ETYM Old Eng. melodie, French mélodie, Latin melodia, from Greek, a singing, choral song, from melos song, tune + aiedein to sing. Related to Ode.
The perception of pleasant arrangements of musical notes; SYN. tonal pattern.
In music, a distinctive sequence of notes sounded consecutively within an orderly pitch structure such as a scale or a mode. A melody may be a tune in its own right, or it may form a theme running through a longer piece of music.
The expressive component of melody is related to an intuitive balance between the expression of movement, through change of pitch, and an expectation that certain constant features should emerge. The underlying constant features are the scale or mode; in Western music these are enhanced by key and harmony.