Let the noodling commence.
Last edited by D.H. Miltz on Fri Jun 01, 2012 2:19 am; edited 1 time in total

mmhhh... it looks like we must avoid arpeggiated stuf....
...unless it's muted maybe...

It's not quite clear what that means - does the 'underlying rhythmic texture' refer to rhythm in the melodic part (such as arpeggiation), or does it refer to an accompanying rhythm (eg drum track)? I can see the latter being invalid, but not sure about arpeggiation - I don't really know how you could avoid any rhythm in the melody.

Also, can the instrument providing the melody change? Eg singing, then whistling or something, so long as only one is present at a time?

The last part's easier to answer: I don't see why not. For that matter, you could have more than one instrument at the same time, as long as they're playing the same thing (octaves included/allowed).

To me the part you quoted means above all No chords. And no accompanying rhythm track like a drum track either. Melody only is the idea.

Does that help?

Thanks - 'no chords and no rhythm track' is pretty much what I thought, but when I saw Laguna's comment I wanted to make sure.

It will be fascinating to see what everyone comes up with - three minutes of pure melody feels like quite a challenge!

Oh, if I had time... Lots of room for careful use of richly-timbred instruments playing against each other... Flute and dulcimer, anyone? Does an organ count as monophonic? I can feel a piece in sections, cross-fading from one mood to another, all playing the one melody... The "call and answer" approach, maybe... Oh well.

Who will be so brave as to do an a-capella??

(No, that won't be me )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m-6bU4x7us

Peter Weirs classic Picnic at Hanging Rock.
That haunting pan flute....May be that,it can not be mono in the strictest sense with that underlying stack swelling and subsiding........I just wanted to remember this classic. Most of you will be knowing about it. Some may get inspired

When I think of monophonic music, I think of the verious asian forms, but they typically include percussion (like tabla in Indian music) and a drone (tanpura). Another example would be bagpipes. There's melody and an unchanging drone, but no harmony. The strict definition provided for this comp is rather limiting. Lets see what we come up with!

Yeah ! a challenge indeed.
I guess it'll be a fun month

Woow ET, that was fast !
(and it's nice)

A couple of years ago someone could have started a discussion complaining the reverb tails are too long...

Thanks. All praise to Xoxos though for his "plucked" really
"plucked" is great because it behaves funny.

Reverb and delay tails can never be too long.

I always wondered what it is that makes us spot the difference between
a long note slowly fading away ... a tone with long decay slowly fading away ... and a fat reverb on 50% with a very long decay slowly fading away.

I can't see how an arpeggio could not class as a melody, provided two of the notes don't overlap, since it is just notes in a scale.

I have a thinking this month, I may be disqualified..... (I want a drone note probably!!!!)

Hm, may I use, say, some bass, flute, several drums, human voice. Playing one or two notes alternately as long as always only one note sounds?

That has something to do with Schoenberg's "Klangfarbenmelodie".

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klangfarbenmelodie:
[...] splitting a musical line or melody between several instruments, rather than assigning it to just one instrument (or set of instruments), thereby adding color (timbre) and texture to the melodic line

interesting point, it's not in contrast with the rules, IMHO.