Conjunct
A melody that moves mainly in steps of a second, so from neighbouring note to neighbouring note, is called conjunct. In older tetrachord teaching the word has a second meaning: two groups of four notes are conjunct if they have a note in common.
- Meaning 1
- melody in steps of a second
- Meaning 2
- tetrachords that share a note
- Counterpart
- disjunct
- Typical for
- chorales, children's songs, scale runs
Two meanings, one basic idea
“Conjunct” comes from the Latin word for “joined”. In the everyday teaching of melody it means stepwise connection: one note joins on to the next without leaving a gap. The building block Melody describes this movement as the soft, singable one that shapes children's songs and chorales and is easy to sing. The counterpart, leaping motion, is under disjunct.
Conjunct melody
Each note lies directly beside the previous one. The line rises in three steps and returns in three, without leaping a single time.
Two tetrachords, joined disjunctly (C major)
C–F and G–C are two groups of four notes built the same way (whole tone, whole tone, semitone). Between F and G lies a whole tone, so the groups are separate, Greek “diezeugmenon”. The result is the major scale.
Two tetrachords, joined conjunctly
Here the two groups share the note F: C–F and F–B♭. It belongs to both. This construction needs a B♭, the note collection corresponds to the scale C Mixolydian.
The second meaning: tetrachords
Greek music teaching built its scales from tetrachords, groups of four notes within a perfect fourth. The usual pattern is whole tone, whole tone, semitone. Two such groups can be joined in two ways: conjunctly if they share a note, and disjunctly if a whole tone's distance lies between them. The major scale is therefore nothing other than two equally built tetrachords with a whole tone between. The second music example shows exactly that.
The same idea lies behind the question of how a fourth is filled. The two ways of joining give different note collections, and anyone who lays them side by side will hear why the conjunct example with the B♭ sounds like C Mixolydian and not like major. The distances under the notes are counted as on the other pages: 1 stands for a whole tone, ½ for a semitone.
Common mistakes
- Mixing the two meanings: a conjunct melody is not the same as conjunct tetrachords, even if “joined” is meant both times. Which meaning applies is shown by the addition “melody” or “tetrachord”.
- Confusing “conjunct” with “slurred”: what is meant is pitch, not the slur in the notation.
- Counting the shared F twice: two tetrachords with a common note give seven notes, with disjunct joining eight.
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Related terms
DisjunctScaleSecond (interval)IntervalMelodyMajor scaleSemitoneMixolydian
Editor: Maik Krohm · reviewed on 3 October 2026
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