Melody is something that speaks to people. It sings, it moves, it has meaning. I was musing over this as I sat with my cello, playing different two-note combinations across the strings as I warmed up my fingers and my ear. While playing, I thought – what am I doing? Listening Feeling Tunig Manipulating the sound …
I was thinking about melodies and the #MUS654 topic of ‘what makes a melody?‘ when I remembered about the lyre bird. No, this is not a veiled political comment, I’m talking purely about a very unique bird that lives in Australia. It is distinct to look at, with its long pluming tail, but the sounds it …
I love the idea of dressing up and why not do this with a melody? There is so much that can be learned from listening to other people and other instruments doing the same things. Today I went did this with Cry me a River. This morning I went in search of people to help …
Thinking about melody, there are a few components that are common to all music – pitch and rhythm. None of the topics in #MUS654 deal distinctly with rhythm, but it is interwoven into everything. Yesterday in my made-up melody example, I used different rhythms to give meaning to the notes. It made me think. There …
Today I decided to take a leaf out of Duane Padilla’s book and follow the example he set for us in the video he made for #MUS654 Session 2 about the difference between a riff and a melody. Duane is an excellent violinist and teacher and he explained it simply, and said that a melody …
Speech, the melodic qualities therein, and a favourite nursery rhyme. Sounds like a #MUS654 task to me! This is my effort at listening to a nursery rhyme – one of my favourite versions of Twinkle twinkle, having an go at notating the speech, and playing it on the cello. I thought about reading one myself, …
In Week 2 of #MUS654 we are thinking of all things melodic. There is birdsong, a spattering of cool riffs, and a discussion on the way a tune gets stuck in our heads. We have a custom made video by Gypsy Jazz violinist Duane Padilla about the components of melody. We read from the historical writings …
It’s a Week 2 update and today I did the task of playing a melody on a new instrument. (It’s not fair if I ask people to do tasks if I’m not prepared to do them myself, right?) So here we go… Last night I decided to play the beginning solo from Black Magic Woman …