A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Tune

TUNE appears to be really the same word as Tone, but in course of a long period of familiar usage it has come to have a conventional meaning which is quite different. The meaning of both forms was at first no more than 'sound,' but Tune has come to mean not only a series of sounds, but a series which appears to have a definite form of some kind, either through the balance of phrases or periods, or the regular distribution of groups of bars or cadences. It may be fairly defined as formalised melody: for whereas melody is a general term which is applicable to any fragment of music consisting of single notes which has a contour—whether it is found in inner parts or outer, in a motet of Palestrina or a fugue of Bach,—tune is more specially restricted to a strongly outlined part which predominates over its accompaniment or other parts sounding with it, and has a certain completeness of its own. Tune is most familiarly illustrated in settings of short and simple verses of poetry, or in dances, where the outlines of structure are always exceptionally obvious. In modern music of higher artistic value it is less frequently met with than a freer kind of melody, as the improvement in quickness of musical perception which results from the great cultivation of the art in the past centuiy or so, frequently makes the old and familiar methods of defining ideas and subjects superfluous. For fuller discussion of the subject see Melody.

[ C. H. H. P. ]