It's going to get jazzy in here.
Melody can be complex or simple. Harmony can also be both complex or simple. There are clear examples of simple melody and simple harmony existing in the same tune - think "Happy Birthday." It's also possible for both melody and harmony to be very complex in the same composition. For example, listen to John Coltrane's composition 26-2.
But music can also be very interesting when one of the elements is simple and the other complex. Bebop is the perfect example of this. Bebop composers and improvisors like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie often wrote or improvised very complex melodies over harmony to popular songs or broadway show tunes. Check out the Tadd Dameron composition Hot House, played here by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, Bug Powell and Max Roach at the Greatest Jazz Concert Ever.
This tune is written over the same harmony to the standard What Is This Thing Called Love, composed by Cole Porter and performed here by Ella Fitzgerald. Although Ella's interpretation is of the highest sophistication, the bare bones of this tune could fall into the "simple melody, simple harmony" category.
It can go the other way, too. For example, Listen to the chord changes (harmony) to Charles Mingus' Goodbye Porkpie Hat in relation to the melody. The harmony is very complex compared to the simple, pentatonic scale-based melody.
Some Brazilian composers are masters of this concept. Listen to Toninho Horta's tune, Diana. The melody is childlike and totally singable, but his harmonic concept is beyond complex. The result is stunning beauty.
I tried to capture this concept in my tune BH, which I wrote sitting in a backyard in Belo Horizonte, Toninho Horta's home town and the center of the musical culture of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais.
What is some of your favorite music that sets one concept against another? It could be any concept: rhythmic, lyrics, density, instrumentation, etc. Feel free to respond in the comments.
Thanks for reading!
