melody type

melody type, according to 20th-century musicologists, any of a variety of melodic formulas, figurations, and progressions and rhythmic patterns used in the creation of melodies in certain forms of non-European and early European music. In these cultural contexts, musical inventiveness is manifested in imaginative combinations and recombinations of traditional elements within the framework of structural archetypes, rather than in the unique conception of original materials.

This combinative approach has been typical of vast segments of the greater Mediterranean orbit and its Asian extensions as far as southern India (e.g., in the raga). Though admittedly ambiguous, the ancient Greek category of nomos may have involved such melody types, as did its Christian successor, the Byzantine ēchos, as well as the Syrian ris-qole and the Arabian maqām. In Europe melody types would seem to account for certain common characteristics of some early layers of Gregorian chant. Living examples are found in the chanting of Hebrew cantors worldwide.