Great thread William. Except I didnt feel there is a need to label anyone who doesnt want to post.

I loved Guy's melody! Fell off the chair laughing though.

Errikos, absolutely beautiful piece. I loved it so much that I am listening a third time now. Is the vinyl noise in the beginning intentional? This is in a different class. 

Just so I dont get branded as a troll, here is a tiny clip (one of the 100s I have started but never finished) that will look even smaller amongst the giants posting their music here.

https://soundcloud.com/ankumar333/sketch8c

btw whats wrong with rap music? I am not a fan but I know enough to respect it as an legitimate form of musical expression.

Also I feel that "melodies" are overrated. To me there is much more to music than melodies. Most of great classical music does not have melodies, but musical phrases. John Lennon wrote more famous melodies than Mahler, does that make Lennon a greater composer than Mahler? I dont think so.

Cheers

Anand

@Guy Bacos said:

I see people aren't taking this thread very seriously, so I will post what I think is my greatest meldoy. [url=http://www.guybacos.com/audio/Melody.mp3]My Greatest Melody[/url]

I guess that challenge was a little obnoxious but whatever. Here are some of my melodic excerpts though not necessarily my "best" - that is hard to judge. I will definitely listen to these other postings - they look interesting...

There have been no good melodies since "All my Little Ducklings" and "Mary had a Little Lamb."

It's no use.

@JimmyHellfire said:

There have been no good melodies since "All my Little Ducklings" and "Mary had a Little Lamb."

It's no use.

No Jimy I can not agree at all: 

"The true goal of music—its proper enterprise—is melody. All the parts of harmony have as their ultimate purpose only beautiful melody. Therefore, the question of which is the more significant, melody or harmony, is futile. Beyond doubt, the means is subordinate to the end." Johann Philipp Kirnberger (1721-1783)

And even more true: "Different musical styles use melody in different ways." for instance.

"Melody from Anton Webern's Variations for orchestra, Op. 30 (pp. 23–24)"

This is what make "challenges" a bit difficult, since a challenge (like it is proposed in the opening-posting) assumes that there will be a certain general quality which might allow to rule out all other ways to create recognizable sequences of notes.  To me this seem to be as if someone who just speaks one language believes there would be only this one language (his own) and all others were simply wrong. Or if someone only understands one single book and hitherto believes that this would be the only true one and all others with different content, Ideas or opinions must therefore be wrong simply because they are different. 

For me personally I am not that much interested in composing melodies not because I dont like them, but because I know that there are already that much out there to discover and to make audible that I do have still enough to do before believing it would be necessary to ad a new one to the universe of already existing ones. I confess I always have had high esteem for those composers, who struggled to realy enrich our musical culture with new, never heard inventions. But to compose things we already have more than enough always seemed to be a lack of respect for those who have already composed such things earlier in very good quality. 

To appreaciate Beethoven or Schubert mean to me not to try to make bad and outdated copies of their historical musical attitude, but to either create something different convincing in its own way as Shubert and Beethoven do convince in their very own way to compose or to show the beauty of their inventions simply with playing the music of Schubert, Beethoven or any other inspired composers of the last 1000 years music.

I think this was a good idea for a thread, it is focused on one (perhaps the most crucial) aspect of composing. It would be interesting to have an entire sequence of such challenges, best harmonic progression, best orchestration, and so forth.

Here is a link to the B theme, the Princess Anna theme, of my piece Saint Vladimir. The theme sort of gradually morphs through several iterations. When the trombone sings with the woodwinds, the trombone represents the voice of Vladimir.

Princess Anna Theme

I think this is my best melody so far, but perhaps I will write a better melody tomorrow.

@William said:

I guess that challenge was a little obnoxious but whatever.  Here are some of my melodic excerpts though not necessarily my "best" - that is hard to judge.  I will definitely listen to these other postings - they look interesting... 

You have a real talent for melody William. I enjoyed every minute of this YouTube! You had an awesome idea for a thread. Why people are not willing to cut you a little slack (is that still an expression? it used to be) I do not know.

I followed your allusion to the old schoolyard dares of our childhood when the dare was always accompanied by taunts and accusations of "chicken" if one did not take up the dare and "prove himself." Have things really changed so much since our days of youth? I find myself sad about this situation. Your challenge/dare gave me a laugh and reminded me of those days long ago. Then I read how people were responding, and I couldn't understand how they were not seeing the humor and playfulness.

But thank you for posting some really awesome music.

@Paul McGraw said:

I couldn't understand how they were not seeing the humor and playfulness.

obviously there seem to be more people here who felt inspired to make jokes about this "challenge" than people who found notably funny what William posted initiallly. BTW I personally have no problem to take this subject (composing melodies which is definitly a sensible point in every musical esthetic) serious and don't think this would do anyone any harm or misunderstanding.

Hi William,

As you said, it's extremely difficult to pick one melody out of the lot. It would always be a very personal and subjective choice. I my case, I've written in so many different styles, instrumentations, with our without choir, for solo voices, orchestral tunes, themes of all sorts and purposes, religious, musical stage play... In Dutch we say: "It's like comparing lemons with apples". But I like the idea to come forward with one preferred melody or tune or theme (whatever you have meant).

