This is a page with

Extra Melodies

These are "extra" because they're not among the Aesop's Melodies that I've chosen for my Main Page or Big Page.  I've been composing these "melodies for teaching" from early-2024 thru mid-May 2024.  During this time I was modifying (and improving) my philosophies of teaching — mainly by asking myself "how many melodies should I include?" (then answering "fewer than earlier") plus "what is the best balance between letting-students-discover and giving-them-examples?" (and I'm still struggling with this, but think my Summary Page has an effective way to combine these two ways to learn).

iou – Currently, May 25, this page is ultra-chaotic, and (except for this intro-section) almost all of the links don't work.  In the near future (June 2024) I want to...  A) gather more examples, searching thru older versions of the many sections I've written-and-revised,   B) decide what to include here {it will be most old melodies}, and organize the melodies coherently so if you're thinking "I want additional examples of blues melodies (using black notes, i.e. out-of-scale chromatic notes) you'll know where to find them, and also where to find examples for other kinds of melodies.

As explained above, everything below here is ultra-chaotic.  When you see a melody-example, it's probably OK, but overall you'll find lots of chaos.

[[ iou-intro, re: un-edited current state, now am just collecting, for @ to "more melody-examples" in t.htm#st and index.htm#st ]]

3-combos: 135875421, 135864201

plus (?) 135875798,

Here you see notes (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1) in the Scale of C Major.  The non-chord notes (2,4,6,7) are gray, to highlight the chord notes (1,3,5) that usually are featured when improvising melodies during a C Chord.

passing notes in scale-melodies:  By creatively using non-chord passing notes (both white and black) you can move between chord notes that are target notes — so you're passing from one chord note to another chord note (it's a target note) — in ways that are smooth and musical.  Although this isn't the only scale-making strategy, it's the most common way to play brief mini-scales (they're partial scales, are less than a full scale of 12345671) that I call scale-melodies, as in 345, 543, 3454321, 56717654, 2345434.   /   terms:  Early in this section, I'm using colors to distinguish between two kinds of scales;  a scale is a group of scale-notes (e.g. C,D,E,F,G,A,B) that can be played in any way;   • a scale is playing a consecutive sequence of scale-notes, as in 123, 12345,... 4565432.  But later I often will say "scale" with no color;  usually this is a scale, but not always. ==[iou - is this "often..." true?]

AESOPS -- a common scale-making strategy, a common melody-making strategy,strategies

NEW VERSION -- copied from index.htm, then (for awhile) revised

Strategies for Making Melodies

Skilled musicians use these melody-making strategies during chord progressions.  This context-of-use makes them more valuable because almost all musicians (including me) think that using chord progressions is the best music-making strategy.

Here you see notes (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1) in the Scale of C Major.  The non-chord notes (2,4,6,7) are gray, to highlight the chord notes (1,3,5) that usually are featured when improvising melodies during a C Chord when you're playing a mainly-red melody.  To make it mainly-red instead of only-red, you can supplement chord-melodies (using only chord notes) with scale-melodies (using some non-chord notes).  We'll look at each “kind of melody” before combining them.  Your music will sound harmonious when you...

play chord-melodies:  During a red chord, when you play only red notes everything you do will sound harmonious and pleasant.  In Stage 1 of Part 1A, I recommend doing creative experiments, "trying different ways to play only-red, by changing directions (go up for awhile, then back down, and up,...) and skipping some red notes."  That's the process I've used to compose my melodies that are educational examples.  When you use the process — by "doing creative experiments" for awhile, before you play my melody-examples — I think your experiences will be more enjoyable and educational.  How?  As usual, slow playing allows creativity in your exploring, when you're playing notes in different sequences and with different rhythms.   /   What?  Using ten notes in the Scale of C (0123456789), these melodies – 1358, 3531, 3153, 3558 – probably are similar to what you've been playing.  Longer chord-melodies can be simple, as in 1358531_ , where "_" shows that the final note lasts two beats instead of the one beat used for the other notes, to make the 7-note melody last 8 beats.  And melodies can be a little more complex, as in 1358351_ , 31538531 , or 1355358_ .  You can invent a wide variety of chord-melodies, especially when you also use chord-notes that are lower than 0 and higher than 9.  And you can...

play scale-melodies:  By using non-chord passing notes (both white and black) you can move between chord notes that are target notes — so you're passing from one chord note to another chord note (it's a target note) — in ways that are smooth and musical.  This is a common way to play brief mini-scales (they're partial scales, are less than a full scale of 12345678) that I call scale-melodies, as in 345, 345432121, 34, 56787676, or 21012345.   /   terms:  Early in this section, I'm using colors to distinguish between two kinds of scales;  a scale is a group of scale-notes (e.g. C,D,E,F,G,A,B) that can be played in any way;   a scale is playing a consecutive sequence of scale-notes, as in 345.   But later, sometimes I just say "scale" with no color, so you'll have to get the meaning from context.

combine chord-melodies and scale-melodies:  When you do this, making music becomes much more interesting and fun.  In fact, combining chords-and-scales is the main way that experts make melodies.  As usual, you can do experimenting for awhile before you continue reading.   /  [[ This afternoon, March 30, I stopped work on this, for reasons explained in the "iou" below. ]]

345, 543, 345432121, 34, 5671767_, or 2345434

melodies for goal-directed education:  These melody-making strategies – and others – are illustrated in my example melodies that are intended for teaching, to help you convert abstract ideas (in your thinking) into concrete reality (in your playing);  i.e. I'm not trying to compose “hit songs”, 🙂.   Instead my objective is educational, to show you how melody-making strategies can be used to make mainly-red melodies;  or to make melodies that are mainly-blue or mainly-green.  Each melody is a goal-directed Aesop's Activity that (analogous to an Aesop's Fable) is designed to illustrate a specific strategy you can use to improvise your own melodies.

for each melody, try different rhythms and you'll find that some rhythms sound much better than others

two scales:  Earlier, my examples of mixing chord-melodies with scale-melodies use only white notes that are in the diatonic scale (it's C D E F G A B, with only 7 notes) of C Major.  But this limitation isn't necessary.  You can use some non-chord notes (only white) to form diatonic scale-melodies;  and you can use all non-chord notes (both white & black) to form chromatic scale-melodies, using any notes from a chromatic scale (it's C Db D Eb E F Gb G Ab A Bb B, with all 12 notes) of C Major.  Here, Eb (also written as E♭) is E-flat, is the black note to the left of E.    { Eb is aka D#, as explained in flats and sharps }

two kinds of scale-melodies:  While you're inventing scale-melodies, both scales are useful.  Each kind of scale-melody, using notes in a diatonic scale (only white) or using notes in a chromatic scale (white & black) can be useful in different ways, because each produces distinctive “sounds and feelings” in melodies.  With both scales, almost all scale-melodies are mini-scales (are partial scales, not full scales).  Now you can freely experiment — by including any kind of melodies (using chords or skips, plus scales) — in two ways, by continuing to play diatonic scale-melodies (as you did earlier) or beginning to play chromatic scale-melodies.   /   tips:  While you're exploring possibilities for chromatic scale-melodies, in addition to creative slow playing – so you'll have time to try new note-sequences & note-rhythms – you may find it useful (as I do) to play self-limiting games.  For example, limit the range of your melodies (chord + skip + scale) by using only the notes from 0 to 5, i.e. using 0 1 2b 2 3b 3 4 5b 5 ,  or limit the range so it's 1-to-3, or is 3-to-5 or 1-to-5.  Or explore the octave's upper end with 5-to-8, or 5-to-9, 5 or 1-to-5.

[[ iou – By tomorrow night, March 31, this paragraph will have more content, and maybe some examples.  But for now I'll just include a version that's recent (not yet revised during March) about playing blues.  But before you read the section about “blues” you can read the following paragraph, and (for awhile if you want) try to find ways to “think classical” while playing more black notes, trying to find ways of using "more black notes" while you're thinking "classical" instead of "blues". ]]

I enjoy making both kinds of melodies, so I sometimes “think classical” or “think blues” to inspire different ways of playing.  While “thinking classical” I play mostly in-scale notes (white), and “thinking blues” is useful when I want to include more out-of-scale notes (black).     { more about different ways to “think ____” while playing, by filling the blank with classical or blues, or with jazz, rock, or popular. }   

play “blues melodies” by using

“blues notes” and blues scales:

How?  You can...

• use blues notes:  When playing “blues melodies” (during 12-Bar Blues or in “jazz blues” or “blues rock”) a common melody-making strategy is to use “blues notes”.  These are minor notes from a minor key — a flatted-third (b3) and flatted-seventh (b7) — while playing major chords in a major key;  this is one of two ways to play Minor-within-Major.  Another useful “blues note” is the flatted 5th (b5) because even though this note isn't in the Minor Scale, it lets you play melodies with a pair of minor-sounding “flatted chord notes,” as with a flatted-E (the Eb that is b3) plus flatted-G (it's Gb, is the b5).  And b7 actually IS a chord-note in the 7th chords (1,3,5,b7) that usually are played in Blues Progressions.  These three notes – b3, b5, b7 – are useful for playing chord-based melodies (mainly-red, mainly-blue, mainly-green) with a “blues” sound-and-feeling.  How?  During a C Chord you can play chord notes (C,E,G) and also non-chord notes with blues-notes (b3,b5,b7 - Eb,Gb,Bb) featured;  during an F-Chord you play chord notes (F,A,C) and also non-chord notes with blues-notes (Ab,Cb=B,Eb - 6b,7,3b) featured;*  during a G-Chord, play chord notes (G,B,D) plus non-chord notes with blues-notes (Bb,Db,F - 7b,2b,4) featured.    {* The "6b,7,3b" are the positions of these notes in a C-Scale.  Why?  Because I often "think" in a C-Scale using note-numbers, even during an F-Melody or G-Melody. }

Another way of thinking about this “way to play” is to...

