Melodies are a songwriter’s secret weapon. More than any other part of a song, a melody is what’s likely to make a song stick, make it last.

Rhythm hits your body, lyrics go to your head… melody goes straight to the heart.

And nothing goes straighter to the heart than a strong leap, a jump in the melody, usually of more than 4 scale tones (a 4th or more).

Think about these leaps up:

* Empire State Of Mind (jumps up a 5th – ‘inspire you” – in the Chorus)

* Alfie (up a 6th on the repeat of ‘What’s it all about’)

* Somewhere (from West Side Story) memorably jumps up a flatted 7th in its first line (There’s A place for us’)

* Of course the immortal Somewhere Over The Rainbow (a leap of a full octave)

Our hearts rise with those melody jumps.

What about leaps down?  Less common, with a different effect, but think about:

* Roxanne (down a 4th).

* Brian Wilson’s melodies are full of extreme leaps up and down – check out God Only Knows or Surf’s Up – an amazing melodist.

At the end of the verse in Frank Ocean’s Thinking About You he drops down a major 6th… only to, with the help of his falsetto, jump up an octave and a 6th from there!

Don’t limit your melodies to scales, repeated notes, bluesy 3rds… every once in a while, Take A Leap. Try it!

Credits:  Empire State Of Mind (Hunte, Keys, Shuckburgh, Sewell-Ulepic, Carter Robinson), Alfie (Bacharach/David), Somewhere (Bernstein/Sondheim),  Somewhere Over The Rainbow (Arlen/Harburg), Roxanne (Sumner),  God Only Knows (Wilson/Asher), Surf’s Up (Wilson/Parks), Thinking About You (Ocean, Cobey)

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