This one could in some way be representative (from about 4:32 to 5:40). The rest is mainly a fully orchestrated Czech folk song for choir and orchestra.

My melody

Jasen I didn't hear any steaming in that example.  Also the other melodies sound better than the composer's opinions of them.  But since this topic is changing into "worst'  I have been inspired to find my worst melody now.  I have done some truly sickening ones, including one written for a golf course commercial that should have resulted in my imprisonment or at least a large fine.  

Anyway it is interesting to hear these separated from the development in the original pieces.  I was doing this partly to look over my own also, wondering what I would find.  It is impossible to judge though.

However, I do have to say that Guy's composition is one of the most magnificent examples of Post Modern Minimalism I have ever heard.  The way he incorporated a subtle nod to tradition - and therefore a connection with the past - with the V-I cadence at the end fills me with admiration.  The espressivo throughout was masterfully handled, the touch delicate yet firm. Bravo! 

Thanks William and everyone else who heartedly enjoyed my melody. It will be a great Christmas gift for me. I hope herb will consider putting it among the demos, perhaps among the top demos.

@Jos Wylin said:

Hi William,

As you said, it's extremely difficult to pick one melody out of the lot. It would always be a very personal and subjective choice. I my case, I've written in so many different styles, instrumentations, with our without choir, for solo voices, orchestral tunes, themes of all sorts and purposes, religious, musical stage play... In Dutch we say: "It's like comparing lemons with apples". But I like the idea to come forward with one preferred melody or tune or theme (whatever you have meant).

This one could in some way be representative (from about 4:32 to 5:40). The rest is mainly a fully orchestrated Czech folk song for choir and orchestra.

My melody

Very beautiful. Well done indeed.

My contribution is a piece for accordion, clarinet, and harp. I wrote it for my wedding and Becky and I got the chance to perform it live with one of the top Canadian harpists, Erica Goodman. This version though, features live accordion, clarinet, and midi harp (long before we knew how to really work with virtual instruments).

Passages for Accordion, Clarinet, and Harp

Sincerely,

Dave

This is a nice melody I had scored for a movie a long time ago, I think has some Brahms-ish qualities:

Scene from Eternal (2004) scored by Guy Bacos (All done with VSL back in 2003)

Later I used this same theme to write a "Theme and Variations" piece, and also did a version for piano and cello which will be performed in 2018, but this is the piano version.

Romantic Variations for piano solo by Guy Bacos

@Acclarion said:

My contribution is a piece for accordion, clarinet, and harp.  I wrote it for my wedding and Becky and I got the chance to perform it live with one of the top Canadian harpists, Erica Goodman.  This version though, features live accordion, clarinet, and midi harp (long before we knew how to really work with virtual instruments).

Passages for Accordion, Clarinet, and Harp

Sincerely,

Dave

Well it sounds great. A lovely melody. And since I am unused to a clarinet, harp and accordian ensemble, it sounds very fresh and like nothing else I have heard. Marvelous!

@Guy Bacos said:

 

This is a nice melody I had scored for a movie a long time ago, I think has some Brahms-ish qualities:

Scene from Eternal (2004) scored by Guy Bacos  (All done with VSL back in 2003)

Later I used this same theme to write a "Theme and Variations" piece, and also did a version for piano and cello which will be performed in 2018, but this is the piano version.

Romantic Variations for piano solo by Guy Bacos

This is a beautiful melody, and I much prefer it to the first one you posted. I find the harmony particularly pleasing and an integral part of the appeal of the melody.

Dave that is a great theme and very unique instrumentation also.

Guy I couldn't tell much from the first cue in the film score, but the Romantic Variations is brilliant.  You mentioned Tchaikovsky - well this music is on that level, simply beautiful. Very few people can create anything like this... it is Romantic but not a retread - I admire that more than anything.

Here is a another melody -

"There is Dew" by Thomas Hood

@William said:

Here is a another melody -

"There is Dew" by Thomas Hood

This is so beautiful William. Great soprano, great melodies, orchestration and production. Fantastic music overall. 

Dave...I loved your piece too....nice composition and performance, and very touching to know this was for your wedding.

Without having the delusion that I am 'competing' with the impressive posts in this thread, I felt like digging up an old peice that I wrote for a local film festival many years ago. I like to think that Ive grown much musically since then. The production and quality are nowhere near optimal, you can notice many problems in rendering  (this was not made with VSL btw) and compositionally its not quite there yet. But however...my wife thinks this is one of my best melodies, so here is my amateur contribution:

https://soundcloud.com/ankumar333/aiff-theme-anand-final/s-qqyZM

Cheers

Anand

btw being a physicist, I thought I might add a bit of math info regarding the number of possible melodies, which some here might already know about.

Even if we take a diatonic scale with an 8-note melody or theme, choosen out of 12 chromatic notes with no repetitions, the number of possible combinations are 12!/(12-8)! = 19 million. (the ! refers to the factorial function)

That means even without note repetitions there are 19 million possible diatonic melodies. But of course most of these will not sound pleasant. But even if 1/100th of these are good, we have 200,000 melodies. Now imagine if we add 7 note or 6 note or 5 note melodies, allso variations in rhythm.

There is much room for new music!

Anand