Melody

 Melody

January 15, 2026

Ephesians 5:19 (NKJV) 

speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord,

Psalms 98:5-6

5 Sing praises to the LORD with the lyre,

With the lyre and the sound of melody.

6 With trumpets and the sound of the horn

Shout joyfully before the King, the LORD.

We’ve talked about pitch and harmony, tempo and rhythm, but those together don’t make very interesting music. What you need to bring it all together and give the song a recognizable character is a chord progression and melody. The chord progression gives the song a mood, and the melody weaves around in the chord progression to tell a story.You can tell a happy story with a tune using major chords and fourth and fifth chords or tell a more somber or sad story with notes from minor chords and more exotic jazz chords such as minor 9ths and 11ths. How these chords are constructed gifts into more music theory, but for now, just remember the perfect 5th and 4th intervals that Pythagoras discovered. These are the basis for the happy 1-4-1-4-1-5-4-1 chord progression. 

But I digress. Our point here is not really to teach music theory, but to encourage you to sing melodies to express your praise to the Lord. You can use melodies to encourage one another and to comfort one another during hard times. Remember how David was able to play music for King Saul to calm his troubled soul. Music has the ability to influence our emotions and express what is in our hearts. So sing praises to the Lord and let the sound of melody be in your heart. Sing joyfully to the Lord.