Editing Melody (section)

==Examples==
[[File:Pop Goes the Weasel melody.PNG|thumb|450px|"[[Pop Goes the Weasel]]" melody [[File:Pop Goes the Weasel.ogg|thumb]]]]
[[File:Webern Variations melody.png|thumb|450px|Melody from [[Anton Webern]]'s Variations for orchestra, Op. 30 (pp. 23–24)<ref>Marquis, G. Weston (1964). ''Twentieth Century Music Idioms'', p. 2. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Inglewood Cliffs, New Jersey.</ref> [[File:Webern Variations melody.mid|thumb]]]]
Different [[musical style]]s use melody in different ways. For example:
*[[Jazz]] musicians use the term "lead" or "head" to refer to the main melody, which is used as a starting point for [[Musical improvisation|improvisation]].
* [[Rock music]], and other forms of [[popular music]] and [[folk music]] tend to pick one or two melodies ([[Verse (popular music)|verse]] and [[refrain|chorus]], sometimes with a third, contrasting melody known as a [[Bridge (music)|bridge or middle eight]]) and stick with them; much variety may occur in the phrasing and [[lyrics]].
*[[Indian classical music]] relies heavily on melody and [[rhythm]], and not so much on [[harmony]], as the music contains no chord changes.
*[[Bali]]nese [[gamelan]] music often uses complicated variations and alterations of a single melody played simultaneously, called [[heterophony]].
*In western [[classical music]], [[composer]]s often introduce an initial melody, or [[theme (music)|theme]], and then create variations. Classical music often has several melodic layers, called [[polyphony]], such as those in a [[fugue]], a type of [[counterpoint]]. Often, melodies are constructed from [[Motif (music)|motifs]] or short melodic fragments, such as the opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. [[Richard Wagner]] popularized the concept of a ''[[leitmotif]]'': a motif or melody associated with a certain idea, person or place.
*While in both most [[popular music]] and classical music of the [[common practice period]] pitch and duration are of primary importance in melodies, the [[contemporary music]] of the 20th and 21st centuries pitch and duration have lessened in importance and quality has gained importance, often primary. Examples include [[musique concrète]], [[klangfarbenmelodie]], [[Elliott Carter]]'s ''Eight Etudes and a Fantasy'' (which contains a movement with only one note), the third movement of [[Ruth Crawford Seeger|Ruth Crawford-Seeger]]'s ''[[String Quartet 1931 (Crawford Seeger)|String Quartet 1931]]'' (later [[orchestration|re-orchestrated]] as ''Andante for string orchestra''), which creates the melody from an unchanging set of pitches through "dissonant dynamics" alone, and [[György Ligeti]]'s ''Aventures'', in which recurring [[phonetics]] create the linear form.