When I went to bed last night with only one response to my post, I was beginning to think that nobody on Mudcat really cared much about melody, just the words. So when I fired up my computer this morning I was pleasantly surprised. Many interesting comments.

I asked several questions but tried not to give my own bias. So I guess I should answer some of my own questions. I confess I'm one of those people who probably listen more to the melody than the words of a song. That is probably because I am an instrumentalist and play a lot of tunes on my fiddle. But I am also a singer, and so the words are also important. I think it is important that the melody allows the words to be understood and have meaning.

Melody is not only a sequence of notes, but it also has rhythm - the notes have different time values and there are sometimes silences between notes. So when I try to put some words to music I first think of the rhythm. Is it a waltz, or 4/4 time, or a jig in 6/8 time. The words want to be spoken to a certain rhythm.

My songwriting experience has been to put other people's words to music. I've often seen lyrics to a song without any tune (happens on the Mudcat most of the time) and if I like the words, I set them to my own music. Most often the words seem to demand a certain melody. I just start to read the words and then I'm singing and I have no idea where the melody has come from. Then I quickly have to write something down before I forget the melody that just popped into my head. And of course I have to work on it to get the whole form and to match the melody to what the words are saying.

I've also written a few instrumental tunes. In those cases the tune just popped into my head and begged to be written down. I've never thought about writting a tune, rather the tune came to me without thinking about it. I have no idea where these melodies come from.

I don't think you have to be a trained musician to write tunes. It probably requires some inate skills. Muscial training can help. But also lots of listening helps. Listen to good music, but also listen to the world around you - wind, birds, water, people's speech (some language is very musical).

I favor composing new melodies rather than recycling old ones. After all, without new melodies one would get tired of the same old ones over and over again. And as Mary said, "each song deserves it's own tune."

Anyway, keep your comments coming. This is all very interesting. I'm still trying to understand what melody in song is all about.

Cheers, S. in Seattle