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I’ve been thinking a lot about melodic shape recently in the context of a couple of pieces Rainbow Voices are working on. Specifically, I’ve been wanting to catalogue a handful of features that are often found in melodies, that, once identified, offer clues to help make the most of the tune’s expressive potential. They’re all features that you may well respond to by feel, but by bringing them to conscious awareness, you can be more purposeful in how you approach them. The point is not to replace your intuition, that is, but to understand and thus enhance it.

I’ve written about some of these principles from an arranger’s perspective in the past; this post is following through to what the implications are for singers.

• Long notes are there to feature the beauty of your voice. When you have a long note, there is nothing to do except be glorious, so use these opportunities to take the note on a journey of beauty and meaning. The most interesting moment in a long note is just before it finishes.
• Fill the dots. This is like the previous principle in microcosm. A dot after a note is there to elongate it, and thus the dot becomes the most interesting moment in that note. Fill it with tone until it overflows into the next part of the phrase
• Lean into appoggiaturas. We often learn about appoggiaturas in the context of added ornamentation, but in fact they are built into many melodies as an inherent part of their expression. The appoggiatura is non-harmony note, usually accented, that resolves by step onto a note that belongs to the chord. ‘Appoggiare’ means to lean against, or to rest on, so this melodic feature is named so as to invite us to lean on them, taking the weight off as they resolve, and thereby bringing out the significance and emotional intensity of the moment.
• Pass through the passing notes. Passing notes are scalic passages in melody, approached and left by step. The resultant smoothness of line invites you to flow through them, each note leading into the next without drawing attention to itself until the scalic motion is interrupted.
• Launch into leaps. Leaps by contrast are moments that are all about drawing attention and want to be approached, executed, and recovered from with some sense of occasion. The larger the leap, the more this is the case. It is useful to think of leaps in a melody as you would about leaps up or down from a platform or step. When leaping upwards you want to launch with enough energy to carry you above the platform and land on top of it. When leaping down, you want likewise to lift upwards as well as forwards so you don’t trip, and then absorb the energy as you land. Whether leaping up or down, that is, you want a sense of lift out of the upper note.

And I’ll finish with a more holistic principle:

Aim for the heart of the phrase.

Every phrase has a focal point that it heads towards and recedes away from. It’s often in the middle or second half of the phrase, less often at the end, and very rarely at the start. Sometimes the words will offer more than one potential choice, but the melody usually guides us to the best option. Aiming for the heart of the phrase brings shape and flow to words and music alike, bringing out meaning of the texts as well as the expressive potential of the music.