Melody

Having thus far examined a comparison of the harmony, timbre and tone colour of Hudan Mas (Golden Rain) and String Quartet in G minor’s Assez vif et bien rythme, we now go on to consider the details in melodic structure, line and range of both pieces.

One notable feature of the Balinese gamelan is in the way the music is structured in layers of pitch, such that the high registers are ornamented, the middle-ranged playing melodic lines and the lower registers keeping this bass and beat. However, in Debussy’s string quartet, ornamentation, melody, accompaniment is varied throughout all instruments (i.e. trills: bar 137, cello/bar 161-163: violin I, cello, viola).

Also, while a short 16-beat melodic idea (played by metallophones) is repeated over throughout the gamelan piece with variations using a wide pitch range, consisting of leaps and jumps in intervals, a similar melodic motif is also repeated and varied throughout Debussy’s string quartet in different instruments. The melody is first introduced by the viola in bar 3, is taken over by the 1st violin in bar 37, and then moves over to the cello part in bar 47. In this piece, the range of notes traverses 3 octaves across the four string instruments.

1. Bars 3-4, Viola: Melodic motif introduced

2. Bars 37-40, Violin I: Melodic motif repeated twice an octave higher from original

3. Bars 48-51, Cello: Melodic motif repeated twice an octave lower from original

And in an instance where interlocking melodies between the gamelan instruments play alternate notes to form one longer melody, an example of the interlocking technique can also be found in bars 78 – 82 in the viola and cello parts of the string quartet, which play chords on the 2nd and 3rd beat respectively, where the top accented notes of the chords form a chromatic melody line, imitating a similar melodic line in the violins, which is accented on the 1st beat, forming a interlocking melodic line.

Bars 78-83: Accents spread across 3 instruments