How To Find A Melody In A Song

Question: I was wondering if there is a fox to figuring out the melody line on a score. Is it always the top notes? What happens when it goes to the left hand? Is there something you are looking for that tells you, or exercise you lot take to listen for it? Thank you for your help.

– Barb (Peoria, Arizona, USA)

Albert'due south respond: You need to know each vocalization in every piece of music you lot play, not just the melody. When you do, yous will hands find the tune. It's true that the melody is normally the soprano vocalization, though it's oft placed in another vocalization. I recommend playing a lot of Bach so that you learn to hear the melody no matter where it may be.

It'south even more important to know accompanimental voices than melodic voices. The reason is that, while the accessory is generally less of import musically (meaning that it is not emphasized the way the melody is), it'south easy to forget non-melodic voices. This is where yous demand to pay the most attention during your practice.

Hearing the top voice (the soprano) is easy because our ears naturally make out the highest pitches; furthermore, the top vocalisation usually contains the melody. Yet even in music you're familiar with (or think you lot are!), can y'all sing the inner voices? Most piano students have trouble with this exercise. They learn which keys to press only never manage to hear all the notes consciously.

That said by fashion of introduction, how can you notice the tune? The melody is often marked by the direction of the notation stems. The accompaniment voice sometimes coincides with the melody. In this case, the melody notes will normally take stems pointing downwardly as well as upwards. Fifty-fifty though these are the exact aforementioned notes, 1 of them indicates the accompaniment and the other the tune.

Sometimes the melody is in the bass voice. There's a wonderful instance in Beethoven'south "Eroica" Variations. This is a work for piano based on themes from Beethoven'due south "Eroica" Symphony for orchestra. In i section, Beethoven places the theme in the bass vocalisation:

Many pianists, expecting the melody to be in the upper vocalisation, emphasize the top notes in the left hand. Notwithstanding, the theme is in the lowest vocalization, and this requires emphasizing the bass voice:

You should become into the habit of playing the voices separately, but as it is important to practise easily separately. Before you play each vox on the pianoforte, try singing it using the solfège syllables. Odds are you will take been practicing a piece, ofttimes for weeks or even months, but you won't be able to sing the inner voices! In other words, you have heard each note only never actually – i.e., actively – listened to it. This comes as quite a daze to nearly students. It ought to motivate you to pay very close attention to the audio of each annotation, not just to which fingers play which key.

To summarize, when yous know each vocalism, finding the melody will exist a cinch. You'll besides automatically exist a better player since you'll be able to shape each vocalisation individually and in combination with each other.