• use blues scales:  Musicians think about “playing blues” in many ways.  One way, described above, is to play melodies that include notes with a “minor sound” (b3,b5,b7) in the scale of each chord (I,IV,V - C,F,G).  Another way, popular among musicians, is to “play blues” by using a Blues Scale.  The most common – so it's often called “the Blues Scale” – is a Minor Blues Scale (1-b3-4-b5-5-b7) that is a Minor Pentatonic Scale with b5 added;  it includes b3,b5,b7 but excludes four notes (2,3,6,7) that are in the Scale of C Major.  Or they use a Major Blues Scale (1-2-b3-3-5-6) that is a Major Pentatonic Scale with b3 added.  Or they use both scales, alternating between them.  Or the two scales can be combined into a Hybrid Blues Scale (1-2-b3-3-4-b5-5-6-b7) that includes the 9 shared notes;  it's a Minor Blues Scale with extra notes (2,3,6) that give a player more flexibility, making this a useful scale for improvising melodies.     { note:  The term scale has two meanings so it's important to recognize that a blues scale is "a group of scale-notes that can be played in any way [with creative flexibility]" and is not the rigidity of always "playing all of the scale-notes in consecutive sequence without skipping any." }

How?  Below are three “ways to think” while using non-chord notes as passing notes — as in the improvising strategies of "mixing scale-melodies with chord-melodies" or "using black notes to make chromatic scale-melodies" — to creatively invent melodies during a chord progression of I-IV-V-I (a standard in classical), 12-Bar Blues, ii-V-I-I (common in jazz), or another progression:

• sometimes I'm thinking “classical” while playing mainly red {or mainly blue, mainly green} plus some non-red {or non-blue, non-green} that are mostly white (in scale) and occasionally black (out of scale), because my melodies are focusing on white notes that are in the scale.

• sometimes I'm thinking “blues” and – during mainly red {or mainly blue, mainly green} – my non-chord notes include more black notes (than in “classical”) so the melody has more of a “blues” sound-and-feeling.     { strategies for improvising blues-melodies }

• sometimes I'm thinking “jazz” while playing along with the common jazz progression of ii-V-I.  If you do this, an adventurous attitude — so "you'll feel more free to do the creatively-risky experimenting that produces new experiences and new learning" — will help you you have fun while improvising jazz melodies.     { excellent explanations-and-music are in videos about Jazz Theory & Improvisation (a total of 38 minutes) by Julian Bradley for his Jazz Tutorial. }

While you're thinking “classical” and/or “blues” and/or “jazz” (or “rock”,...) you also can be thinking “popular” with the goal of inventing beautiful melodies of the kind that you (and others) will enjoy, like the melodies in songs that become popular. 

Of course, during any chord progression you can do all modes-of-playing by alternating time periods (that can be short or long) of “thinking classical” and “thinking blues” or “thinking jazz” (or “thinking rock” or “thinking   ?  ”).  And instead of either “classical” OR “blues” you can “think classical-AND-blues” or “think blues-AND-jazz” (or other combos) so you're playing in a wider variety of ways, to expand the range of possibilities you're exploring.

ORIGINAL -- two kinds of scale-melodies:  While you're inventing scale-melodies, with mainly red notes, all non-red notes – both scale notes (white) and non-scale notes (black) – can be useful" in different ways, because each produces distinctive “sounds” in melodies.  I enjoy making both kinds of melodies, so I sometimes “think classical” or “think blues” to inspire different ways of playing.  While “thinking classical” I play mostly in-scale notes (white), and “thinking blues” is useful when I want to include more out-of-scale notes (black).     { two ways to use a “blues scale” – that has some black notes, but not all – when playing blues }    

[[but these use brown scale-notes to make maroon mini-scales?]] of C Major;  they use non-chord white notes to form diatonic scale-melodies.   But you can...

also include non-chord black notes to make chromatic scale-melodies.  How?  Here are a few examples, among the many that are possible, using any of the notes (either white or black) of the keyboard.  You can play 1-2-b3-3-5-6-8 (where "b3" is a flatted-third, is the black note below 3, is the note between 2 and 3);  or (3-4-b5-5-6-b7-7-8) or (8-b7-6-6b-5-3-4-b5-5-6-b7-9-8 or ...5-6-7-9-8 or ...5-6-b7-7-8) or

        (1-3-5-6-b7-5-3-4-6-8-9-b10-9-8-6-5-7-9-10-11-10-9-7-8-6-5-3-1-...etc) with chord changes shown by color changes and underlinings.  In this example (and all others) you can modify my melody to produce other melodies.  The multiple possibilities are indicated by "...etc" in its ending, but of course other options are possible — and you will think some are better than my original melody — for every example you see in this page.

 

---

 

 

self-restrict yourself to using notes in diatonic major scale (only white notes) or free yourself to use all with chromatic scale

;  to see why there are many, play 5567878_

a chromatic scale-melody plus skip-melody and chord-melody:  5-6b-6-7b-7-9-8-7-8-6-5-3-1_ _ _ .

    • play skip-melodies:  [[ iou – This paragraph will be available sometime during March 25-26. ]]

starting with 45 and ending with 6789878_ , 5678987_ , 56789878;  these  Of course, many other scale-melodies are possible, especially when – as in "playing blues" – you also include black notes that are not in the Scale of C.  {musicans play a variety of scales:  major diatonic (like C Major) & minor diatonic, chromatic and major pentatonic & minor pentatonic and blues.   /   Playing scale-melodies is an extremely useful strategy for making melodies, but the "core strategy" is to...

 

think classical or blues -- I enjoy making both kinds of melodies, so I sometimes “think classical” or “think blues” to inspire different ways of playing.  While “thinking classical” I play mostly in-scale notes (white), and “thinking blues” is useful when I want to include more out-of-scale notes (black).     { two ways to use a “blues scale” – that has some black notes, but not all – when playing blues }   

 

How?  Below are three “ways to think” while using non-chord notes as passing notes — as in the improvising strategies of "mixing scale-melodies with chord-melodies" or "using black notes to make chromatic scale-melodies" — to creatively invent melodies during a chord progression of I-IV-V-I (a standard in classical), 12-Bar Blues, ii-V-I-I (common in jazz), or another progression:

 

• sometimes I'm thinking “classical” while playing mainly red {or mainly blue, mainly green} plus some non-red {or non-blue, non-green} that are mostly white (in scale) and occasionally black (out of scale), because my melodies are focusing on white notes that are in the scale.

 

• sometimes I'm thinking “blues” and – during mainly red {or mainly blue, mainly green} – my non-chord notes include more black notes (than in “classical”) so the melody has more of a “blues” sound-and-feeling.     { strategies for improvising blues-melodies }

 

• sometimes I'm thinking “jazz” while playing along with the common jazz progression of ii-V-I.  If you do this, an adventurous attitude — so "you'll feel more free to do the creatively-risky experimenting that produces new experiences and new learning" — will help you you have fun while improvising jazz melodies.     { excellent explanations-and-music are in videos about Jazz Theory & Improvisation (a total of 38 minutes) by Julian Bradley for his Jazz Tutorial. }

While you're thinking “classical” and/or “blues” and/or “jazz” (or “rock”,...) you also can be thinking “popular” with the goal of inventing beautiful melodies of the kind that you (and others) will enjoy, like the melodies in songs that become popular. 

Of course, during any chord progression you can do all modes-of-playing by alternating time periods (that can be short or long) of “thinking classical” and “thinking blues” or “thinking jazz” (or “thinking rock” or “thinking   ?  ”).  And instead of either “classical” OR “blues” you can “think classical-AND-blues” or “think blues-AND-jazz” (or other combos) so you're playing in a wider variety of ways, to expand the range of possibilities you're exploring.

play “blues melodies” by using

“blues notes” and blues scales:

How?  You can...

• use blues notes:  When playing “blues melodies” (during 12-Bar Blues or in “jazz blues” or “blues rock”) a common melody-making strategy is to use “blues notes”.  These are minor notes from a minor key — a flatted-third (b3) and flatted-seventh (b7) — while playing major chords in a major key;  this is one way to play Minor-within-Major.  Another useful “blues note” is the flatted 5th (b5) because even though this note isn't in the Minor Scale, it lets you play melodies with a pair of minor-sounding “flatted chord notes,” as with a flatted-E (the Eb that is b3) plus flatted-G (it's Gb, is the b5).  And b7 actually IS a chord-note in the 7th chords (1,3,5,b7) that usually are played in Blues Progressions.  These three notes – b3, b5, b7 – are useful for playing chord-based melodies (mainly-red, mainly-blue, mainly-green) with a “blues” sound-and-feeling.  How?  During a C Chord you can play chord notes (C,E,G) and also non-chord notes with blues-notes (b3,b5,b7 - Eb,Gb,Bb) featured;  during an F-Chord you play chord notes (F,A,C) and also non-chord notes with blues-notes (Ab,Cb=B,Eb - 6b,7,3b) featured;*  during a G-Chord, play chord notes (G,B,D) plus non-chord notes with blues-notes (Bb,Db,F - 7b,2b,4) featured.    {* The "6b,7,3b" are the positions of these notes in a C-Scale.  Why?  Because I often "think" in a C-Scale using note-numbers, even during an F-Melody or G-Melody; 

starting with 45 and ending with 6789878_ , 5678987_ , 56789878;  these  Of course, many other scale-melodies are possible, especially when – as in "playing blues" – you also include black notes that are not in the Scale of C.  {musicans play a variety of scales:  major diatonic (like C Major) & minor diatonic, chromatic and major pentatonic & minor pentatonic and blues.   /   Playing scale-melodies is an extremely useful strategy for making melodies, but the "core strategy" is to...

    • combine chord-melodies with scale-melodies:  When both are used together you have opportunities to freely explore, because almost anything you do will sound good.  But you'll think some melodies sound better than others, so experiment-listen-learn.  Beginning with a framework of a chord-melody

Melodies with a familiar phrase-rhythm (7 notes in 8 beats) can begin with a chord-melody (1354321_, 5315678_, 8535678_) or with a scale-melody (8765351_, 1235678_

starting with 45 and ending with 6789878_ , 5678987_ , 56789878;  these  Of course, many other scale-melodies are possible, especially when – as in "playing blues" – you also include black notes that are not in the Scale of C.  {musicans play a variety of scales:  major diatonic (like C Major) & minor diatonic, chromatic and major pentatonic & minor pentatonic and blues.   /   Playing scale-melodies is an extremely useful strategy for making melodies, but the "core strategy" is to...

