Melody

                When one thinks of a music piece, what does he remember most? Does he remember its syncopation, its drumming, or its chord progression? Possibly, but it is most likely that he remembers what defines the song: its melody.

                A song’s whole melody is composed of fragments of music called phrases. In “Chega,” each of these phrases have a clear beginning and end, and last eight measures. Segment 4 demonstrates one of “Chega’s” phrases. “Maple Leaf Rag’s” phrases are much shorter than “Chega’s,” both with respect to time and number of measures. This is the result of “Maple Leaf’s” meter and tempo. “Maple Leaf’s” simple duple meter has only 2 beats per measure to “Chega’s” 4, and “Maple Leaf’s” tempo is also slightly faster than “Chega’s.” Segment 5 demonstrates one of “Maple Leaf Rag’s” phrases. Notice the difference in length.

The relative length of “Chega de Saudade’s” phrases may contribute to the piece’s cantabile quality: it feels lyrical. The continuous melody lines like those in segment 4 demonstrate “Chega’s” lyrical nature. In retrospect, this would make sense, since “Chega” was originally written with lyrics (though Dizzy Gillespie’s version is purely instrumental). Maple Leaf Rag, by comparison, isn’t nearly as lyrical. Its melody, though distinctive and catchy, is too fast moving and has too wide a tessitura (range) to sound as if it was sung. Finally, ornamentation, like improvisations, embellishments, and arpeggiation were widespread in “Chega de Saudade.” Much of Dizzy Gillespie’s recording of “Chega” is composed of improvisation. Improvisation often facilitates ornamentation, since musicians aren’t restricted to playing the melody of the song, they can play what they want over the chords of the song. As such, they might embellish, arpeggiate, trill, and use grace notes, among other things. All of these melodic features were prominent in “Chega.” When one listens to “Maple Leaf,” however, he notices that the entire song is just the melody: there is no improvisation. This leaves less room for ornamentation.