Melody Writing - Tension & Release?

Question

I'm back with a more specific question. I read in a book entitled 'Complete Idiots Guide for Music Composition' which has a detailed discussion on writing melodies and techniques to do so. As I have been struggling quite a bit, I looked into it and found about stable (1, 5, 3) and unstable tones (6, 2, 4, 7). I started looking into melodies that I've transcribed and found a few common themes such as:-7th degree always resolves to the 1st, 3rd or 5th degree of the scale-4th is most commonly resolved to 5th-The melody can end on a 2nd or 6th degree without too much tensionI wanted to know if this is something that composers start thinking about when making melodies? I suppose this would be playing by ear to what sounds good but it's helpful to know as a beginner to help out with writing my own melodies - can anyone expand on the topic or give ideas on how I can utilise this information further to improve my own melodies?

Answer 1

You're absolutely on the right track here. This is a common guiding concept to creating a good balance of tension and release when writing melodies. If all the notes of a melody are the 1, 3, or 5 it will sound bland. If the notes are only the 2, 4, 6, or 7 then the melody will begin to sound disconnected. Use your ears and your own taste as you compose to create a good balance.

Other things also effect tension and release when writing melodies: density or sparsity of notes, intervalic distance - are you moving by steps or leaps?, range - does your melody stay within the same octave or many octaves?, rhythmic variety - how much syncopation is in your melody?, etc. Again, the key is to strike a balance using your own taste. Anything is possible!