Here are the two scales, with 7 notes (only white) and 12 notes (all of them - 7 white, 5 black):
  the major diatonic scale of C Major is “C  D  E F  G  A  B C”
  the chromatic scale of C is “C Db D Eb E F Gb G Ab A Bb B C”

later for "using rhythm to make phrases," (before playing faster,

In "135_851_" two notes (5_ and 1_) are 2 beats, to produce the rhythmic units of 4 beats per bar (in 135_ and then 851_ ) that is used in most of the music we hear.  The entire 8-beat melody is a phrase, defined as "a series of notes that sounds complete, even when played apart from the main song."  Another way to form an 8-count phrase (by combining two 4-beat phrases) is illustrated by "1353651_".

or more complex as in 1358351_,

1358351, 13538531, 31538531, 3155851.13558531_, 1355358_.

where _ is [now or later?]

3581 & 5318

MORE (@ for Scale-Melodies, in a1.htm)

1358 and 1358351. 

1358351, 13538531, 31538531, 3155851.13558531_, 1355358_.

Some simple 4-note melodies are 1358, 3581 & 5318;  [cluster of related, to show how you can develop a "family" of related melodies] 3538 & 3531 and 3558 & 3551 plus 5358 & 5351, with "&" showing how the same beginning can end in different ways, with each sounding good in a slightly different way. [try these simple chord-melodies with a variety of rhythms] 

Although your chord-melodies "sound harmonious and pleasant," after awhile playing only-red becomes boring, so you'll want to also...

play scale-melodies: 

TIPS: slow playing (so have time to explore, allow creativity), simple ok (not fast & filled w many notes),

[[ iou – at this point, late last night I listed 17 chord-melodies, but... I think this might seem overwhelming, or it would be boring, or both.  Therefore, instead I'll let you play an "exploration game," with me priming the pump.  By noon today (March 25) a "game" will be here.  With more to follow.

And you can invent a wider variety of chord-melodies by also using lower notes (e.g. the note that's an octave below 5, is two notes to the left of 0) or higher notes (e.g. an octave above 3, one note rightward from 9), or both;  plus chord-notes that are lower and higher than these. // 3585351_, 3531358_

Some simple 4-note melodies are 1358, 3581 & 5318; 3538 & 3531 and 5358 & 5351, with "&" showing how the same beginning can end in different ways, with each sounding good in a slightly different way.  Here are 8-beat phrases with alternate endings: 1358531_ & 1358351_ , 1538351_ ,  5318531_ & 5318351_ , 5318531_  & 5318531_ , 5385158_ ,& 5385351_  & 5385331_ .  [there are a lot of these, so I may keep a few here, and move the rest into an appendix you can reach, if you want, with a link for "more examples"

But even though red notes "usually are featured," all non-red notes – both scale notes (white) and non-scale notes (black) – can be useful for making melodies by playing mainly red (instead of only red) so you're making melodies that are more interesting, with more variety.  An important melody-making strategy is to use...

passing notes in scale-melodies:  By using non-chord passing notes (both white and black) you can move between chord notes that are target notes — so you're passing from one chord note to another chord note (it's a target note) — in ways that are smooth and musical.  This is a common way to play brief mini-scales (they're partial scales, are less than a full scale of 12345671) that I call scale-melodies, as in 345, 543, 345432121, 34, 56717654, or 2345434.   /   terms:  Early in this section, I'm using colors to distinguish between two kinds of scales;  a scale is a group of scale-notes (e.g. C,D,E,F,G,A,B) that can be played in any way;   • a scale is playing a consecutive sequence of scale-notes, as in 345.  But later I sometimes say "scale" with no color;  usually this is a scale, but not always. ==[iou - is this "often..." true?]

three kinds of brief melodies:  In addition to these brief scale-melodies (with consecutive scale-notes) and brief chord-melodies (with only chord notes), you also can play brief skip-melodies.*  We can distinguish between these three “kinds of melodies” in two ways.  First, a chord-melody has only chord notes (as in 135), but a scale-melody also includes at least one non-chord note (as in 345).  Second, a scale-melody has consecutive scale-notes, but a skip-melody uses non-consecutive scale-notes.  There are two ways to make a skip-melody;  in a chord-melody (like 35) you skip between chord notes;  but although this technically is a “skip melody” my definition limits the term skip-melody to sequences when one of the two notes (first or second, being skipped-from or skipped-to) is a non-chord note, which occurs in a short sequence of 14 or 24 or 25, but not 35.

* My own terms (chord-melody, scale-melody, skip-melody) are not commonly used by other musicians when they describe melodies;  but the actions are commonly used when we play melodies.  I use these terms because they're a helpful way to describe melody-making strategies. 

melodies for goal-directed education:  These three melody-making strategies – and others – are illustrated in my example melodies that are intended for teaching, to help you convert abstract ideas (in your thinking) into concrete reality (in your playing);  i.e. I'm not trying to compose “hit songs”, 🙂.   Instead my objective is educational, to show you how melody-making strategies can be used to make mainly-red melodies;  or to make melodies that are mainly-blue or mainly-green.  Each melody is a goal-directed Aesop's Activity that (analogous to an Aesop's Fable) is designed to illustrate a specific strategy you can use to improvise your own melodies.

your process of learning:  Although it would be useful-and-fun for me to be with you to share personally customized coaching, I think you'll find that learning with this page also is enjoyable.  You can do stop-and-go reading (read-and-think, play-and-think, then do it again,...) to combine reading with playing;  learn at your own pace, taking time to process what you are experiencing and are learning.     { learning from your discoveries & my explanations, from in-page teaching and in-person coaching }   /   [[ iou – temporarily, some links (to places later in this “strategies section” that will be written soon but not yet) won't work, so you'll just remain “where you are” in the page. ]]

    • play chord-melodies:

During a red chord, when you play only red notes everything you do will sound harmonious and pleasant.  In Stage 1 of Part 1A, I recommend that you do creative ex

[[use this for a long melody, learn in parts, then assemble]] I hope you'll be able to play my melodies — maybe this will be easy, but if not then some disciplined perseverance will help you do it — and you will enjoy the process of learning from them. 

HOME-Notes

A way to play mainly-red that is commonly used, because it's musically useful, is to...

use home-notes:  All red notes in the lower row (with white dots) are special “home notes” that you can emphasize while playing melodies, perhaps by starting on any of the lower-reds that are home-notes, and playing these a little more often (but not too much more) while doing whatever you want — moving leftward & rightward, playing red notes (consecutively or with skipping) plus non-red notes (mainly white but maybe some black) — and often ending on a home-note.

    • use home-notes:  We typically hear "135_851_" as two units (135_ and 851_ ).  After the first half (ending on 5_ ) there is a feeling of "not yet home " but the second half (ending on 1_ ) produces the musical satisfaction of "coming home" by ending on the home-note of 1.  And we see this in "1358645_1358678_ because 8 also is a home-note, due to octaves.  A melody-phrase often (but not always) begins & ends on a home-note.     { moving away from the home-note and then returning to it }    [[ iou – The following melodies originally were in "play chord melodies" but I thought they would make good examples here;  tomorrow, March 25, I'll revise this part of the paragraph, but the melodies & ideas are here now:  Here are three 16-beat phrases (split 8+8), 3153853_3153851_ and 5315853_5315851_ & 5315851_5315858_ ;  the first two melodies end on a non-home note (3) after the first 8 beats, but then reach a home-note (1) after the next 8 beats;  the third melody ends on a home note (1) after 8 beats, then on another home note (8) after the next 8 beats.  [also, for awhile I thought this had been accidentally "cut" so I re-wrote the melodies from memory, and got the same "first two melodies" but the third melody got changed into this, 5315351_5315358_ .   Tomorrow I'll re-listen, will either choose one "third melody" or will keep both. ]]

Musical Mystery:  Usually, music that is interesting and enjoyable is semi-predictable, with some surprises.  Why?  Because when we hear music, we intuitively follow the flow of what has been happening, and “predict” what will happen.  If there is too much sameness, we become bored.  But we get frustrated if the music is too difficult to predict.  We tend to enjoy an in-between mix, with frequent confirmation of expectations along with some surprises, in a blend that is interesting rather than boring or frustrating.     { full section }

Musical Tension:  In the music we enjoy, one aspect of artistic semi-mystery arises from creatively mixing consonance (sometimes) and dissonance (other times).  To do this, a common strategy is moving away from the home-chord (or home-note) of a key, and then returning to it.  In this way and others, musicians can produce tension (in their chords and/or melodies) and then resolve the tension.     { full section }   { using home-chords in a chord progression }  use 4+4 as simple example? 14151451-chords

now in a1.htm --

use home-notes in melodies:  In the examples above, notice that red notes are featured;  they are target notes, typically are used for beginning or ending a mini-scale, or as a turning point between upward & downward.  More specifically, Key-of-C melodies often use C as the home-note(s) during a C Chord, to play a mainly-red melody;  but use F as home-note(s) during an F Chord, to play a mainly-blue melody;  and use G as home-note(s) during a G Chord, to play a mainly-green melody.

use the different chord-functions:  In the Key of C, its three main chords (the home-chord C, plus F & G) have different functions in chord progressions to produce-and-resolve tension in "music that is interesting and enjoyable, is semi-predictable with some surprises... in a blend that is interesting rather than boring or frustrating."  And the key's three main 1-Notes (its overall 1-Note of C, plus F & G) have different functions as home-notes in melodies, because typically the C-Notes are used as permanent home-notes throughout a song (and especially when a C-Chord is being played), but F-Notes or G-Notes are used only as temporary home-notes during the time when an F-Chord or G-Chord is being played.

