While it always felt intuitive to write melody that is appropriate for a given situation, sometimes it’s hard for me to know why certain melodies seemed to work. Before this topic was presented in the lecture, I had only really encountered tension and release in relation to harmony, so while in hindsight it seems obvious, I hadn’t considered the effect melodic phrasing would have on building and releasing tension, with the presence of instability that is caused by unstable colour tones6. I decided to analyse the United States’ Marines Hymn to understand how a melody is characterised as “anthemic” – discovering that the tune’s strong resolutions, stationery melodies and conjunct motion are all contributing factors towards that.
6 Habel, Robyn. “Melody – Part 1”. Lecture presented at the course Song Writing and Performance 1A, University of Adelaide, April 1, 2019.
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