1.   As the darkness gathered, a street musician in the park below could be heard playing a plaintive melody on a wooden recorder.

2.   A plaintive solo cello melody, vaguely in A minor, tries to emerge.

3.   He played plaintive melodies and just occasionally he screamed a note or two.

4.   The plaintive melody beckoned us, urged us up the narrow, switch-backing path.

5.   Then the song fortuitously comes on the radio and everyone slowly joins in, smiling and surrendering to the plaintive melody.