@althealligator1467

1 year ago

I've been thinking about this type of thing a lot. A melody isn't really an absolute "object" but rather something that is perceived; which means it is also possible not to perceive a melody that is theoretically there.

A melody is really the illusion of movement from one note to the next, which sometimes is not really an illusion when played on one instrument with glissandos, but that's not the case most of the time. But isn't it strange how we don't tend to really perceive a main melody if any melody at all when a guitar is strumming chords, when it is playing sequences of notes that could all be perceived as individual melodies? Well it seems specific things facilitate the illusion of melody:
- if the notes are played with similar timbre, i.e. on the same instrument.
- if the notes are close together. The more conjunct a melody is, the easier it is to perceive.
- if it stands out from the rest of the arrangement, using whatever parameter, volume, timbre, even its position in stereo, or just being the only melody really being played. You'll notice that the denser a contrapuntal texture, the more melodies it has at once, the more difficult it becomes to hear every single melody or perceive one as the main focus over all the others.
- if the listener is made to focus on a specific melody, maybe because it was an instruction given to them or because it's a recognizable motif.

But again, your perception of a melody is certainly not an absolute, and you can miss a melody entirely or even perceive a melody that wasn't intended but the composer/arranger. There are many instances where I'd always perceived something as an intrinsic part of a melody on certain recordings that it turns out was clearly not intended as one melody but different parts of the arrangement. This might be a poor example because it might have been intentional, but my whole life hearing this song https://youtu.be/GId0jXiTOWE?si=IshFiQ_rjvDonlVH , I'd never noticed that the melody in the chorus was actually a two part counterpoint between strings and brass until I listened to it in stereo one day.

Furthermore, if you try to focus on specific notes in the chords that a guitar is strumming, you can hear each individual melody. But when nothing is done to make any of these potential melodies stand out and you have so many of them, they tend to be perceived as harmony without melody, which is actually quite a useful tool.

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