    • play chord-melodies:

During a red chord, when you play only red notes everything you do will sound harmonious and pleasant.  In Stage 1 of Part 1A, I recommend doing creative experiments, "trying different ways to play only-red, by changing directions (go up for awhile, then back down, and up,...) and skipping some red notes."  That's the process I've used to compose the example-melodies below.  You can experiment, and eventually (if you want) look at my

Originally

[[ iou – at this point, late last night I listed 17 chord-melodies, but... I think this might seem overwhelming, or it would be boring, or both.  Therefore, instead I'll let you play an "exploration game," with me priming the pump.  By noon today (March 25) a "game" will be here.  With more to follow.

And you can invent a wider variety of chord-melodies by also using lower notes (e.g. the note that's an octave below 5, is two notes to the left of 0) or higher notes (e.g. an octave above 3, one note rightward from 9), or both;  plus chord-notes that are lower and higher than these. // 3585351_, 3531358_

Some simple 4-note melodies are 1358, 3581 & 5318;  [cluster of related, to show how you can develop a "family" of related melodies] 3538 & 3531 and 3558 & 3551 plus 5358 & 5351, with "&" showing how the same beginning can end in different ways, with each sounding good in a slightly different way. [try these simple chord-melodies with a variety of rhythms]  Here are 8-beat phrases with alternate endings: 1358531_ & 1358351_ , 1538351_ ,  5318531_ & 5318351_ , 5318531_  & 5318531_ , 5385158_ ,& 5385351_  & 5385331_ .  [there are a lot of these, so I may keep a few here, and move the rest into an appendix you can reach, if you want, with a link for "more examples"

    • play scale-melodies:  Using ten notes in the Scale of C (0123456789), the earlier examples of scale-melodies (i.e. mini-scales) are 345, 43, 3454321, 8765678, 2345434.   /   In the following examples, each "_" shows that the final note lasts two beats instead of the one beat used for the other notes, so the 7-note melody takes 8 beats.  Using this rhythm, two scale-melodies are 5432101_ and 3210121_ .  In an “exploration game” you can discover two analogous melodies by deciding which notes to play – in those labeled "?" – so you'll get 6??98_ and 6????78_ .  Then you can check my discoveries for these, and for six more because for "6????78_" there is “the analogous way” and six other ways.  Can you discover all of these ways to play?   /   Or find five ways to play the 7 notes of 3????78_ in 8 beats, using only the consecutive notes of a scale-melody.    { hint: There are many ways to do this, but it's a “trick question” because you must “do something a little different.” }   /   a variety of scales:  All of these scale-melodies use only white notes (in the Scale of C Major), but when you also use black notes you can play a wider variety of melodies.    with more variety.many scale-melodies ways if you replace some (or all) 7's with 7b's (why?) that are the black note before 7, although doing this produces what feels (to me) more like mainly-blue melodies, including this one that I especially like.

And if you replace

;  notice the "reverse symmetry" in 1345321_ and 1235431_

Here are my "answers" for the Discovery Games with scale-melodies, with

    • For scale melodies, one discovery is 67898_ ;  and 7 ways to get "6????78_" are with 6789878_ and 6567878_ , 6567678_ , 6565678_ , 6767878_ , 6767678_ , 6765678_ .

Playing 3?????8_ rhythmically (in 8 beats) requires the “trick” of playing one note more than once, and you can do this five ways;  one way is 3345678_ , and four others are possible because “the repeat” can be 33, 44, 55, 66, or 77.   /   When you're not self-limiting yourself to playing only scale-melodies, you'll find it much easier to play your melodies in rhythmically musical ways.

the "mainly-blue" melody I like is 4-5-6-b7-8-7-8_

    • combine three kinds of melodies:  When all three are combined, often each kind is very brief, is shorter than in the examples above.  For example, each of these melodies – 135864321 AND 135856798 – is formed by combining brief chord-melodies (1358 AND 13585), brief scale-melodies (4321 AND 567, 98), and brief skip-melodies (864 AND 79).  Notice that during each transition (from one kind of melody to another) one note is involved in both melodies;  e.g. when the brief melodies in 135864321 are highlighted with purple and underlining – 135864321 – two notes (8 and 4) are purple-and-underlined because each note is the ending of one brief melody and the beginning of another brief melody.   /   These "brief melodies" are melody fragments that are parts of a longer melody.  They are "a small part of... something larger," analogous to a sentence fragment that is "an incomplete sentence."   /   two more examples:  135872431 is made from (1358,31), (87,43), (724).  And a variation – with the same beginning & ending, but four extra notes in the middle – is 1358756352431 made from (1358,35,31), (87,56,43), (75,63,24).

developing smooth musical flow:  After you have “internalized” these three kinds-of-melodies (by sufficient experience with playing them) you won't be consciously thinking about them — except sometimes in your slow playing to stimulate creativity by imagining your many options for "what to play next" — because in your faster playing you have developed musical intuitions that let your playing flow smoothly with melodic continuity and rhythmic continuity.  These melody-examples can give you "starting points" for further explorations during your creative slow playing;  and your faster playing will help you develop skills with continuities.

    • use rhythm to make a phrase:  In "135_851_" two notes (5_ and 1_) are 2 beats, to produce the rhythmic units of 4 beats per bar (in 135_ and then 851_ ) that is used in most of the music we hear.  The entire 8-beat melody is a phrase, defined as "a series of notes that sounds complete, even when played apart from the main song."  Another way to form an 8-count phrase (by combining two 4-beat phrases) is illustrated by "1353651_". 

    • use home-notes:  We typically hear "135_851_" as two units (135_ and 851_ ).  After the first half (ending on 5_ ) there is a feeling of "not yet home " but the second half (ending on 1_ ) produces the musical satisfaction of "coming home" by ending on the home-note of 1.  And we see this in "1358645_1358678_ because 8 also is a home-note, due to octaves.  A melody-phrase often (but not always) begins & ends on a home-note.     { moving away from the home-note and then returning to it }    [[ iou – The following melodies originally were in "play chord melodies" but I thought they would make good examples here;  tomorrow, March 25, I'll revise this part of the paragraph, but the melodies & ideas are here now:  Here are three 16-beat phrases (split 8+8), 3153853_3153851_ and 5315853_5315851_ & 5315851_5315858_ ;  the first two melodies end on a non-home note (3) after the first 8 beats, but then reach a home-note (1) after the next 8 beats;  the third melody ends on a home note (1) after 8 beats, then on another home note (8) after the next 8 beats.  [also, for awhile I thought this had been accidentally "cut" so I re-wrote the melodies from memory, and got the same "first two melodies" but the third melody got changed into this, 5315351_5315358_ .   Tomorrow I'll re-listen, will either choose one "third melody" or will keep both. ]]

• use neighbor notes:  [[ iou – This paragraph will be fixed by tomorrow morning, March 24. ]]   You already have heard these in many melodies, including some scale-melodies plus ...5243201 above;  two variations of this are 5240121 and 5240321.  Different melodies, using 8-beat phrases, are 1342021_ and 1354021_ plus 1356421_ and 1356401_ .*   Each of these melodies uses neighbor notes (aka neighbor tones) that are "a little below" and/or "a little above" the home-note (1).  Due to octaves, an earlier example (135856798) also uses neighbor notes (79) and ends on another home-note (8).   /   * Another way to approach the home-note — without using a neighbor note, as in 1356431_ by using the very short chord-melody of 31_ .

    • use rhythm in a melody (Part 1, with your discoveries):  1358678652431_ _ _ with an ending of ...652431_ _ _ or (with the same beginning but alternate endings, by adding two notes) ...65243231_ _ _ and 65243201_ _ _ (with 43 becoming 4323 and 4320) or (with one less note) it can be 6524321_ _ _ .  Play each of the three endings, trying to figure out how you can "fit all notes into the available time" and make it sound musically pleasing.  You should be able to find three ways (maybe more) to make the timings of 432 sound rhythmically musical.  Then check to see if what you've been playing match how to...

    • use rhythm in a melody (Part 2, with my explanations):  How can you make each of these four endings — with ...652431 and 65243231 and 65243201 and 6524321 — sound musical?  Compared with 43 there are twice as many notes in 4323 or 4320, so they must be played twice as fast.  If the rhythm of 43 is symbolized by 4-3- the next two rhythms (with note-timings half as long) are 4323 and 4320.  The last melody (with 432) is "in between" – with 3 notes instead of 2 or 4 – and it's more complex;  three rhythms that can make it sound musical are 4-321 and 43-21 and 432-1.   /   With experience you'll develop musical intuitions for "fitting notes into the time that's available" so the music flows and is musically pleasing because your melody-notes and melody-rhythms are cooperating more effectively, so your improvising is more smooth and musical.

chords (a few, @#Stage1) -- scales (a few) -- chords+scales (almost all ok) -- skips (many not good, some wonderful, hi risk/reward) -

chords+scales+skips, with all strategy-tools for making melodies that are interesting-and-enjoyable.

play only-0123 mixing melodies (chord, scale, skip) in any ways you want

hints -- do the same, but preceded by 853... or 8351... with "..." being only-0123  /  link to "home-notes" (

SKIPS + others

135864201_ ,

Below are many examples — each is a goal-directed Aesop's Activity that (analogous to an Aesop's Fable) is designed to illustrate a specific idea — showing you how to...

    • play chord-melodies:

During a red chord, when you play only red notes everything you do will sound harmonious and pleasant.  In Stage 1 of Part 1A, I recommend that you do creative experiments, "trying different ways to play only-red, by changing directions (go up for awhile, then back down, and up,...) and skipping some red notes."  That's the process I've used to compose the melodies you see below.

• play chord-melodies:  During a red chord (a C Chord), when you play only-red everything you do will sound harmonious and pleasant.  The following examples are concrete actualizations resulting from a process creative experimenting, described in Part 1A's Stage 1 as "trying different ways to play only-red, by changing directions (go up for awhile, then back down, and up,...) and skipping some red notes."  I recommend doing this for awhile so you can discover your own chord-melodies, before you play mine:  before playing mine.

