The purposes of presenting these melodies is to call attention to the diversity of styles and sounds a melody may have and still be consider a melody. The history of music covers many centuries, with may changes in syles and sounds. The few examples are presented below call attention to this diversity.
This is a long series of melodies form the middle ages. They are quite beautiful. You need only Listen to the first 2 minutes. Note that the melody moves in step wise motion (conjunct) for the most part with only occasional leaps (disjunct). This is typical of chant melodies from this period.
https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-sz-001&hsimp=yhs-001&hspart=sz&p=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com+chant+from+the+middle+ages#id=3&vid=fc868ddeb7a5000af7e394845ebaebaa&action=view
This is the opening of Carmina Burana by Carfl Orf. After about 20 seconds you will hear a very simple and repetitive melody with a narrow range and conjunct intervals. It is a very simple and repetitive melody. It may seem strange to our ears.
Here You can see the notes on the piano of Mary Had a Little Lamb as they are played. You can see that most of the intervals are conjunct (note that the notes are right next to each other in the video) and the range is narrow.
This melody from the Romantic period has a beautiful lyrical quality. It builds to a very strong climax as it ascends higher and higher in the register typical of melodies form the romantic period. Note it’s expressive character as well.
This melody is twinkle Little Star. Note the simple tuneful nature of this melody in comparison to the serious expressive quality of the Romantic Period melody above. Twinkle Little Star would be typical of the classical period.
Here is the famous Ode to Joy Melody from Beethoven’s 9th symphony. This flash mob video enables one to hear and view the growing sound as the players arrive and assemble. Then the texture builds with the additional players (and singers) on each repetition. Note that the melody is very conjunct
https://youtu.be/JEY9lmCZbIc
Schoenberg Piano concerto This very angular disjunct melody with dissonant harmony is from the 20th century.