1 October

Melody is one of life’s great mysteries, that I don’t’ think gets a lot of attention. A melody follows no rules, unlike harmony, which does and can be applied to any melody almost mechanically. A melody is alive, it has a type of character. Mozart was a genius at melodies, pretty much everybody would have heard at least some of these. A melody is like Hamlet, or Harry Potter. Once created it feels like a living thing that has always existed. You can’t apply a formula to write a melody, it’s literally a type of magic. There aren’t as many great melody writers now, I think, in music. The riff has become dominant, rather than melody. More rhythm than melody. Country music cops some mockery, but some of the greatest melody writers of all are country music writers.