Originally

[[ iou – at this point, late last night I listed 17 chord-melodies, but... I think this might seem overwhelming, or it would be boring, or both.  Therefore, instead I'll let you play an "exploration game," with me priming the pump.  By noon today (March 25) a "game" will be here.  With more to follow.

And you can invent a wider variety of chord-melodies by also using lower notes (e.g. the note that's an octave below 5, is two notes to the left of 0) or higher notes (e.g. an octave above 3, one note rightward from 9), or both;  plus chord-notes that are lower and higher than these. // 3585351_, 3531358_

Some simple 4-note melodies are 1358, 3581 & 5318; 3538 & 3531 and 5358 & 5351, with "&" showing how the same beginning can end in different ways, with each sounding good in a slightly different way.  Here are 8-beat phrases with alternate endings: 1358531_ & 1358351_ , 1538351_ ,  5318531_ & 5318351_ , 5318531_  & 5318531_ , 5385158_ ,& 5385351_  & 5385331_ .  [there are a lot of these, so I may keep a few here, and move the rest into an appendix you can reach, if you want, with a link for "more examples"

• play chord-melodies:  During a red chord (a C Chord), when you play only-red everything you do will sound harmonious and pleasant.  The following examples are concrete actualizations resulting from a process creative experimenting, described in Part 1A's Stage 1 as "trying different ways to play only-red, by changing directions (go up for awhile, then back down, and up,...) and skipping some red notes."  I recommend doing this for awhile so you can discover your own chord-melodies, before you play mine:  before playing mine.  soon I either will reduce the number of examples or (more likely) will explain how these illustrate the wide variety of melodies you can make with only 4 notes (although I suggest that you invent chord-melodies with notes lower & higher than these 4  /  Some simple 4-note melodies are... 1358, 3531 & 3538 and 5358 & 5351, with "&" showing how the same beginning can end in different ways, with each sounding musical in a slightly different way.  Here are 8-beat phrases with alternate endings: 1358531_ & 1358351_ , 1538351_ ,  5318531_ & 5318351_ ;  5318531_  & 5318531_ ;  5385158_ & 5385351_  & 5385331_ .  [there are a lot of these, so I may keep a few here, and move the rest into an appendix you can reach, if you want, with a link for "more examples"]

  [[ iou – soon I'll select a couple more examples from these options:  345432123, 345654, 456543, 4565432, 3454321, 5432101, 321012101, 876789878, 5676543454321, 12345, 123454321 ]]

1358;  3581 & 5318;  3531 & 3538 and 5358 & 5351

on home note (1); 3158351_  plus many more. 

And you can invent a wider variety of chord-melodies by also using lower notes (e.g. the note that's an octave below 5, is two notes to the left of 0) or higher notes (e.g. an octave above 3, one note rightward from 9), or both;  plus chord-notes that are lower and higher than these. // 3585351_, 3531358_

starting with 45 and ending with 6789878_ , 5678987_ , 56789878; 

1356421_ (vs 1356401_), 1357968_

CFCGCFGC (no GF)

3585353 vs 3585351, 5318533 vs 5318531 vs 53181358?

3158351_

3153853_3153851_

5315853_5315851_

5315351_5315358_

5315851_5315858_

NEW -- In the first two 16-beat phrases, after first 8 beats end with a non-home note (3), then after next 8 beats reach a home note (1).

In final example, after first 8 beats reach a non-home note (1), then after next 8 beats reach another home note (8).

ORIGINAL -- Here are three 16-beat phrases (split 8+8), 3153853_3153851_ and 5315853_5315851_ & 5315851_5315858_ ;  the first two melodies end on a non-home note (3) after the first 8 beats, and then on a home-note (1) after the next 8 beats;  the third melody ends on a home note (1) after 8 beats, then on another home note (8) after the next 8 beats.

SKIPS

368, (863)

163,

503, 305,

862? ---

642,

964,

479,

724,

524?,--- 3 (great is thy faithfulness)

375 -- MANY

142? 351 obvious if 0679

142?, ok w many options -- sounds good with 5 or 3 or 1 satisfactory ending point -- 6 or 7 or (especially) 0 sound good but "unfinished" as if melody needs to continue

3725?, ok w many

4968, f ?

5268, ?

3642, o k, 1 (or 3) -- f?

5402, good (to 1 or 3)

1642, ok

5975, is G-chord - no

3625, ok -- DUPLICATE

1402, good (1 or 3) dissonant but resolves

1496, f -- 1497

and many more.

5-6b-6-7b-7-9-8-7-8-6-5-3-1_ _ _ .

CFCGCFGC (cut from cp.htm) -- For these CPs the videos have musical quality that is lower than for those below, for 12 Bar Blues and 50s Progression, Popular Progression, Jazz Progression.  But the videos will be useful for letting you “play along” with the chords;  or you can just “play your own CP” without a backing track.    [[ iou – before February 17, I'll find more videos for this CP and others, including “the first half” of 8-chord progressions and is mis-labeled "I-IV-V-I (C-F-G-C) (1451)" but actually is (1415, i.e. I-IV-I-V, C-F-G-C) in reality (and in their description) — that end with the 4-chord progression of 1451. ]]

HOME-Notes:  @ # home0, home02, home

use home-notes:  All red notes in the lower row (with white dots) are special “home notes” that you can emphasize while playing melodies, perhaps by starting on any of the lower-reds that are home-notes, and playing these a little more often (but not too much more) while doing whatever you want — moving leftward & rightward, playing red notes (consecutively or with skipping) plus non-red notes (mainly white but maybe some black) — and often ending on a home-note.

Musical Tension:  In the music we enjoy, one aspect of artistic semi-mystery arises from creatively mixing consonance (sometimes) and dissonance (other times).  To do this, a common strategy is moving away from the home-chord (or home-note) of a key, and then returning to it.  In this way and others, musicians can produce tension (in their chords and/or melodies) and then resolve the tension.     { full section }   { using home-chords in a chord progression }

my goal-directed melodies:  These three melody-making strategies are illustrated in the following examples that are intended for teaching, to help you convert abstract ideas (in your thinking) into concrete reality (in your playing);  i.e. I'm not trying to compose “hit songs”, 🙂.   Instead my goal is educational, to show you how melody-making strategies can be used to make mainly-red melodies.     { or to make melodies that are mainly-blue or mainly-green. }

your process of learning:  I hope you'll be able to play my melodies — maybe this will be easy, but if not then some disciplined perseverance will help you do it — and you will enjoy the process of learning from them.  Although it would be useful-and-fun for me to be with you to share personally customized coaching, I think you'll find that learning with this page also is enjoyable.  You can do stop-and-go reading (read-and-think, play-and-think, then do it again,...) to combine reading with playing;  learn at your own pace, taking time to process what you are experiencing and are learning.     { learning from your discoveries & my explanations, from in-page teaching and in-person coaching }   /   [[ iou – temporarily, some links (to places later in this “strategies section” that will be written soon but not yet) won't work, so you'll just remain “where you are” in the page. ]]

Below are many examples — each is a goal-directed Aesop's Activity that (analogous to an Aesop's Fable) is designed to illustrate a specific idea — showing you how to...

    • play chord-melodies:

During a red chord, when you play only red notes everything you do will sound harmonious and pleasant.  In Stage 1 of Part 1A, I recommend that you do creative experiments, "trying different ways to play only-red, by changing directions (go up for awhile, then back down, and up,...) and skipping some red notes."  That's the process I've used to compose the melodies you see below.

Originally

[[ iou – at this point, late last night I listed 17 chord-melodies, but... I think this might seem overwhelming, or it would be boring, or both.  Therefore, instead I'll let you play an "exploration game," with me priming the pump.  By noon today (March 25) a "game" will be here.  With more to follow.

And you can invent a wider variety of chord-melodies by also using lower notes (e.g. the note that's an octave below 5, is two notes to the left of 0) or higher notes (e.g. an octave above 3, one note rightward from 9), or both;  plus chord-notes that are lower and higher than these. // 3585351_, 3531358_

Some simple 4-note melodies are 1358, 3581 & 5318; 3538 & 3531 and 5358 & 5351, with "&" showing how the same beginning can end in different ways, with each sounding good in a slightly different way.  Here are 8-beat phrases with alternate endings: 1358531_ & 1358351_ , 1538351_ ,  5318531_ & 5318351_ , 5318531_  & 5318531_ , 5385158_ ,& 5385351_  & 5385331_ .  [there are a lot of these, so I may keep a few here, and move the rest into an appendix you can reach, if you want, with a link for "more examples"

    • play scale-melodies:  Using ten notes in the Scale of C (0123456789), the earlier examples of scale-melodies (i.e. mini-scales) are 345, 43, 3454321, 8765678, 2345434.   /   In the following examples, each "_" shows that the final note lasts two beats instead of the one beat used for the other notes, so the 7-note melody takes 8 beats.  Using this rhythm, two scale-melodies are 5432101_ and 3210121_ .  In an “exploration game” you can discover two analogous melodies by deciding which notes to play – in those labeled "?" – so you'll get 6??98_ and 6????78_ .  Then you can check my discoveries for these, and for six more because for "6????78_" there is “the analogous way” and six other ways.  Can you discover all of these ways to play?   /   Or find five ways to play the 7 notes of 3????78_ in 8 beats, using only the consecutive notes of a scale-melody.    { hint: There are many ways to do this, but it's a “trick question” because you must “do something a little different.” }   /   a variety of scales:  All of these scale-melodies use only white notes (in the Scale of C Major), but when you also use black notes you can play a wider variety of melodies.    with more variety.many scale-melodies ways if you replace some (or all) 7's with 7b's (why?) that are the black note before 7, although doing this produces what feels (to me) more like mainly-blue melodies, including this one that I especially like.

