Melody

A melody is the tune line, written alongside the chords rather than instead of them. It uses the same note names you already know and the same durations as Rhythm — so once you can write a chord chart, a melody is a short step away.

Notes live in a melody block, m{ … }:

m{ C D E F }

A melody paired with its chords, engraved:

Four notes — C, D, E, F. With no duration written, each is a quarter note, so that line is one 4/4 bar. You add a duration only when you want something else (below).

Writing notes

The pitch is written one of two ways, exactly like a chord root:

Letter names — C D E F G A B, with # sharp, b flat, n natural:
kf
```
m{ C F# Bb Dn }
```
Scale numbers — 1–7, relative to the key, with the same accidentals:
kf
```
m{ 1 2 3 4 }          in C: C D E F
```

Pick whichever suits the chart — letters for a fixed key, numbers for a transposable one. (Roman numerals name chords but not melody notes.)

Octaves

By default octaves are relative: each note lands in whichever octave puts it nearest the note before it. You write the line and the leaps sort themselves out — a C after a B sits just above it, not seven steps down.

When you need to steer the octave, three tools, lightest first:

Nudge with ' (up) and , (down) — push one note into the next octave:

m{ C C, C C, }        the 2nd and 4th C drop an octave
m{ G A B C'' }        C'' jumps two octaves up

Pin an absolute octave with :N — the same : divider that separates a chord's root from its quality, here separating a note from its octave:
kf
```
m{ C:4 D E F }        start on C4; the rest follow relatively
```
Set a starting octave for a whole block or section with /octave:
kf
```
/octave 4
m{ C D E F }
```

Durations

A note with no duration is a quarter note. To write anything else, put the note value after the pitch — 8 eighth, 4 quarter, 2 half, 16 sixteenth — with . for dotted and t for a triplet, exactly like Rhythm:

m{ C8 D8 E8 F8 }        four eighth notes
m{ C4. D8 E4 }          dotted quarter, eighth, quarter
m{ C8t D8t E8t }        an eighth-note triplet

A bare number is the duration, so C4 is a quarter-note C (an octave is C:4, and the two combine as C:48 — octave 4, eighth note). You can also write a duration after an underscore — C_8 is the same as C8. A scale-degree number needs that underscore — 1_8, not 18, since both are digits.

Like chords, a duration sticks until you change it, so a run of equal notes needs it only once:

m{ C8 D E F G A B C }   one eighth marks them all

Three more tokens fill the gaps between notes:

Write	Means
`r4`	a quarter rest
`s4`	a space — a silent placeholder, no rest drawn
`~`	a tie — `C4~ ~C4` holds one C across the two

Stacked notes

Wrap notes in < … > to sound them together, read low to high — a melody note with harmony notes stacked above it:

m{ <C E G> }            a C-major shape on one stem
m{ <F# 'C#> <G# 'D#> }   two stacked pairs

Inside a group, ' and , adjust an individual note's octave, so <F# 'C#> puts C# an octave above where it would otherwise land.

Pairing a melody with chords

A melody and the chords beneath it run in parallel, separated by ; inside << … >>. The chords are one lane, the melody the other:

<< C ;  m{ C8 D8 E8 F8 G8 A8 B8 C8 } >>

The chords and the melody are the same length — here one bar of C under an eighth-note run.

For anything longer than a line, the multi-line form reads better:

<<
  Am  F ;
  m{ C8 D E F E4 C  E8 F G A G4 E }
>>

Whole songs: lanes

For a full chart, keeping chords and melody on one line gets unwieldy. Split them into named lanes and pair the lanes once. The top section list owns the section lengths; each lane just repeats the section name:

intro 4

let chords = {
  intro
  C  F  G  Am
}

let melody = {
  intro
  /octave 4
  C8 D8 E8 F8 G8 A8 B8 C8
  E4 F4 G4 A4
}

<< <chords> ; <melody> >>

Inside a melody lane the notes are written bare — no m{ } wrapper — because the whole lane is already melody.

What's next

Lyrics — the last layer: words under the chords, with the chord changes marked on the syllables they fall on.