Melody

• Sequence - where a passage of music is repeated at higher or lower pitch.
• Imitation - the repetition of a melody in a polyphonic texture shortly after its first appearance in a different voice.
• Difference between imitation and sequence:

  • If the motive is repeated at a different pitch but is still in the same clef (or voice or instrument) it is a sequence.
  • To be an imitation requires there to be at least 2 different instruments, voices or clef signs.
• Leitmotif - a recurrent theme throughout a musical or literary composition, associated with a particular person, idea or situation. (Basically someone's theme - e.g. Imperial March for Darth Vader)
• Motif - a short musical idea, longer than a single note but shorter than a phrase to help build up a composition.
• Semitone - the distance from a white key to a neighbouring black key on the keyboard.
• Chromatic movement - a note that doesn't belong in the musical key. A chromatic scale moves up in semitones.
• Pentatonic - consisting of 5 tones, being related to a scale.
• Ornamentation - changing up the melody, either by adding notes or by modifying rhythms.
• Melody - a combination of pitch and rhythm, a rhythmical set of tones.