And if you replace

    • combine chord-melodies with scale-melodies:  When both are used together you have opportunities to freely explore, because almost anything you do will sound good.  But you'll think some melodies sound better than others, so experiment-listen-learn.  Beginning with a framework of a chord-melody

Melodies with a familiar phrase-rhythm (7 notes in 8 beats) can begin with a chord-melody (1354321_, 5315678_, 8535678_) or with a scale-melody (8765351_, 1235678_

;  notice the "reverse symmetry" in 1345321_ and 1235431_

Here are my "answers" for the Discovery Games with scale-melodies, with

    • For scale melodies, one discovery is 67898_ ;  and 7 ways to get "6????78_" are with 6789878_ and 6567878_ , 6567678_ , 6565678_ , 6767878_ , 6767678_ , 6765678_ .

Playing 3?????8_ rhythmically (in 8 beats) requires the “trick” of playing one note more than once, and you can do this five ways;  one way is 3345678_ , and four others are possible because “the repeat” can be 33, 44, 55, 66, or 77.   /   When you're not self-limiting yourself to playing only scale-melodies, you'll find it much easier to play your melodies in rhythmically musical ways.

the "mainly-blue" melody I like is 4-5-6-b7-8-7-8_

;  to see why there are many, play 5567878_

a chromatic scale-melody plus skip-melody and chord-melody:  5-6b-6-7b-7-9-8-7-8-6-5-3-1_ _ _ .

    • play skip-melodies:  [[ iou – This paragraph will be available sometime during March 25-26. ]]

Here you see notes (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1) in the Scale of C Major.  The non-chord notes (2,4,6,7) are gray, to highlight the chord notes (1,3,5) that usually are featured when improvising melodies during a C Chord.

But even though red notes "usually are featured," all non-red notes – both scale notes (white) and non-scale notes (black) – can be useful for making melodies by playing mainly red (instead of only red) so you're making melodies that are more interesting, with more variety.  An important melody-making strategy is to use...

passing notes and scale-melodies:  By creatively using non-chord passing notes (both white and black) you can move between chord notes that are target notes — so you're passing from one chord note to another chord note (it's a target note) — in ways that are smooth and musical.  This is the most common way – but not the only way – to play brief mini-scales (they're partial scales, are less than a full scale of 12345671) that I call scale-melodies, as in 123, 12345, 345, 543, 3454321, 5671765, 345432123,  or 345654, 456543, 4565432. [[are these early selections?? -- with too many, that later were reduced]]

three kinds of brief melodies:  In addition to these brief scale-melodies (with consecutive scale-notes) and brief chord-melodies (with only chord notes), you also can play brief skip-melodies.*  We can distinguish between these melodies in two ways.  First, a chord-melody has only chord notes (as in "135"), but a scale-melody also includes at least one non-chord note (as in 345 or 123456).  Second, a scale-melody has consecutive scale-notes, but a skip-melody uses non-consecutive scale-notes.  There are two ways to make a skip-melody;  in a chord-melody (like 15) you skip between chord notes;  but although this is a “skip melody” I limit the term skip-melody to when one of the two notes (first or second, being skipped-from or skipped-to) is a non-chord note, which occurs in a sequence of 14 or 24 or 25, but not 35.

* My own terms (chord-melody, scale-melody, skip-melody) are not commonly used by other musicians when they describe melodies;  but the actions are commonly used when we play melodies.

my goal-directed melodies:  These three melody-making strategies are illustrated in the following examples that are intended for teaching, to help you convert abstract ideas (in your thinking) into concrete reality (in your playing);  i.e. I'm not trying to compose “hit songs”, 🙂.   Instead my goal is educational, to show you how melody-making strategies can be used to make melodies.

your process of learning:  I hope you'll be able to play my melodies — maybe this will be easy, but if not then some disciplined perseverance will help you do it — and you will enjoy the process of learning from them.  Although it would be useful-and-fun for me to be with you to share personally customized coaching, I think you'll find that learning with this page also is enjoyable.  You can do stop-and-go reading (read-and-think, play-and-think, then do it again,...) to combine reading with playing;  learn at your own pace, taking time to process what you are experiencing and are learning.     { learning from your discoveries & my explanations, from in-page teaching and in-person coaching }

Below are many examples — each is a goal-directed Aesop's Activity that (analogous to an Aesop's Fable) is designed to illustrate a specific idea — showing you how to...

    • use three kinds of melodies:  With ten notes in the Scale of C (0123456789), you can play-and-hear "135864321" AND "135856798".  Each of these melodies is formed by combining brief chord-melodies (1358 AND 13585), brief scale-melodies (4321 AND 567, 98), and brief skip-melodies (864 AND 79).  Notice that during each transition (from one kind of melody to another) one note is involved in both melodies;  e.g. when the brief melodies in 135864321 are highlighted with purple and underlining – 135864321 – two notes (8 and 4) are purple-and-underlined because each note is the ending of one brief melody and the beginning of another brief melody.   /   These "brief melodies" are melody fragments that are parts of a longer melody.  They are "a small part of... something larger," analogous to a sentence fragment that is "an incomplete sentence."   /   two more examples:  135872431 is made from (1358,31), (87,43), (724).  And a variation – with the same beginning & ending, but four extra notes in the middle – is 1358756352431 made from (1358,35,31), (87,56,43), (75,63,24).

developing smooth musical flow:  After you have “internalized” these three kinds-of-melodies (by sufficient experience with playing them) you won't be consciously thinking about them — except sometimes in your slow playing to stimulate creativity by imagining your many options for "what to play next" — because in your faster playing you have developed musical intuitions that let your playing flow smoothly with melodic continuity and rhythmic continuity.  These melody-examples can give you "starting points" for further explorations during your creative slow playing;  and your faster playing will help you develop skills with continuities.

    • use rhythm to make a phrase:  In "135_851_" each "_" shows that these notes (5_ and 1_ ) last two beats instead of the one beat that's used for the other notes.  This timing produces the rhythmic units of 4 beats per bar (in 135_ and then 851_ ) that is used in most of the music we hear.  This 8-beat melody is aka a phrase, defined as "a series of notes that sounds complete, even when played apart from the main song."  Another way to form an 8-count phrase (by combining two 4-beat phrases) is illustrated by "1353651_". 

    • use home-notes:  We typically hear "135_851_" as two units (135_ and 851_ ).  After the first half (ending on 5_ ) there is a feeling of "not yet home " but the second half (ending on 1_ ) produces the musical satisfaction of "coming home" by ending on the home-note of 1.  And we see this in "1358645_1358678_ because 8 also is a home-note, due to octaves.  A melody-phrase often (but not always) begins & ends on a home-note.     { moving away from the home-note and then returning to it }

    • use rhythm in a melody (Part 1, with your discoveries):  1358678652431_ _ _ with an ending of ...652431_ _ _ or (with the same beginning but alternate endings, by adding two notes) ...65243231_ _ _ and 65243201_ _ _ (with 43 becoming 4323 and 4320) or (with one less note) it can be 6524321_ _ _ .  Play each of the three endings, trying to figure out how you can "fit all notes into the available time" and make it sound musically pleasing.  You should be able to find three ways (maybe more) to make the timings of 432 sound rhythmically musical.  Then check to see if what you've been playing match how to...

    • use rhythm in a melody (Part 2, with my explanations):  How can you make each of these four endings — with ...652431 and 65243231 and 65243201 and 6524321 — sound musical?  Compared with 43 there are twice as many notes in 4323 or 4320, so they must be played twice as fast.  If the rhythm of 43 is symbolized by 4-3- the next two rhythms (with note-timings half as long) are 4323 and 4320.  The last melody (with 432) is "in between" – with 3 notes instead of 2 or 4 – and it's more complex;  three rhythms that can make it sound musical are 4-321 and 43-21 and 432-1.   /   With experience you'll develop musical intuitions for "fitting notes into the time that's available" so the music flows and is musically pleasing because your melody-notes and melody-rhythms are cooperating more effectively, so your improvising is more smooth and musical.

• use neighbor notes:  You already have heard these in many melodies, including ...65243201 above;  two variations are 5240121 and 5240321.  nd (similar but a little different) "1354021_".  Also similar are 1342021_ plus 1356421_ and 1356401_ .*   Each of these melodies uses neighbor notes (aka neighbor tones) that are "a little below" and/or "a little above" the home-note (1).  Due to octaves, an earlier example (135856798) also uses neighbor notes (79) and ends on another home-note (8).   /   * Another way to approach the home-note, without a neighbor note, is 1356431_ by using the very short chord-melody of 31_ .

Your Discovery):  1358756352431_ _ _ 1358678652431_ _ _ or (with same beginning but alternate endings)

Also play-and-hear 1365021_ and 1342021_.  Each of these melodies uses neighbor notes (aka neighbor tones) that are "a little below" and/or "a little above" the home-note (1).  Due to octaves, another home-note (8) also has neighbor notes (7,9) as in this melody-phrase, 135856798 or (using either neighbor alone) ---- or ----

1342021_

135313201_ and 135364201_ and

1365401_

, to show how you can

"a phrase is a series of notes that sounds complete, even when played apart from the main song." https://www.musictheory.net/lessons/55

For the paragraphs below, you can use stop-and-go reading;  play each melody, before moving on to the next.  Or you can just “read through it” to get the main ideas, and then (if you want) return later to play the melody-examples.

options:  In the rest of this sub-section, I recommend that you play each example on a keyboard (or other instrument) so you can hear it and learn the strategies.  But if this is "too much information to process" you can just quickly get the main ideas, then move on to other strategies before (probably) returning to this later.

You can use passing notes in a variety of creative ways, to make interesting melodies.  A few examples, among the many possible, are a "full scale" of (12345671) that's formed by playing all scale-notes in consecutive order, and "partial scales" (I call them mini-scales) like 345 (or 543), and 5671765.    {other melodies}

--to be more interesting, Using ten notes in the Scale of C (0123456789),

terms:  I'm using colors to clarify the meaning of a scale that is...  • a group of scale-notes (e.g. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,1) that can be played in any way, or is   • playing all of the 7 scale-notes in consecutive sequence without skipping any.

