Now what two waves have to teach us about writing stronger melodies? Well, you've heard me say this before, but I'm gonna say it again, that I think we resonate with things that are similar to the natural world around us. And while there are lots of different types of waves, the ocean is what I think of first, when we talk about waves. The ocean is romanticized extensively. And there are certainly a lot of waves at the ocean, particularly on the shoreline. But if we ask the question as to why the ocean is so romanticized, I think we should look deeper than just simply saying, It's beautiful.

What I think is distinctive about the pattern of ocean waves on the shoreline, is the fact that they're constantly overlapping with each other. One is going in while another is coming out. They're swirling around, one wave is crashing into another. And there's a complexity there that I personally can watch for hours. Alright, so you might be thinking That's wonderful. But what does this have to teach us about writing stronger melodies?

Well, I think the musical equivalent here is CounterPoint. counterpoint is all about overlapping melody lines. And while it is not often utilized in modern pop music, you can find it readily in musical theater. These men who seem to know my crime will surely come a second time, one day more. What makes it so easy to distinguish counterpoint in musical theater? Is that you have different characters singing these parts.

Wondering. Okay, hold on a minute. What we just heard this part here is harmony. And this is not the same thing as CounterPoint. Harmony is when you have one melodic line that is sung or played by two people and the shape The rhythm is exactly the same, except for it's being played several notes apart. And let's use our original melody line as an example.

To create harmony, we would just simply take all these notes and move them up to start on a different note. And we'd have to change a few notes to keep it in the same key. So we'll move the a sharp down to an A, and we'll move the F sharp down to an F. And now all the notes are in the key of C. The original melody is dark blue, and the harmony is the light blue. Now let's listen to how it sounds with the harmony. Okay, so again, this is not counterpoint, this is harmony. So let's go back to Les Mis now with this in mind.

Okay, you get the idea. Let's skip ahead to the The part where the CounterPoint really kicks in. Okay, so you probably get the idea. Now, musical theater may not necessarily be your thing. And you may not like how this sounds. The reason I chose this as an example is because again, it's so clearly articulate what counterpoint is that you have overlapping melody lines and musical theater because it's being sung by different characters allows you to see that very clearly.

Now, before we look at some modern examples of counterpoint, I think it's helpful to understand where it came from. And to do that, we're going to have to go back to the medieval time period. Up to this point, most music happened in the church where you just One melody line which is called monophonic music. But around the medieval period, they started to add other melodic lines, changing it from monophonic music to polyphonic music. Even though they started adding new melodic lines, they weren't really thinking at all about harmony or chords. Each one of these melodic lines had equal weight, which is different than how we normally think about melody today, where we have a chord pattern and then a melody line that is over the top of that, that didn't come until the Baroque period, which is when Bach wrote these pieces.

This might sound a little bit more familiar to you, especially if you've ever heard any church hymns, but also because this has a very distinctive chord progression, which is what we kind of associate with modern pop music. Now before we look closer at this Bach chorale, let's go back to our illustration about waves on the ocean shore. And you can see here in this video how these waves are coming out each other from different directions, and ones coming in while another is going out. And here's how this relates to writing stronger melodies. Bach is using counterpoint in a pattern that is very similar to what we discussed in these waves to add more complexity and make his melody lines more interesting. The melody line by itself is rather simple.

The counterpoint or how these other voices are going to interact with the melody line will happen in one of four ways. You can move in parallel motion, similar motion, contrary motion, or oblique motion. Parallel motion is where the CounterPoint moves in the same direction, in the same interval. As the other note, in this example, both notes are moving up by a step. Similar motion is about how it sounds moving in the same direction, but it's not the same interval. If the voices are moving in contrary motion, then they're going in different directions.

And it doesn't really matter what the interval is. oblique motion is where you have one note staying the same The other note moves and the stationary note can either be repeated or it can be held. Okay, so now let's look at how Bach uses each one of these four types of counterpoint in his corral. Let me give you a short explanation of what we're looking at here before we dig in. Bach corrals have four distinct voices, you know the soprano, alto, tenor, and the bass. The soprano part or the highest voice is almost always the main melody line.

And that's how it is for most modern music as well. Let's look first at the CounterPoint that's happening between the soprano part and the bass. Now remember, the goal of the CounterPoint in the Supporting lines is to create more complexity and interest. So let's take a closer look at how Bach does that. The first instance of counterpoint is similar motion. Both the soprano part and the bass part are moving upwards, but just different intervals.

The next movement is also similar motion. And then we have oblique motion where the soprano part stays on the same note and the bass part goes down. And then we have contrary motion where the soprano note is going down basis going up. And then we have contrary motion again, where the sopranos going up and the basis going down. In this next section, we have oblique motion first, where the base don't stays the same and the soprano part moves up and then contrary motion, then oblique motion again, where the soprano part stays the same and the bass part moves up. contrary motion Again, then we have a stationary note, and then similar motion.

