The Gift Of Melody

I’ve often spent countless hours pondering about the concept of “melody”.

Many songwriting books will tell you that writing great melody is a gift - some have the “gift of melody” while others don’t.

My question, then, is how do you define this gift of melody? Is there really such a thing?

Well, we know for sure who had the gift of melody. The first few names that come to my mind are Richard Rodgers, Paul McCartney, John Rutter, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tchaikovsky, Schubert, and Paul Simon.

But when it comes to actually defining what this gift sounds like, it gets a bit more difficult.

You see, the mysterious thing about melody is that we know a good one when we hear it, but we can’t necessarily always construct a good one on our own.

I’m not exactly sure why this is so. You see, logically thinking…if we know what makes a good melody work, then it would follow that we should be able to all write great melodies too right?

In reality, that is not always the case.

You see, that’s why I find songwriting so fascinating. It’s such a nebulous concept. You never know when the next great song is going to come, and you never know where it’s going to come from. It could come from anybody at anytime. It doesn’t mean that those with higher musical education will necessarily write better melodies.

Do you think you have the gift of melody?

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Notes: It has been said that Beethoven’s musical gifts, as monumental as they were, did not lie in melody. If you compare Beethoven with Schubert, you can make a case that Schubert had the more natural gift for melody.

Same goes with Paul McCartney and John Lennon. I am willing to make a case that despite John being an awesome songwriter, it was Paul who actually had the greater gift for melody. John was a great songwriter, no doubt, and he had his moments of melodic genius as well, but if you were to take a look at the big picture, I think Paul had the more obvious gift for melody.

Tchaikovsky was one of the most gifted melodists I’ve ever heard bar none, and I suspect I’m not alone in this view. It is simply mind-boggling how he came up with such breathtaking melodies.

Stephen Sondheim is a legendary writer on Broadway, a god-like figure to some, but melody wasn’t exactly what his musicals were known for. Some have noted that you don’t leave a theatre humming a Sondheim melody. This is in contrast to say, Andrew Lloyd Webber, who has given us some of the most memorable West End tunes in the last two to three decades.