Skiptune LLC is a self-funded corporation established in the Commonwealth of Virginia in 2014. The Skiptune project seeks to understand how melodic patterns are structured and have evolved across cultures, genres, and years–a never-ending process. Skiptune’s worldwide headquarters are located in Fairfax, Virginia.
The Story Behind Skiptune
Many years ago, while in London, we attended the musical Cats playing at the West End. It had just opened and we were unfamiliar with the songs. When the tired and worn old show-cat, Grizabella, came out and sang “Memory,” we were struck by this melody right from the very first notes. “Memory” starts with the simplest pair of notes, equal in pitch and length (sung to the word as pronounced “mem’ry”). That was followed by shorter notes of equal length that marched up and then down, as if ascending and then descending a ladder (sung to the words, “all alone in the moonlight”).
We had heard both of those patterns many times before in countless songs, but not together. We wondered if that’s how composers composed a new melody: Do they simply start with a known, well-liked pattern and followed it up with another common pattern that had not yet been attached to the first pattern? We wanted to know the answer to that, which, by the way, is both yes and no. And that’s what this site is about: exploring how composers over the ages, across continents, from varying cultures, and in various styles compose their melodies, to explore what differentiates those melodies from one another, and to drill down into the question of what makes a melody unique.