language, articulacy, comprehension,
truth, sincerity

Although the sound waves that comprise pitch occur over time, our experience of pitch is aligned with the eternal present. There is a profound beingness in a single note: it floats unattached, its beginning and end are irrelevant; it is only sound, only now. When pitches begin to succeed one another, however -- when melody arises -- duration comes into play, as does the horizontal, time-based qualities of rhythm. Melody is the point where the verticality of being meets the horizontality of process; it is pitch made language in the body of time.

Melodies pass down through generations; their language is universal, and transcends both culture and era. They are the stories that our hearts tell and that our hearts hear; they are the lingua franca of feeling. They cannot lie; truer words cannot be spoken.

In a casting, the Melody card represents language, and the issues that arise around language: intelligibility, articulacy, comprehension. Because of its inherent candor, Melody is also aligned with truth and sincerity.

To divine the meaning of this card in a casting, consider the Solfege Die it was drawn above or under.

Click here to learn more about the Compositional Cards as a whole.