How to Write a Standout MELODY • Music Theory from PJ Harvey "A Child's Question, August"

<p> </p><div class="video-container size_xl justify_center" style=""><iframe data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="JmC6Gvny3Dw" data-video-thumb-url="" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JmC6Gvny3Dw?rel=0&amp;wmode=transparent&amp;enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></div><p> </p><h2 style="text-align:center;"><span class="text-huge"><strong>How to Write a Standout MELODY</strong></span></h2><p> </p><h2 style="text-align:justify;"> </h2><h2 style="text-align:justify;"><meta charset="utf-8"></h2><h2 style="text-align:center;" dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-60d2787a-7fff-7ac1-1e3a-843898341f05"><span class="text-big" style="color:#000000;"><strong>Step 1. First Impressions</strong></span></h2><p style="text-align:justify;" dir="ltr"><span style="color:#000000;">There are many ways to write a standout melody, but it’s difficult to improve on the method PJ Harvey uses in her new single “A Child’s Question, August”. That’s because nothing grabs our attention like a bold first impression. And by first impression, I literally mean the first note of the melody.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;" dir="ltr"><span style="color:#000000;">You see, PJ Harvey starts her melody in the Dorian mode, and the very first note she sings is the major 6th. That’s the one-and-only note that makes Dorian different from the super common scale that we hear all the time: the natural minor. The vast majority of people are not used to hearing a major 6th over a minor chord, so when her melody begins with that unusual note, it instantly stands out.</span></p><p style="text-align:justify;" dir="ltr"><span style="color:#000000;">So, in D Dorian, which is all the white notes from D to D, the major 6th is B. When we play B in our melody over a D minor chord, you can hear exactly how powerful that one note is at grabbing our attention. So step 1 in this method is to use that unusual note to begin your melody, then finish the phrase with usual notes.</span></p><p style="text-align:justif