Phrasing, Contour and Range

The idea

• Contour. A melody needs a shape. Most phrases have one climax, the highest note, placed about two thirds of the way through or saved for the chorus. The arch, up and then down, is the most natural shape.
• Breath. Vocal melodies live in phrases of two to four bars with rests between them, because singers need air. Instrumental melodies benefit from the same discipline.
• Range. Height is intensity. Verses sit lower and choruses sit higher. A comfortable range for a pop melody is about an octave plus a 3rd.
• Steps and leaps. Melodies move mostly by step. A leap of a 4th or more is an event. After a big leap, move by step in the opposite direction: the leap creates energy and the steps spend it.
• Contrast between sections. Change register, rhythmic density and phrase length between verse and chorus. If the verse is busy and low, make the chorus sustained and high.

Writing for a voice. Typical comfortable ranges, approximately:

Voice	Comfortable range	Strong, bright area
Low male (baritone)	A2 to E4	B3 to E4
High male (tenor)	C3 to G4	E4 to A4
Low female (alto)	G3 to C5	G4 to C5
High female (soprano)	B3 to E5	C5 to F5

Every voice is different. Find the highest note the singer can hit with power, put the chorus peak there, and choose the key of the song to make that happen. The key serves the singer, not the guitar. A capo or a transposed riff is a small price.

On your instrument

• Play your melodies on one string. On a single string, height is distance: you can see the contour under your hand.
• Breathe with the phrase. Even on guitar, exhale as you play a phrase and inhale in the gap. If you run out of air, the phrase is too long.
• Find your own range. Sing down to your lowest comfortable note and up to your highest, and find both on the guitar. Write them in your notebook. Every vocal melody you write should fit inside.

Worked example

Building a chorus melody from a verse melody.

Verse: sits between degrees 1 and 5 in the low octave. Busy 8th notes, phrases starting after beat 1, each phrase two bars long. It ends on degree 2, unresolved.

Chorus, built with three contrast moves:

Lever	Verse	Chorus
Register	Degrees 1 to 5, low	Starts on degree 5 and peaks on the high 1 and 3
Rhythm	8th notes, many syllables	Half notes and quarter notes, few syllables
Phrase start	After the beat	On the downbeat

The climax is the high 3rd, reached by a leap of a 6th from the 5th below, in bar 6 of 8. After the leap, the melody walks down by step to the tonic. One leap, one peak, a stepwise descent: the arch in practice.

Exercises

1. Write an 8-bar melody with a deliberate arch and one leap of a 6th, over any progression from your notebook. Mark the climax note before writing, then write toward it.
2. Take a verse melody you have written. Build the chorus melody by (a) moving up a 3rd to a 5th in register, (b) halving the rhythmic density, (c) starting phrases on the downbeat instead of after it. Any two of the three create instant contrast.
3. Hum melodies away from any instrument, while walking or in the shower, into your phone. Once a week, work out the best one and label its degrees. Composing away from the instrument breaks finger habits.
4. Take one of your melodies and check its range. If it spans more than an octave and a 4th, rewrite the highest or lowest phrase.

Common mistakes

• Several climaxes. If the highest note appears five times, it is not a climax. Save it.
• No rests. A melody that never stops is a solo. Give the listener, and the singer, a place to breathe.
• Writing in the guitar’s favorite key and then discovering the chorus is too high or too low to sing.