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HOW TO WRITE A MELODY

Tempo – pace or speed at which a section of music is played

Allegro (fast) – happy, angry, frantic Moderato (moderate) – content, walking Adagio (slow) – tired, bored, sad

Mood – the atmosphere of the story the composer is trying to tell; Some example categories could be "happy",
"sad", "mellow", "aggressive", "uplifting", "melancholic", "joyful", etc.

Rhythm:
• Allegro uses mostly eighth, sixteenth and quarter notes
• Moderato uses mostly quarter and eighth notes
• Adagio uses mostly whole and half notes

WHOLE NOTE 4 BEATS


WHOLE REST 4 BEATS
HALF NOTE 2 BEATS
HALF REST 2 BEATS
QUARTER NOTE 1 BEAT
QUARTER REST 1 BEAT
EIGHTH NOTE PAIR 1 BEAT

SIXTEENTH NOTE GROUPING 1 BEAT

There are 4 beats in every measure. Each box is a measure.

Good melodies have notes that are mostly close together. If the notes are far apart and skip around a lot,
the music will sound strange. Rests are NOT assigned notes. Make sure that you write a melody where
the first note and the last note are the same; the tonic note and that a note in the middle is dominant note.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
C D E F G A B
TONIC DOMINANT

STEPS SKIPS
G G

F F

E E
STEPS- SKIPS-
D C to D, D to E D C to E, C to G
ONE NOTE AWAY NO MORE THAN 5
C C NOTES APART
HOW TO WRITE A MELODY

C D E

https://www.onlinepianist.com/virtual-piano
We are only using these notes on the piano keyboard

Play you melody on the online piano to make sure it


expresses the mood you as the composer are trying to
convey ("happy", "sad", "mellow", "aggressive",
"uplifting", "melancholic", "joyful", etc.)

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