When to use a sharp or flat in a meoldy

that's like asking when is it the right time to use insert-name-of-a-spice-here, when the recipe calls for it or your taste suggests it may do the trick

some guideline can be deduced, though

Jump a large interval up and then fall back by semi-tone, e.g. C-A-Ab-G

Jump down a large interval and climb back up by semi-tone, e.g.C-F-F#-G

move up or down by semi-tone to change the tension of the melody over the chord, e.g C-C#-D or E-Eb-D or G-Gb-F or F-F#-G are all reasonable uses.

As with any melodic device, sometimes it may be that you are stepping back slightly before returning to the departure note, e.g. C-G-Gb-G or G-D-Eb-D

Underlined notes are in the octave below any notes preceding them

notation and audio later
 
Whenever you think you need it to complete your melody or whenever the piece you're reading/transcribing calls for it. There is no such thing as a "best time". The "wrong time" is pretty much whenever you hear it clashing with the harmony, but that pretty goes for any note, really. For example, in a 12 bar blues, many players wouldn't think the 4th degree of the major scale is a bad thing, but you need to handle that note with care, most players usually raise the 4th (Lydian mode) or treat the 4th as a passing tone.
 
yep - agreed about scale tone 4 of the currently active scale - we westerners have a hard time of it using that note effectively unlike asian or polynesian cultures where the 4th is treated with reverence and approached by step or leap and quitted by the opposite - e.g. current chord is C, so the 4th is f, a melody that uses the F might go as follows C-F-E-Eb-D or E-F-C or E-F-D

So here is the notation and audio for all the examples given earlier

11 melodic cells played over a C major chord then a F major chord (could also play these over Am and Dm)

sharpFlatInMel-02.png


[mp3]http://www.bandcoach.org/fp/audio/sharpFlatInMel.mp3[/mp3]

sharpFlatInMel-01.png
 
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