By 1963, Olivier Messiaen was well-known in France and beyond as a composer, organist, and pedagogue. In spite of his fame and associated prestige, he continued to serve as organist for the Église de la Sainte-Trinité in Paris. He had an assistant organist by this time, though, so that he didn't need to perform at all the weekend services. At the request of Jean Bonfils, his assistant, Messiaen contributed a short organ work for a pedagogical publication.

Monodie is three minutes in duration and consists, as the title suggests, of a single line. The melody is non-tonal, and quite disjunct, and the rhythms follow no obviously perceivable pattern. By this point in his compositional career, Messiaen had already gone through serialist techniques and was also strongly influenced by the intricate, often irregular, patterns of birdsong. In this piece, the challenge to the organist is to perform the line as if the notes are connected, even while they jump from one register to another. At times, the melody flits around at a quick pace (though always irregular); at other times, it slows right down. At those points, one listens to the particular colors of the organ stops the composer has selected (they are carefully specified in the score, unlike organ works from the era of Bach, for example).

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