I distinguish between the two meanings of scale by using colors:  • a scale is a group of scale-notes (e.g. C,D,E,F,G,A,B) that can be played in any way;   • a scale is playing a consecutive sequence of scale-notes, as in CDEFGABC or CBAGFEDC.     { we also can play mini-scales of less than an octave } 

scales and scales:  Yes, scale is a term with two meanings.  It's either a group of scale-notes (e.g. C,D,E,F,G,A,B) that can be played in any way, or (with a more-restrictive meaning) is playing scale-notes in consecutive sequence without skipping any, typically beginning & ending on a home-note, as in CDEFGABC ascending or (less commonly used) CBAGFEDC descending.  In this page I'll use two colors — scale (for a group of notes that can be played in any way) and scale (for scale-notes played in consecutive sequence) — to clarify my meaning;  but most writers don't do this, so to understand their intended meaning you must be aware of the context.

play chord-based melodies

by using Chord Notes plus

non-chordal Passing Notes:

during a Chord Progression

with red-blue-green chords,

play Chord-Based Melodies

by mixing Chord Notes and

non-chordal Passing Notes:

FIX Part 2 Intro, end of "growth mindset", develop ideas about Intentional Learning -- One aspect of intelligent effort is designing a plan for practicing,

FOCUSED practice, INTENTIONAL w goals -- for 50s-popular-jazz, with minor -- play only-Aminor (check t.htm for quoting/revising)

What?  Most of the songs we hear use a chord progression with three main chords that are the “red chord” and “blue chord” and “green chord” on my colorized keyboard.  In most music, harmonious melodies are created by playing mainly red notes during the time when a red chord is being played, and playing mainly blue notes {or mainly green notes} while a blue chord {or green chord} is being played.

How?  Part 1A outlines one process for developing skill, in two stages.  During Stage 1 "you begin with the simplicity of only red notes" and "everything you do — whether you move upward (rightward) or downward (leftward), play only consecutive red notes or skip some — will be a harmonious melody that sounds harmoniously pleasant."  But "while playing only red notes, your musical adventures will be limited.  You'll have more fun when you... play mainly red notes but also some non-red notes for variety,... to explore a wider variety of possibilities" so you are "making music that still is pleasant, but now is more interesting."   /   Then during Stage 2a you improvise melodies that are guided by chord progressions, when you alternate time-periods of only red and only blue and only green.  Then begin mixing mainly red with mainly blue and mainly green,... improvising melodies that harmonize with each chord in the chord progression."   /   This basic outline isn't changed in Part 1B, which just describes some ways to "explore a wide variety of possibilities."

How?  As explained in Part 2 (Strategies for Improvising), "the main way to improve your improvising is to learn by doing, when you do musical experiments (you try new musical ideas) to produce new musical experiences so you can listen-and-learn."

Below are some "new musical ideas" you can try.    [ to be continued ]

PRINCIPLES & INTUITIONS -- SCAFFOLDING & HEURISTICS

principles and intuitions:  This long section (beginning with Passing Notes and continuing thru Musical Mystery)

describes practical strategies – using musical principles, growing intuitive ways to think & play – that may help you develop your skills of creatively inventing melodies that are “mainly-red and mainly-blue and mainly-green” during a chord progression.  Throughout the section, if you find a strategy that is helping you, use it.  If not, ignore it now, and maybe return to it later.

scaffolding & heuristics:  You can use a strategy (for making melodies) as educational scaffolding that "breaks learning into bite-sized chunks so students can more easily tackle complex material [like the many ways to make melodies], building on old ideas and connecting them to new ones" by "providing students with a framework for learning as they build and strengthen their [cognitive-and-functional] understanding [and skills]."  The strategies can function as practical heuristics that are useful ways of "helping to learn, guiding in discovery," with "mental shortcuts that allow people to... make judgments [about which notes to play while making melodies] quickly and efficiently."     { quotations:  A  B  C  D }

experiments produce experiences and learning:   The main way to improve your improvising is to learn by doing, when you do musical experiments (you try new musical ideas) to produce new musical experiences so you can listen-and-learn.     { In this section, imagine from two perspectives with "you" as yourself or a student. }

play in different ways, with high quality:   My Other Page has five tips for learning more by playing in different ways, sometimes slow but sometimes fast, by thinking or not-thinking, seeking new adventures, expecting to improve, aiming for quality in learning or performing.  You may find it especially productive to sometimes play slowly — so you have more time to think-and-play-and-listen, making it easier to freely experiment, to “try different note-sequences” in a variety of creative ways — because this helps you discover how to improvise new kinds of melodies.  Or improvise new kinds of rhythms, or discover other ways to invent music that's interesting-and-enjoyable.

practice SLOW (for creativity) and FAST (for musicality, with continuity [play-thru whatever happens, keep going] w video for tempo-accountability

How do you play it well, with skill?  The main way you develop skill is to learn-by-doing:  do experiments (try new ideas) so you can listen-and-learn.  //  A process of creative experimenting is described in Part 1A's Stage 1 — "try different ways to play only-red, by changing directions (go up for awhile, then back down, and up,...) and skipping some red notes" — along with a principle-based strategy of using red notes as home notes by “musically emphasizing” them.

ONLY to MAINLY ---- WHAT

What?  During a chord progression, sometimes a red chord is playing, and – to cooperate with the chord's harmony – you can improvise a “mainly-harmonious melody” that is mainly-red (instead of only-red in a “totally-harmonious melody”) by playing mainly red notes but also some non-red notes.  And when a blue chord {or green chord} is playing, your melody can be mainly-blue {or mainly-green}.

ONLY to MAINLY ---- WHY

Why?  Compared with only-red, playing a melody with mainly-red is more interesting because more notes are being used in a melody.  And it's more enjoyable because people enjoy music that is semi-predictable.

This section adds another strategy that is useful in a transition from playing only red notes — it's a great starting point for improvising, but isn't a good ending place — to playing mainly red notes.  When you move from only-red to mainly-red a valuable principle-based strategy is to... [[ TRANSITION to How ]]

ONLY to MAINLY ---- HOW

heuristics -- passing, chord-mels + scale-mels + jumps

How?  As explained in Part 2 (Strategies for Improvising), "the main way to improve your improvising is to learn by doing, when you do musical experiments (you try new musical ideas) to produce new musical experiences so you can listen-and-learn."

Below are some "new musical ideas" you can try.    [ to be continued ]

optional:  If you want, these melodies can be analyzed into overlapping components, with These can be viewed

chord-melodies and scale-melodies:  You can blend these together by alternating times of briefly playing an only-red melody that uses only chord-notes

Another melody-making strategy is to think about...

step-melodies and skip-melodies:  You can play melodies that move in steps (using only white notes, or also including some black notes) or move with leaps

[[ crop to 12345671, show simple, up-down, etc

later, do simple

AESOP'S ACTIVITIES

these are goal-directed Aesop's Activities that are designed to help students learn specific ideas or skills, with goals defined by external standards, or by yourself when you define an idea (or skill) as a worthy goal because you can imagine a life-situation where it would be useful

Aesop's Fables teach specific lessons about life; by analogy, these Aesop's Activities are goal-directed, are designed to help you learn specific ideas and skills. these --> each

PASSING NOTES and SCALES (both DIATONIC with all-white, and CHROMATIC that includes black)

This section adds another strategy that is useful in a transition from playing only red notes — it's a great starting point for improvising, but isn't a good ending place — to playing mainly red notes.  When you move from only-red to mainly-red a valuable principle-based strategy is to...

use passing notes:  By creatively using non-chord passing notes (both white and black) you can move between chord notes that are target notes — so you're passing from one chord note to another chord note (it's a target note) — in ways that are smooth and musical.  When you “experiment, listen and learn” another valuable principle-based strategy is to...

when you use some non-chord notes, your melodies will be mainly-harmonious (instead of totally-harmonious) and will sound good, if the improvising is played well.

use Chord Notes and Non-Chord Notes,

mix Chord-Melodies with Scale-Melodies:

[[ a change:  instead of "briefly" to describe timings, I'll give a few examples of mini-scales to make scale-melodies, and

[[ also:  add "skip melodies" ? -- only red (always in jumps-skips-leaps), consecutive in scale w passing note(s), plus jumps of all kinds (not just red-to-red)

In one strategy for inventing melodies of mainly-red {or mainly-blue, mainly-green} that are mainly-harmonious and are interesting, you can...

chord-melodies, chord-melodies[mini-runs?],

alternate chord-melodies with scale-melodies [[and leap/skip-melodies ?]]:  One way to explore musical possibilities is to briefly play a chord-melody (with only chord notes), and then use passing notes to briefly play a scale-melody that's a mini-scale (i.e. it's a partial scale that is less than a full octave of 12345678) by playing all consecutive white notes while moving from one red note to another red note.   /   flexible timings:  You can "briefly play" for a time that's very short (with only a few notes) or is a little longer.   /   flexible melodies:  Don't interpret these “two kinds of melodies” literally, instead view them as practical heuristics that can be useful as scaffolding that helps you discover a variety of ways to improvise melodies.   /   

RHYTHM

be able to play with consistent thythm + and able to change of pace (try each, mix) ??  /  I'll try this to see if it's musically useful, and is realistic vs advanced -- Chopin? most composers & musicians don't do this! that's why Chopin was so special

SCALE-and-SCALE ---- [[ explain scale vs scale w colors (quote basic defn), and asap illustrate passing notes with mini-scales

CHORD PROGRESSION

red, blue, and green:  During a chord progression when the chords are changing — when they sometimes are red, but other times are blue or green — you can improvise melodies that are “mainly red-chord notes” and “mainly blue-chord notes” and “mainly green-chord notes”.  How?  The strategies for playing mainly-red melodies – by using home notes and passing notes while experimenting – also are effective for improvising melodies that are mainly-blue and mainly-green.

When you're beginning to learn ----- of playing “mainly chord notes” it's easier to begin with “only chord notes” by improvising melodies with only-red, only-blue, only-green.  If you're playing along with a video, slow it down and repeat it with a Loop.  After awhile you can begin adding more non-chord notes ---- After you've played red-blue-green melodies using “only chord-notes” for awhile, and you're comfortable doing this, you can begin playing “mainly chord-notes” by using the ideas above and below.

