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Lesson 5

Musical

Example

Lesson 5

Secret

Score

Lesson 5

Score/

Music

Continuing the Melody

In these first two bars, we have also established a rhythmic pattern in our melody. We can continue this rhythmic pattern as we compose the next two bars of our melody:

As before, we simply chose notes from the accompanying chords as the basis of our melody.

We can continue building our melody in this fashion. But we've now played the same rhythmic pattern in our melody twice in a row. In order to keep this rhythmic pattern fresh, let's vary it slightly for these next two bars:

By adding an additional eighth note on the downbeat of beat 2, we've made our rhythmic pattern a little more interesting:

Our melody can continue to use this rhythmic pattern as our piece progresses. But in order to prevent it from growing stale, we need to occasionally vary the rhythm. Let's do that for these next 2 bars:

This adds a welcome contrast to our established pattern.