I noticed that one of the most popular worksheets in the Free Downloads section is the one on melody writing. Since there is obviously a need for this, I decided to post two new worksheets which are slightly easier and deal with some of the basics of melody writing.

I have been chatting lately both with Rita Crews and with Elissa Milne about melody writing and how best to teach it. Rita, being an AMEB examiner, sees all sorts of melodies that follow a particular pattern from a particular text book, and laments the lack of creativity this can cause. Elissa, being an incredibly creative composer, suggests that rather than following an exact pattern every time, it's simply important to make sure that a melody has a beginning, middle and end - and one that doesn't accidentally sound 'finished' at the middle point!

So, how best to actually teach this through a worksheet? My aim in creating these two new worksheets was to imcorporate Rita's and Elissa's views without making it seem too formulaic. The first, 'Melody writing Made Easy', discusses the fact that melodies need to begin and end with chord I, and need to reach a halfway point which needs to sound unfinished - an effect best achieved with chord V.

There is nothing wrong with, say, a chord progression such as I - IV - V - I, giving us chord IV at the halfway point, as long as it is not the tonic note at the end of the phrase because that would sound very 'finished'. However, in my experience, examiners LOVE an imperfect in the middle of the melody and I have in the past had students marked down for not doing this - despite the fact that it is not a syllabus requirement. (I should say that Dr Rita Crews is most certainly not one of these examiners - she is incredibly open-minded about the subjective nature of melody writing. How we wish all examiners could be like this!!!)

The second worksheet, 'More on Melody Writing', goes on to drill the perfect cadence needed at the end i.e. to use chord V notes in the second last bar, and touches on the 'leading note to tonic' rule.

Naturally there are many, MANY other facets to writing a good melody, all of which are discussed in the BlitzBooks Theory and Musicianship workbooks for Grade 3 and above.