Song/ Melody Parts

Subject: RE: Song/ Melody Parts
From: Stewart
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 06:37 PM

In a song with only one melody part I often find it boring to hear that same 8-bar melody repeat, verse after verse. If I don't know the B part of the melody, I will often compose a B part, either for the chorus or to alternate between verses. B parts are easy to compose as they are sort of turn-arounds to the A part.

There's often a structural relation between dance tunes - 8 bars of the A part, often repeated, followed by 8 bars of the B part, again repeated - and song melodies. Not surprising since dance tunes were/are often used for song melodies. That 8-bar phrasing seems most natural. Of course there are also "crooked tunes" with a measure added or subtracted, or changing time signatures.

A little music theory can't hurt - just makes things more interesting.

Cheers, S. in Seattle

Subject: RE: Song/ Melody Parts
From: Tootler
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 06:01 PM

If you are setting a song to an existing tune, it seems perfectly acceptable to just use the A part if the song fits.

If the song has a chorus, there are two possibilities. Either you can use the B music for the chorus or you can simply use the A music throughout. Both are valid choices.

Being unaware of musical structures does limit choices, but is not fatal. If you write a song and find a tune you like and it fits your song, then the fact that you have only used one section of the tune is not necessarily a fault, it is just that the writer was unaware that they had a choice.

However it is very useful to learn about musical form and it does enable you to make decisions with an awareness of the choices you have available.

Subject: RE: Song/ Melody Parts
From: Acorn4
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 01:06 PM

I heard "Willie McBride" to the tune of "Fiddlers' Green" a while back.

Subject: RE: Song/ Melody Parts
From: greg stephens
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 12:51 PM

One of the most famous gems of the great wealth of English folksong is Brigg Fair as sung by Joseph Taylor. Now, anybody hearing that will quickly become aware that what he is singing is obviously the second part of a tune, he's forgotten(or never known) the first!

Subject: RE: Song/ Melody Parts
From: GUEST,Johnmc
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 12:30 PM

In my experience, sessions in pubs draw in many sorts; however, people have often approached me for info or material and either of these things happen:

- they are never seen again, never mind the following week, or

- they show little subsequent interest after you bring the stuff.

Conclusion ? What do you get mostly in pubs? Ans: people who have had a drink.

No blame is to be attached, but I hope I have shed such illusions.

Subject: RE: Song/ Melody Parts
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 12:23 PM

Talking of ignorance, is that a dance tune rather than a song tune? It's quite in order for a song tune to have an A part and nothing else. If someone makes a song, they might decided only to use part of an existing tune.

As long as it's clear you mean ignorant in its literal sense you're on safe ground; if it's clear you mean the "bad manners" sense, that's fighting talk!

BTW, slight digression ... There's a very entertaining story by the writer Saki involving a little boy singing On the road to Mandalay, and that line is all he knows. You'll probably find it on-line somewhere.

Subject: Song/ Melody Parts
From: Mr Happy
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 12:02 PM

At a sesh last night, a guy sang a song using the tune of Wreck Edmund Fitzgerald/Back Home in Derry.

He kept doing the 'A' part over & over,completely missing out the 'B'part & seeming oblivious to this deficit.

When he'd finished. I pointed this out & my impression then was that he was ignorant of tune structures.

Now using the term ignorant can sound arrogant/ big headed but I'm not meaning he's stupid or anything, merely he'd not been taught or learned about this concept.

Also, some of the others around who'd heard what I'd said were also unaware of these structures, therefore I feel this element of music technology may be missing from tutelage/ music learning literature.

What think you?