Melody comparisons

It is common to divide music into 3 main elements:

Melody, Harmony and Rhythm.

In my work with pure harmonies I have gradually been forced to focus on the melody. In some simple tone steps I-II-III-IV, IT has a somewhat high II steps. It is important to say that I am talking about the melody line inside one setup and not in switching between several of them which is the characteristic of IT. 

If our emphasis is on (pure-tuned) harmonies and the melody must follow the pitch of the tones in these harmonies, then the melody has to subordinate and will be slightly unnatural in the melodic steps. Pure harmonies do not necessarily lead to a good melody.

It is also to be said that this unnaturalness is mitigated when these pure harmonies accompanies this melody.

The meantone temperaments is therefore the melody's friend. The name «meantone» means that the distance between I - II, and between II - III steps are equal. (II in the middle of I and III)

In C-major, it means that the distance between C-D, D-E, and also F-G, G-A, A-B are equal.

That means predictability, but the original 1/4 comma meantone has completely pure thirds and will for many modern ears nevertheless sounds unaccustomed.

The 1/6 comma meantone has higher and slightly  impure thirds and may appeal to us more melodically due to a slightly stronger leading tone function.

If we go even further to our well-known equal temperament(12-ET) which is actually a 1/11 comma meantone, this feels impeccably melodic to me.

But here we encounter the opposite problem of what we started with.

Here we can say that the natural melody dictates the harmonies, which results in impure thirds all the way. We are so used to this imperfect tuning that few people think about it. (Guitarists and cembalists are aware that they cannot tune their instrument properly, while pianists leave the tuning for a piano tuner for good reasons.)

So you might say that the melody of modern times has been dominant in relation to the more contemplative aspect of harmonies.

Mozart, both father and son, promoted 1/6 comma meantone as an ideal.

This tuning is maybe the best compromise.

But it is not circulating, so the 12-ET won the game.
Below you will find audio files to compare the melody lines.

I have not mentioned the rhythm.

In the last half century the rythm/beat has gained ever-increasing emphasis in the balance between melody, harmony and rhythm. And the conservatives will say too much. 

In extreme form, we can take rap as an example. Many will still call it music, but this genre often has only rhythm as an ingredient of these three elements.

A jazz musician with great rythm skills can in some cases allow himself to play "almost anything". 
"It don`t mean a thing (melody, harmony) , if it just have that swing"
In some cases that means melody and harmony are degraded.

The classical tradition suffered a major crisis in the first half of the 20th century when "every" chord progression and melody lines had been played and composed before, and the key tone in a composistion became much more relative.

All tones became equilibrated and the 12 tone technique was invented as a result.

With some big,big,big exaggerations, we can say that the rythm/beat came into popular music as a temporary lifesaving for the harmonies that had been exhausted. This renewal had a distinctive vitality in the 70's, in my opinion.

However, this vitality in the music is not always so easy to find in today's music.

 Musicians are, of course, free to choose their own emphasis on these three elements. But our inner ears may have been damaged through this.

Melody: Individuality, meaning

Harmony: Feeling, fellowship

Rhythm: Will, Expression

HERE is melody/scala diagrams for each of the tunings below.

SOLO

	I  II  III  IV	V  VI  VII   I	I II III IV V VI VII I	MELODY
PURE	Click	Click	Click	Click
- 1 c fifths	Click	Click	Click	Click
-2 c fifths	Click	Click	Click	Click
1/4 c meantone	Click	Click	Click	Click
1/6 c meantone	Click	Click	Click	Click
12-ET (Equal T)	Click	Click	Click	Click
Pythagorean	Click	Click	Click	Click

with chords

	I  II  III  IV	V  VI  VII   I	I II III IV V VI  VII I	MELODY
PURE	Click	Click	Click	Click
-1 c fifths	Click	Click	Click	Click
-2 c fifths	Click	Click	Click	Click
1/4 c meantone	Click	Click	Click	Click
1/6 c meantone	Click	Click	Click	Click
12-ET (Equal T)	Click	Click	Click	Click
Pythagorean	Click	Click	Click	Click