GCSE MUSIC - TEXTURE AND MELODY

• Parts interweave, different melodies together. 

• Where on instrument or voice copies another within the texture. Sometimes only the first few notes are the same.

All parts identical. Single melody line.

Slightly differentfrom unison, where parts are a noctabe apart

• As it sounds. The texture features a melody with everything else acting as an accompaniment.

• Parts move in harmony together, or melody with accompaniment

• Where there is a spatial echo effect (e.g. trumpets over there echo horns over here)

• One solo melody instrument or voice with no accompaniment.

• Where one instrument or voice copies another exactly shorts after and overlaps (like a 'round). Staggered entries.

• Melody moves up and down mainly by step (neighbouring notes).

• Melody contains many leaps.

• Using 3 notes of a common chord (e.g. a melody that starts C, E, G...)

• Chord notes played one after another ('broken chord').

• Melody based on a scale: series of notes going up or down stepwise.

1. Chromatic scale - using all the notes.

2. Major scale - bright and happy sounding.

3. Minor scale - sad sounding.

4. Whole-tone scale - sounds 'dreamy'. - e.g. C D E F# G# A#

5. Pentatonic scale - set of 5 notes like the keyboard black notes.

6. Modal - scaled of ancient music and some world folk music (e.g. Dorian, Aeolian).

• Appogiatura - a notes which 'leans' on to a main note of the melody.
• Acciaccuatura - a 'crushed' note - extremly quick.
• Trill - rapid alternation of note and note above.
• Turn - note, note above, note, note below, note.
• Mordent - quick 'shake' - not, note above, note.
• Pitch-bend - Blue note: flattened 3rd of 5th or 7th (usually 3rd) in the melody to give it a 'Bluesy' feel.

• Ostinato - continous repetition of a short pattern.
• Ground bass - constantly repeating bass line in early music (17th century).
• Riff - short, repetitive pattern in jazz or pop styles.
• Sequence - pattern in the melody repeated at a different pitch going up (ascending) or down (descending).
• Inversion - melodic pattern played 'upside down' from original.
• Augmentation - melodic pattern with note - values doubled from original.
• Diminution - melodic pattern with note - values halved from original.
• Descant - part snug over the top of melody.
• Blues notes - used in blues music.
• Improvisation - when a musician invents new music on the spot

• Legato - notes smoothly joined.
• Staccato - notes are short and detached.
• Slur - curved line above or below the note head showng it should be played smoothly together.
• Phrasing - a curved line is used to show which notes are to be played as a musical phrase. A simple way to think of this is that a singer would not breath in the middle of a phrasee, they would breathe between phrases.