Melody

thumb|A bar from Johann Sebastian Bach|J. S. Bach's [[Fugue No. 17 in A-flat, BWV 862, from The Well-Tempered Clavier (Part I), an example of counterpoint. The two voices (melodies) on each staff can be distinguished by the direction of the stems and beams.thumbthumb|Voice 1thumb|Voice 2thumb|Voice 3thumb|Voice 4]]

thumb|A series of arpeggios in J. S. Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" [[File:Bach Arpeggio.mid|400x400px]] thumb|"The Star-Spangled Banner" opens with an arpeggio.[[File:The Star-Spangled Banner arpeggio.mid]] thumb|upright=2|Arpeggios open Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" and continue as accompaniment[[File:Beethoven piano sonata 14 mvmt 1 bar 1-4.mid|500x500px]]

short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition

musical melody on which a composition is based

section of a musical composition

collection of melodic figures in Persian music

immediate restatement of a motif at a higher or lower pitch in the same voice

musical term with meanings with respect to intervals, chords, voices, and melodies

shortest idea in music, a short succession of notes

Melodics is the features of melody that are characteristic for a particular style, period, or group of composers, e.g. baroque melodics, the melodics of Frédéric Chopin's compositions. Melodics is an element of a musical work which orders the sequence of sounds of different registers and duration time.

In music centonization (from Latin cento or patchwork) is musical composition via the combination of pre-existing motivic units, typically in reference to Christian liturgical chant. A piece created using centonization is known as a "centonate".

functional unit in music: interval between consecutive notes of a scale

intersection of melodic lines in a composition