melody meaning

[ˈmɛlədi]

[ˈmelədi]

WMelody

A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, melōidía, "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity.
Melodies often consist of one or more musical phrases or motifs, and are usually repeated throughout a composition in various forms.
The true goal of music—its proper enterprise—is melody. All the parts of harmony have as their ultimate purpose only beautiful melody. Therefore, the question of which is the more significant, melody or harmony, is futile.

Definition of melody in English Dictionary

NounPLmelodiesPREmélo-
1. tune; sequence of notes that makes up a musical phrase.
  1. Slowly she turned round and faced towards a neat white bungalow, set some way back from the path behind a low hedge of golden privet. No light showed, but someone there was playing the piano. The strange elusiveness of the soft, insistent melody seemed to draw her forward.
More Examples
1. Used in the Middle of Sentence
  - The first violin often plays the lead melody lines in a string quartet.
  - A later generation of bebop pianists would often be accused of one-handedness; their right hands flew along with melodies and improvisations, while their "weak" left hands just plonked chords.
  - Now, against the Beethoven rhythm and the antiphonal outcry (E), the 'celli intone a spacious and somber melody whose beginning is shown at F.
2. Used in the Ending of Sentence
  - Now, more than 300 years later, Walt Disney lias spun the idea into a whoop-dee-doo of comic characters, a spatterdash of Technicolor and a u-dee-dah of nostalgic melodies.
  - The 1980s all-girl band, the Bangles, reunites for a comeback album with crisp Beatles-esque melodies.