Hummable Melodies

It seems like one of the unquestionable rules even among composers is a mandatory relationship between a good melody and it being singable.

Even in professional discussions, this relation is often used as a knockout argument. "I'm sorry, but your theme is not hummable" is often synonymous for "It is not good". Also, you get these "John Williams is the master of melody writing, just think about all his themes that are super hummable." comments quite regularly.

While of course there is a connection between these two things, it is by far not as strong as many people believe it is. Being able to write a hummable melody does by no means imply that it is a good melody. Just take this melody (Warning: annoying earworm danger) which is incredibly hummable and has the power to get stuck in your head for way longer than you might want. Yet, it is far from being a good melody. First of all, it is a very simple melody, but that's about it. There are hardly any other properties that could be considered it being a well written or even artful melody.

This whole "but it needs to be hummable" discussion is very problematic as it relies on a highly individual perception. Depending on their musical literacy, two people might consider the same melody singable or not singable. Just take the example from above. Children and people with a limited musical experience will love that melody as it is so catchy. But at the same time, anybody who has a bit more musical experience will find it incredibly annoying and pedestrian.

An example in the other direction would be John Williams' Theme for Seven Years in Tibet. The chromatic motion as well as the large leaps make it relatively tricky to sing or hum along and I would  bet money that the average music listener would not be able to reproduce that melody without errors. Yet, it is obvious that this is an incredibly well written melody that reveals the profound melodic knowledge that Williams posesses. Every motif is well balanced, every motion is justified, every dramaturgic arc is plausible and even the side melodies are melodically extremely strong.

However, this theme is probably not as accessible as other popular themes by Williams which can also be seen by the fact that most people would probably not mention this theme as one of their Top 10 film themes or even Top 10  Themes by Williams.

Relying too much on that correlation between hummablity and quality is a very dangerous zone and the fixation on this issue that I see sometimes even with seasoned composers is creating a problematic sense of priority. It is desirable to be accessible for a broad audience when you work in a field of "commercial music" as media composers do. However, this does not imply that there needs to be an excessive degree of dumbing down.

This is a relatively sensitive and also subjective issue where everybody has to find their position on. A lot of pop producers would probably argue that you need a hook line that even catches on with the least musical people to maximize the potential commercial impact and revenue you can achieve. On the other hand, there might be composers in the contemporary music field who (if they even allow melodies at all) would feel that a well constructed melodic gesture is way more important and maybe even contradicting the possibility for everybody to sing it.

I feel that as with most things, a healthy middleground is most desirable. But I'm really strongly opposing the correlation between singability and quality as the highest instance of judging a melody. Yes, great melodies can be singable but not all singable melodies are great. There might also be great melodies that are not singable or bad melodies that are not singable. There is no imperative connection between these two. If you take this correlation as the only qualifying property for a good or bad melody, you are limiting yourself to a - in my opinion - wrong premise of always striving for melodies that can be instantly reproduced without allowing the great melodic potential that lies beyond this duality.