Melody Of A Song – How Is It Made?

Good morning. This is Duane and we’re doing a series called “Good Stuff You Really Ought to Know About Music,” all related to music theory. We’ve talked about the various kinds of scales, and today I’d like to point out the fact…it’s an obvious fact…but I think I didn’t get it for years but the melody of a song is made out of scales or scale fragments or broken chords of some sort.

Today, I’d like to look at songs that are just made out of scales. For example, let me take this blue tune…now, that was pretty awful but it’s made out of just nothing like the blues scale. That’s played over and over again. That’s all there is to it.

If you knows the blues scale, the blues scale uses not only the Major third but it uses a minor third too, and then it uses the flat fifth which, in the key of F, would be C flat. Then it uses a flat seventh. In a blues scale, you’re always looking for a flat third, a flat seventh and sometimes a flat fifth. That particular tune uses all of them.

Now, another tune that uses nothing but the C scale, listen…what tune is that? Did you recognize it? It’s just a C scale, isn’t it, but if I put rhythm in it, we have (playing “Joy to the World”). It’s nothing but the C scale from the top down. If I did it in the key that George Frederick Handel wrote it in, it would be nothing but D scale, right? If I played in E flat, nothing but the E flat scale, and so on.

I just want you to think about that. All songs are made out of scales or scale fragments, or broken chords. It’s breaking up the G chord, isn’t it? You’ve heard many songs that go like that, made out of broken chords. Just three possibilities then: scales, scale fragments, or broken chords.

That’s it, okay? If you enjoy these little music theory tips, come on over to playpiano.com and sign up for our free newsletter. Hope to see you there. Bye-bye for now.

***For lots more good stuff on piano playing come on over to my website at https://www.playpiano.com and sign up for our free piano tips – “Exciting Piano Chords & Sizzling Chord Progressions!”

Here’s a great little book on chords and chord progressions on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Piano-Chords-Chord-Progressions-Exciting-ebook/dp/B0076OUGDE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1404158669&sr=1-1&keywords=piano+chords+duane+shinn

Here is the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHO2c9Nwu1o&feature=youtu.be

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