Contour, climax, steps and leaps

If you draw a pencil line joining the notes of a beautiful melody, you get a picture: a hill, a wave, a slope. That picture is the contour. Great melodists, from Mozart to Schubert, take as much care over it as over the notes themselves. In this lesson you will learn to shape that picture, to place a climax, and to balance steps and leaps.

1. The main families of contours

• The arch: rises then falls. It is the most natural contour, the shape of a breath or of a spoken sentence.
• The inverted arch: falls then rises again, like a sigh followed by a new impulse.
• The descending slope: soothing, conclusive, sometimes melancholy.
• The ascent: builds energy and expectation; ideal just before a big moment.
• The wave: small undulations around one note; intimate, circling.

M:4/4
L:1/4
Q:1/4=100
K:C
"^arch"C E G A | G E D2 | "^inverted arch"G E D C | D E G2 | "^slope"c B A G | F E D2 | "^wave"E F E D | E G F E |]

2. The climax: just one, well placed

A melody needs a climax: its highest note (sometimes its lowest, in a dark piece). For it to make an impact, three conditions:

1. it appears only once;
2. it comes around two thirds or three quarters of the way through, like the turning point of a story;
3. it is prepared by climbing in stages, getting close without reaching it.

Listen to this eight-bar melody: the phrase reaches a first high C (bar 3), then high F in bar 6, and everything falls back towards the final cadence.

M:4/4
L:1/4
Q:1/4=92
K:C
%%staves {RH LH}
V:RH clef=treble
V:LH clef=bass
[V:RH] "C"G2 E C | "F"F A G F | "C"E G c2 | "G"B4 | "Am"A c e2 | "F"f e d c | "G"B d c B | "C"c4 |]
[V:LH] [C,G,]4 | [F,C]4 | [C,G,]4 | [G,,D,]4 | [A,,E,]4 | [F,,C,]4 | [G,,D,]4 | [C,G,]4 |]

The high C in bar 3 is a "provisional peak"; the F in bar 6 goes beyond it and becomes the true climax. It is like climbing a mountain by way of a first pass.

3. Steps and leaps

A step (motion by a second) joins two neighbouring notes: C–D, E–F. A leap is any larger interval: third, fourth, fifth, sixth, octave. Singing melodies are made mostly of steps (roughly two thirds of the moves), with a few well-chosen leaps that give them character.

The golden rule of leaps: after a big leap, step back in the opposite direction. The ear hears a leap as a "gap" it wants to fill. Here are two leaps of a sixth (C–A, then E–C), each followed by a descent that "fills in" the space.

M:4/4
L:1/4
Q:1/4=88
K:C
C2 A2 | G F E D | E2 c2 | B A G2 |]

Consecutive leaps in the same direction are fine when they outline a chord (C–E–G–C, an arpeggio), because the ear hears them as a single gesture.

4. What to avoid

Here is a counter-example: leaps in every direction, never filled in, with a tritone (F–B) that sounds unstable. Nothing sticks.

M:4/4
L:1/4
Q:1/4=92
K:C
C c G, A | F B, e D | C4 |]

Your workshop

1. In your sketchbook, draw freehand the contour of an eight-bar melody: one big arch with its peak in bar 6.
2. Mark the key notes on the drawing: start (C or E), half cadence in bar 4, climax, arrival on C.
3. In the piano roll, "fill in" the drawing with notes, mostly by step. Add exactly two expressive leaps (a sixth, a fourth…) and follow each with a step back in the opposite direction.
4. Check that your highest note appears only once. If it comes back, lower the other occurrences.
5. Add a left hand in fifths (C–G, F–C, G–D) as in the example, then listen: the climax should be the most intense moment.

Self-check: look at the piano roll from a distance, squinting: can you see a clear shape, a hill with a single summit?