Part I. While it would technically sound right and harmonically correct, it may also seem mechanical and dislocated. Playing “correct” notes alone doesnt make a good solo. What makes one are interconnected ideas that develop from measure to measure and work together to tell a story. This is where voice leading plays an important role.

So, the most important beat of a measure is the first one, as it concludes the preparations made for it in the preceding measure – therefore we call it the strongest beat.

• Beat number 1 is the strongest resolution beat

You should read some Hal Galper if you want to know more about this.

With the importance of the first beat made clear, what should be played on it? The answer is chord tones. If the melody note matches an important note of the chord being played in the harmony, our brains will be able to associate it – the note will have a context and make sense. But when it comes to playing melodies, there is more to it than that. A chord can be defined by using the chord tones, very clearly indeed, if we stick to the most important ones. But music shouldnt always be obvious – in fact, good music plays with the listeners expectations. Also, chords will mostly be voiced in a way that clearly shows what note the root is. This is usually also made apparent through voice leading, which makes playing the root on the strong beat not really that important – it might in some cases even sound trivial and boring. Therefore, the most important notes to define a chord are not necessarily the most important for melodies – finding the right ones for those purposes is really situational.

In general, you should aim for a good balance. And like I said, just using chord tones without connecting them is a brute force approach, that lacks the basic amount of subtility one needs for compelling music more often than not. So, I once again have to direct our attention onto the importance of voice leading. For that purpose, I’d recommend taking a look on the concept of Outlines. They act as a basic framework, one can use to connect melodic lines and expand on them.

If there is no harmony, using chord tones in your melodies will give the listener all the context he needs to emulate the chords in his head. If you do this while using good voice leading, it will actually make the melody sound like it wants to move in a direction, which creates interest – which is good. A strong melody doesnt need chords playing in the background – it will evoke them in the listeners head. These are the tunes that will stick in your head and this is one major aspect of your craft, you should be aiming for.

What other beats are important?

Once again I have to emphasize that this relies to a certain degree on rhythm. If you’re not familiar with subdivions, read up on it here. By dividing the measure into smaller pieces, you’ll get the next strongest beats. Doing this once, yields the second half note in the measure (We are speaking about 4/4 now). The same rules apply – placing an important chord tone here, will give the listeners brain more context. Using a note that helps the melody hit a chord tone on the next resolution beat, will make the melody line coherent. If we repeat the process and split our half note in two, quarter beats number 2 and 4 of our measure would follow. Quarter beat three is stronger than those, as it is identical in time with the second half note beat. Theoretically this game could be continued, but for most purposes this is sufficient. By dividing the 4 quarters into eight notes we’d get 4 offbeats, the “ands”. Those are the notes we can get really creative with. For those purposes, check out Heresy fun-time with Cantus Firmus, an article that expands on what we just talked about, using an old technique developed by monks.

The equal division of a measure of 4/4, for the purpose of strong and weak beat analyis works fine for a lot of musical styles like, for instance, swing or Rock n’ Roll. But it is important to note that this may differ in other styles of music. Many latin rhythms emphasize offbeats and make those strong beats. Use this article as reference if you happen to dabble into other rhythms.

I am aware, that this article didnt feature a lot to actually do. Just like Part I, it is rather ment to provide an overview of the skills needed to progress in the discipline of melody. Use the links to the other articles to learn individual skills, and try bringing them together in your music, using the introductory articles like this one as guides. While some of the stuff is pretty basic, we have also been dealing with some serious theory, that will prove tremendously useful in the long run. Thanks for sticking with me.

In the final introductory article on melody we will try to build a framework for the guitar, that can be used to incorporate all the other stuff that is being taught here. This framework can be of use for other instruments as well, but really works wonders when it comes to understanding the fretboard.