Okay, so to recap we have similar motion, more similar motion, oblique motion, contrary motion, more contrary motion, oblique motion, contrary motion, oblique motion, contrary motion, the same notes and similar motion. Alright if that seemed like a lot to absorb. That's actually the point. The reason I chose Bach as our first example is because he's kind of the king of CounterPoint. And the whole purpose of counterpoint is to keep things interesting and to constantly change it up. Really the only part where counterpoint isn't happening in this section is in the beginning, the rest is full of CounterPoint.

Now, the reason that I just focused on the CounterPoint that's happening between the soprano part and the bass part, because that's oftentimes the The easiest way to introduce counterpoint into your own writing. To illustrate this, let's look at some contemporary examples. Seven Nation Army by the white stripes is a perfect example of counterpoint between the melody line and the pace, the basis in blue and the melody line is in red. Seven Nation Army couldn't have taken up behind my back. All right, so let's break down some of the CounterPoint that's happening here. By itself.

The melody line is actually very simple. We look at this one section here. It's really only one note. And the baseline is very simple to granted. It's a very catchy hook, but it's also really repetitive. Just repeats over and over again.

The magic of this piece is how the two parts interact, which is the CounterPoint. First Instance of counterpoint occurs here. And it's oblique motion, where the bass note stays the same, and the melody line moves down. The next section is entirely oblique motion with the melody line stain on the same note, and so all the motion is coming from the baseline. In this next section, it repeats the same pattern, we have oblique motion in the beginning, only difference is that the top note or the melody line goes up a little higher this time. And then this next section is oblique motion again, with the baseline moving around, and the soprano parts staying the same.

In this next section, he finally shakes things up a little bit more where we have some oblique motion, then some contrary motion, similar motion and then parallel motion, and then finished off by similar motion. The final section of the verse oblique motion again. And then the course is also oblique motion. So to recap, the strength of this piece really is in the CounterPoint and the interplay between the melody line and the space line. And it's dominated by oblique motion, except for this one section right here. And I think that provides a really needed break by introducing similar and parallel motion as a contrast to all this other oblique motion.

Now, before we jump into the next example of counterpoint, I'm curious if you notice some elements from the last couple chapters applying to jack White's piece. Firstly, that it has a very strong motif here in this baseline part. And it's echoed in the melody line and how it leaps up and down. He also employs repetition to build tension, not just in the baseline as this repeats over and over again, the main point of relief coming when it changes here In the chorus, but also in the melody line that it repeats this one note so many times so that whenever it leaves that note, that's when you have the release of tension. Except anytime it does leave, it's leaping upward. And we learned in our chapter on muscles that when you move the pitch up, that increases tension.

Okay, so with all of this in mind, let's listen to this one more time. Seven Nation Army couldn't have taken up behind my back because I can't Now if we return back to the Bach chorale for a minute, when we were discussing before was the CounterPoint that was happening between the soprano part and the bass part. There's also a lot of counterpoint that's happening in the middle. There's also a lot of movement that is happening in the alto and the tenor part to create more interest in this piece. Sometimes when the soprano or the baseline are more stationary, he puts movement into these middle parts. And this is another way that you can include counterpoint in your pieces, which is define a melodic line that sits somewhere kind of in the middle of the mix between the soprano line in the baseline as opposed to the first example we looked at in jack whitespace where it was really between the main melody line and the bass Where that counterpoint was happening.

And I think a great contemporary example of that is this piece by Wilco. The red notes are the main vocal line and the yellow notes are the violin part. But I want you to listen to is the CounterPoint that's happening between these two parts. What's Okay, so I'm not going to dissect every instance of counterpoint in the song because there's a lot of it and we already did that very thoroughly with the last two pieces. I do want to draw your attention to some overall shapes that are happening with regard to this counterpoint relationship. The first thing I want you to notice is all the contrary motion.

You can even just see it here in the notes. When one part is going up, the other part is going down, and vice versa. And contrary motion continues to be used heavily through this whole section. I think it's the defining characteristic, much like oblique motion was to the white stripes piece. There is a tiny moment of parallel motion here at the end. And because we've had so much contrary motion leading up to it, your ear picks up on it, even though it only happens for two notes.

With all that in mind, let's listen to this one more time. And there's one more element that worth noting in this CounterPoint. These three notes here are a motif of sorts that comes up several times, although with variation in the rhythm. And if we were to turn this upside down, look how similar it is to the line that the violin place, we have a step followed by leap of a third. And even though the rhythm is a little bit different, it's still a variation of this motif. So to summarize what waves have to teach us about writing stronger melodies, we can look at the pattern of how waves overlap and interact with each other on a shoreline to give us inspiration about how we can create different melodic lines that interact and overlap with each other to create more interest in your music.