If you've followed our last lesson, you now know that there are three major chords that are going to be the focus of our studies. In this lesson, as far as the study of melody goes, we're going to deviate from anything else that's been taught out there up till now. This is where I present to you your first melodic words

Through the magic of math, we are going to transform our original chords into all the possible melodic words we can extract out of them. Math tells us that when you have 3 things, there are only 6 ways you can re-arrange them. That's it. No matter what you do you can't rearrange things more than 6 ways if you have three things.

Each of our chords has three notes, and we can rearrange these 3 notes into our first 6 melodic words for each chord. We're going to call each re-arrangements of notes a variation, calling the original chord Variation 1.

You see below links with the C, F and G chord and their respective variations. Click on the links of the variations so you can start hearing your first melodic words. As you play these I'm sure that some of you will recognize some as beginning of some melodies. To to stop the animation that plays the melodic word, close the box that opens up .

C Chord	Variation 1	Variation 2	Variation 3
	Variation 4	Variation 5	Variation 6

F Chord	Variation 1	Variation 2	Variation 3
	Variation 4	Variation 5	Variation 6

G Chord	Variation 1	Variation 2	Variation 3
	Variation 4	Variation 5	Variation 6

As you listen to these Variations, for now I'm just showing you the succession of notes. By applying a different melodic rhythm to each of those three notes, you personalize the melodic word. Listen to the example below to hear the same word with three different rhythms to hear how different it sounds.

Example 1 Obladi-Oblada

Example 2 Rock Around the Clock

Example 3 Blue Danube

When you write your songs, the melodic rhythm comes from the words of your songs. The melodic rhythm of the words and the setting is what makes the melodic words yours. Click here for a thorough explanation of melodic rhythm. Melodic rhythm is a very strong component of melody writing, so you'll always find a link on top of every page if you need to refresh your understanding.

Putting it all Together:

Throughout this course, you'll see examples that I'll put up to illustrate whatever principles we're working on at any given time. This is the putting it all together part. Now, because were still using primary triads, our melodies aren't going to sound great, but they will illustrate the principles. Until we get into scale segments, we won't have all the tools yet to write really sophisticated melodies. But we'll still write some interesting ones anyway.

Next Page - Instructions