Recently Frank Ocean, a singer and songwriter, has become very popular very fast.  I read a few articles about him and decided to check him out.  On listening, the first thing that struck me was, this guy is really writing melodies.  Rangy melodies with bold leaps.  Of course, this is never mentioned in the ‘music criticism’ that tries to explain his popularity.  (I get into one of his songs below.)

This is a good example of how (particularly these days) melodies are a songwriter’s secret weapon.  They may not be noticed right away, but they go straight to the heart.  And in a melody nothinggoes straighter to the heart than a strong leap, usually of more than 4 scale tones.

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)

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 – crazy great!

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 let your melodies be just scales, repeated notes, bluesy 3rds… every once in a while, Take A Leap.

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)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F15IjgyHd60