A melody is like a pretty girl: A sweet or agreeable arrangement.

In both cases, tampering is risky.

When you have loaded into your sequencer a classic sonata, a big-band standard, a lyrical ballad..., one of the properties that distinguishes the piece is its melody-line. This is an attribute that makes it worthwhile, ensuring its longevity. Melody = a singable, hummable, rememberable trait.

Thus, alter at your own peril.

This does not mean that a melody-line has to be carried, note by note, by just one instrument for, say, 96 measures (as some popular-music accompaniment programs decree). You're the conductor! Use as many patches as sound natural: strings, brass, woodwinds, solo instruments, voices...

Having clearly established the traditional melody line in the first chorus of a jazz/rock/country tune, you are now unleashed to improvise provided you keep handy a few precepts. These are guidelines, not commandments etched in stone.

• The new (improvised) melody line should really sing, as did the original melody. Resist the temptation to flaunt technique (wild arpeggios, for instance, or glissandos). Teddy Wilson's advice is still wise: “It's not what you put in; it's what you leave out.”
• Try to alternate rapid playing (e.g., triplets) with calm interludes (half notes, whole notes).
• If two instruments are improvising simultaneously, it's best that they not both “talk” (solo) at the same time. This risks a babble effect, like that of a TV Talk Show.

Such innovations, simple though they may be, test one's creative ingenuity. Why? Because we have to make a musical judgment: Which instruments (patches) combine most comfortably?

Copyright © 1995 Eugene A. Confrey, PhD. All rights reserved.