How Music Works 1 - Melody - Part 1

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dalL5...

NOTE: There is currently no DVD or 4OD release of this series, should there be any future date set for a DVD release i will remove the whole series. If you enjoy the series spread the word and buy any future DVD! ;)

Genre: Documentary - Music Theory
Time: 48:18 (Ads removed)
On: Channel 4 (UK)
Directors: Francis Hanly, David Jeffcock
Release Date: 2006

Why does melody affect us so deeply, from the moment we are born? Tunes touch our deepest emotions, and are capable of inspiring love, sorrow, faith, and hope. But how does a melody actually work?

In this film composer Howard Goodall looks at melody's basic elements. Why are some melodic shapes common to all cultures across the world? Can successful melodies be written at random? If not, what are the familiar melodic patterns composers of all types of music have fallen back on again and again, and why do they work?

Setting out on a journey that moves through the centuries, Howard looks at the curious link between Tudor England and the Mississippi Delta, and uncovers melodic shapes common to all cultures across the world. Following a trail of diverse musical sources from Gustav Mahler to Paul Simon, Shaker hymns to Bulgarian folk songs, medieval choral music to the Broadway showstoppers he reveals the tried and tested tricks of the composer's trade.

• Category

  Education

[FlyBoy Luciano]

Is it me, or was the white guy singing way out of tune?

[decomposedpunk]

At the end of the video he gets into intervals and it continues on the next part. Watch the whole video before you make a stupid comment.

[Vinay Seth]

"these distances are called intervals, and they have got nothing to do with queing at the ladies' room when you get to the theatre" hahahaha!

[brostepisthebest]

i say yes their is theory in dissonance.

[kaypreciousdove]

This series is great. When will there be a DVD?

[MaxWHYz]

4:25 whats that melody called??

[Sumrong]

I don't get his joke at the end >_< What did he mean? If anyone would explain to me thoroughly lol!

[rupert shean]

that song seems so familiar. when did i hear that? oh year it was when i was in the womb

[NowhereManForever]

No, but he was singing through his nose. 

[avedic]

I bet the 42 dislikes are from paranoid religious nuts who saw the inverting pentagram at 4:30 and immediately concluded this program was a subtle propaganda by Channel 4 to indoctrinate their susceptible minds to SATANISM. O_O

Silly christians...

[Simon Carlsson]

Not way out of tune, slightly. But sings nasally and not so well :) Same goes for the other guys and girls.