When I started to analyze the music for Burt Bacharach the first things that struck me were his use of melody and rhythm. The simplicity of a melody to be remembered, and then the feeling of a rhythmic pattern that is memorable, combined together to make a hit song. I think part of the genius of Burt Bacharach is the ability to combine both of these extremely important elements of the song very skillfully.
For example, what would be a memorable melody? Generally, it's something that would be extremely simple. Let's take for example the childhood song "Row Row Row Your Boat." There is a simple melody, but there is also a distinctive rhythm to it. This is what makes the song memorable - the combination of the cute melody along with the inescapable rhythm have helped to make this song last for several hundred years.
Also take, for example, the memorable melody of the NBC theme song that most of us might remember from television: "Bong Bong Bong." These are actually rhythmic tones separated and made melodically memorable. In musical terms there are things that are called intervals - the distance between the notes in music theory.
For example, the NBC theme melody is made up of three different notes. The C major musical scale is made up of seven different tones, and you assign a number to each of the tone 1 through 7. Then the NBC theme is the tone 5, 3 and then 1. With one being the root of the chord 5 being the fifth of the chord and 3 being the third of the court so basically the NBC theme is an 1 3 5 chord. The only change is that the five is in the root of the chord instead of the 1. So now you're saying to yourself okay Matthew thank you for the lesson in theory but how does this relate to Burt Bacharach well Burt does the same thing let's take for example the song Do You Know the Way to San Jose. Extraordinary memorable rhythm with a beautifully melodic lyric. So the breakdown for The Melody of Do You Know the Way to San Jose is 3 2 3 5 6 2 2 1 2 in the C major scale with C being 1.