Of course, you can modify this melody (in many creative ways) to make other melodies.

to illustrate chord-melodies (with only chord notes) and scale-melodies (with mini-scales that use non-chord notes as passing notes used to play mainly-red with mini-scales)

only white notes ("think classical")(or change this to "rock" or whatever you want)(or don't use "thinking ___")

TRANSITIONS during CP ---- [[make it short, simple ? or keep roughly as-is? ]]  two times:  You can use passing notes artistically, with creativity & taste, during the long time while a chord is being played, and then during the short time when the chord changes, for a skillful transition from what you have been playing (during the first chord) to what you will be playing (during the next chord), with melodic continuity.

some CUTS might be useful, somehow:

Within each example every “melody” (whether it's a chord-melody, scale-melody, or skip-melody) is brief, is just a mini-melody that is part of the longer melody in the overall example.

https://www.answers.com/music-and-radio/What_is_a_melodic_fragment -- A melodic fragment is a short subset of a longer melody.

A sentence fragment is an incomplete sentence; - https://www.grammarly.com/blog/mistake-of-the-month-sentence-fragments/

a small part of something that has broken off or comes from something larger - https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/fragment_1

other CUTS probably should stay gone:

three kinds of melodies (Part 2):  Another example – 1358756352431 – is a longer version of 135864321 (from Part 1) with extra notes in the middle.  It's made from These melodies can be analyzed into components, with bold-numbers showing how each melody is formed by combining brief chord-melodies (1358756352345) and scale-melodies (13517,56352345) and skip-melodies (135175,63,52345);  notice the overlaps, as when 1 is part of a chord-melody (1351) followed by a scale-melody (17).  Similarly, the second melody combines brief chord-melodies (1234651762431), scale-melodies (1234,65,176,876), and skip-melodies (46,624).

skip-melodies:  1358756352345 and 1234658762431.   /   These melodies can be analyzed into components, with bold-numbers showing how each melody is formed by combining brief chord-melodies (1358756352345) and scale-melodies (13517,56352345) and skip-melodies (135175,63,52345);  notice the overlaps, as when 1 is part of a chord-melody (1351) followed by a scale-melody (17).  Similarly, the second melody combines brief chord-melodies (1234651762431), scale-melodies (1234,65,176,876), and skip-melodies (46,624).

the benefits of playing slowly:  During your improvising — whether you're thinking “classical” or “blues” or “jazz” or “rock” or “  ?  ” or you're using another type of strategy (e.g. with imagery for thinking-and-feeling)* to stimulate creativity — you may find (as I have) that slow experimenting often is productive.  Your slow playing can help you break out of familiar habit-ruts, because you have more time to intentionally try unfamiliar sequences-of-notes (by playing-with-thinking and also playing-without-thinking, because both ways to play can be productive) so you're using the notes in new ways, and this makes it more likely that you'll discover new ways to make music.  And playing slowly can help you convert your understanding (of theory-principles) into your playing (with theory-principles).  But you shouldn't play only slowly, instead alternate between slower playing and faster playing, perhaps while using a metronome (or a backing track) that motivates you to make quick improv-decisions so your playing stays on-tempo and in-rhythm.

* You can use imagery by “thinking      ” where "     " is your imagery when you "play by thinking-and-feeling (for yourself) and/or communicating (for others) your musically-metaphorical ‘imagery’ for the atmosphere-character-flavor-mood of the music, for the ways you're thinking & feeling.

links & ideas:  You can learn more – and improve more – by alternating between playing slow and fast, by thinking and not-thinking, while seeking new adventures, and aiming for high quality of learning and/or performing.  There are connections between improvising and composing when we view the skill of composing as slow-motion improvising with a preserving of results that can be easier when you play slowly and record your improvisations so you can listen-and-preserve later.     { synonyms: This page is about improvising melodies, but verbs that usually have similar meanings are composing, inventing, making, creating, and playing melodies. }

A Universal Musical Language:  You can gather a group of jazz musicians (or pop-rock-country musicians) from all over the world, say “let's play 12-Bar Blues in C” (or in any other key) and instantly they will be making music together, with skill.  Why?  Because chords – and chord progressions (like 12-Bar Blues) – are the central core of a shared language of music they all understand.

in #scalescale -- {making melodies by mixing chord-arpeggios with scales}   {more about the two meanings}   {diatonic scale & chromatic scale}

using terms-with-colors:  On my colorized keyboard, always the red notes are C,E,G, and blue notes are F,A,C, and green notes are G,B,D;  and the chords (red, blue, green) are (C, F, G) that are (I, IV, V) in the Key of C Major.  But in any other major key, these colors are incorrect, because my colors are intended to be used only for the Key of C Major (or for A Minor);  in this context, colorizing the terms is correct, although it isn't necessary so I sometimes don't use colors when describing notes or chords.  And for other keys, I only use uncolorized key-general chord names (I,IV,V) or key-specific chord names (e.g. G,C,D for the Key of G).   /   * But the colorizing can be useful for playing chords and chord-notes in the Key of F (for 2 of its 3 main chords, for F & C) or in the Key of G (for 2 of its 3 main chords, for G & C).     {and other musicians don't use my color-terms, even when describing the Key of C Major.}

“fit well”

two times:  You can use passing notes artistically (with creativity & taste) during the long time while a chord is being played, and then to make a skillful transition during the short time when the chord changes, so there is melodic continuity between what you were playing (with the first chord) flowsyou're shifting from the current melody (that fits with the current chord) melody to the "next chord" melody.

maybe TMI-Words for defining semitones -- [any two adjacent notes, whether the two notes are white or black] --> whether the note-sequence is white-then-white, white-then-black, or black-then-white

more:  A section about octaves includes a musical example showing that although "we think octave-notes sound very similar, essentially the same," their same-ness occurs only when we hear them as two isolated notes.  When instead we hear these octave-notes (an octave apart) in the musical context of other notes, they can produce very different sounds-and-feelings. 

this was (before change 03-11-2024) -- text for "middle" showing Bb (for Blue) and F# (for Green)

top row:  is notes (1 3 5) in C-Chords, middle:  notes (CDEFGAB) in C-Scale,  bar-rows:  red notes in C-Chords.

top row:  is notes (1 3 5) in F-Chords, middle:  notes (FGABbCDE) in F-Scale,  bar-rows:  blue notes in F-Chords.

top row:  is notes (1 3 5) in G-Chords, middle:  notes (GABCDEF#) in G-Scale,  bar-rows:  green notes in G-Chords.

forming Red C-Chords:  When you study this diagram and you focus on the notes that have a bottom-row red bar (they're labeled with "1" and "C") you'll see that the notes in a Red-Chord (it's a C-Chord) are every other white note of the C-Scale — with Scale-Notes labeled as both numbers (1234567) and letters (CDEFGA) — beginning with C as the 1-Note.  These Chord-Notes (C, E, and G) are the 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes of the C-Scale, in the Key of C, aka the Key of C Major.  You can understand the every-other-note spacing by “thinking” with written symbols – with numbers (1 2 3 4 5 6 7) and letters (C D E F G, i.e. CdEfG) – and also with spatial relationships on the keyboard, by seeing with your eyes (which is transformed into visualizing with your visual memory) and by knowing with your muscle memory.     { Interactions between these “ways to know” — using numbers & letters, and spatial relationships by seeing & visualizing, plus muscle memories — help you develop your cognitive-and-functional knowledge of music. }

Chord Notes (1, 3, 5) and Chord Names (C, F, G):  Earlier you saw how each main chord (C or F or G) is formed with the 1st & 3rd & 5th Notes of its own Scale (of the C-Scale, or F-Scale, or G-Scale);   the name of each Chord is the 1-Note of its own Scale, so a C-Chord has a 1-Note (in the C-Scale) that is C,  and an F-Chord has a 1-Note (in the F-Scale) of F,  and a G-Chord has a 1-Note (in the G-Scale) of G.

names with letters:  The three one-color diagrams focus on Chord Notes by showing how we form chords from the 1-3-5 Notes in the Scale of each Chord, so...  a C-Chord is formed by the 1,3,5 Notes of its C-Scale, and it's called a C-Chord because its 1-Note is C;   an F-Chord is formed by the 1,3,5 of its F-Scale, and it's called an F-Chord because its 1-Note is F;   a G-Chord is formed by the 1,3,5 of its G-Scale, and it's called a G-Chord because its 1-Note is G.  Therefore, the Chord-Notes you see on a colorized keyboard are 1,3,5 or 1,3,5 or 1,3,5.

names with roman numerals:  The three-color diagram puts chords in a musical context (it's the Scale of C in the Key of C) and the focus is Chord Names, showing why the “C and F and G” also are called “I and IV and V” because the 1-Note of each Chord (C or F or G) is the 1st Note (the I) or 4th Note (the IV) or 5th Note (the V) in the Scale of C.

{ but C-Chords include 135 and also inversions like 351, 513,... with 1,3,5 arranged in different orders;  and also chords with more than 3 notes, like 1351 with 1 being an octave above 1, or 1513, ... }    { the wide variety of chords }

in asa3...music.htm, revised in #145table

Musical Patterns:  The relationships between sharps and flats for each major scale are summarized in the table below, with sharped notes symbolized by #, and flatted notes by ♭.  If you already know some music theory, or if you're skilled at recognizing patterns, you'll be able to find several ways to make sense out of it.  If you're in a mood for exploring, scroll the screen so the paragraphs about "PATTERNS" (below the table) are hidden;  then you can first search for patterns by yourself, before looking at my written explanations.  And my explanation will connect my visual representation (in the table) with the usual visual representation (in a Circle of Fifths)

cut from Working with Other Educators ---- During the first half of 2023, I did a few actions, but soon will be doing many more.  In late May, I contacted music teachers and principals in three local k-12 districts (Columbus, Westerville, Worthington) about my ideas for Problem-Solving Education and Music-Improvising Education.