writing melodies

[Guest Manuel O]

Hi my friend,

I'm a pianist and i think that the piano is a great instrument for compose melodies, tunes...is all there, visible (:

But maybe the more characteristic side of this instrument is that you can play melody against chords, you can't do that in many instruments.

So..maybe for composing is a nice thing to play both, melody and chords.

I recommend you a nice book by Hall Crook called "How to improvise" to find melodic ideas and different ways to play and think notes, group of notes...

Good luck !

 

Manuel

Edited December 7, 2011 by Manuel O

[sergeantk]

I agree with whoever said don't try to stuff in so many notes all over the place.

 

In my experience, having a good chord progression is a solid foundation to the melody. Depending on how you phrase the chords (ie, different inversions, different extensions), there may be interlaying melodies within the chord. When you play the chords, try to pick them apart and listen to the movement of different notes - you may hear something in there you never would have thought of.

 

Hope this helps

[Fred McGriff]

yesterday I let my 5-month old daughter bang around on the keyboard while I recorded for about 10 mins. I picked out the bits that I liked and cleaned them up and stored them away. really great results and definitely a go-to method in the future to have a bank of melodies to spark ideas.

[o00o]

I agree with whoever said don't try to stuff in so many notes all over the place.

 

In my experience, having a good chord progression is a solid foundation to the melody. Depending on how you phrase the chords (ie, different inversions, different extensions), there may be interlaying melodies within the chord. When you play the chords, try to pick them apart and listen to the movement of different notes - you may hear something in there you never would have thought of.

 

Hope this helps

 

yeah building on a repeating basic 4 chord progression sounds much more melodic than adding more and more chords to the song. thats also how most Bach songs are build too

Edited December 14, 2011 by o00o

[acid1]

yesterday I let my 5-month old daughter bang around on the keyboard while I recorded for about 10 mins. I picked out the bits that I liked and cleaned them up and stored them away. really great results and definitely a go-to method in the future to have a bank of melodies to spark ideas.

 

I was gonna crack a joke about copyright infringement, but then I was thinking...

 

It might be a cool project to sample everything on an album from your daughter banging on stuff... melodies, drums, etc, then piece it all together in audio, warp, add fx, etc.

[robotrobot]

don't forget sexy maj 7.

[modey]

yeah building on a repeating basic 4 chord progression sounds much more melodic than adding more and more chords to the song. thats also how most Bach songs are build too

True, but I've been loving using ridiculous multi-chord keychange breakdowns in my songs lately. Prog as fuck!

[o00o]

using call and response really helped a lot to stay on topic while using a lot of synths. I am now trying to create songs that are as simple as possible to not become demotivated as I got lost in too complicated songs that took to long to create and burned me out on the long run

Edited December 23, 2011 by o00o

[ZoeB]

using call and response really helped a lot to stay on topic while using a lot of synths. I am now trying to create songs that are as simple as possible to not become demotivated as I got lost in too complicated songs that took to long to create and burned me out on the long run

 

Some musicians seem to look down upon simple songs, but they really shouldn't. To the general music-buying public, a simple, catchy melody that you can hum in the shower is much better than an intricate jazz riff. Creating simple songs can be easier and the result more popular, allowing you to focus your energies on improving the catchiness of the hooks, the solid foundation, the production, the musicianship and so on instead of solely on coming up with intricate notation and impressive performances.

 

Playing an instrument really, really well impresses other musicians. Playing an instrument pretty well and getting a tune stuck in the listener's head impresses the record-buying majority. Pick whichever fanbase you want, and write simple or complex pieces of music accordingly. :)

[Kanakori]

don't sleep for a day or take a couple of beers then go to bed and they'll just come up naturally

[chim]

I think I write the best music when I'm hungover. I think it's a combination of feeling more vulnerable than usual and having the internal thought police thrown out the window...

[o00o]

I think I write the best music when I'm hungover. I think it's a combination of feeling more vulnerable than usual and having the internal thought police thrown out the window...

 

feeling some kind of emotional pain no matter what helps better songwriting thats why I am getting more into music theory to become more independent of that

[cruising for burgers]

well, thanks to this thread i made this in 2 hours, THANK YOU GUYS MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

 

http://soundcloud.com/gymnasties/lovestep

 

oh yeah sexy major 7

Edited December 25, 2011 by THIS IS MICHAEL JACKSON

[cruising for burgers]

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Edited December 25, 2011 by THIS IS MICHAEL JACKSON

[Guest Squawk2]

*jots doen*

[Braintree]

Step-wise motion

Rhythmic repetition

Avoid jumping more than a 5th too often

Something that is easily sung will generally make a decent melody

[wahrk]

Step-wise motion

Rhythmic repetition

Avoid jumping more than a 5th too often

Something that is easily sung will generally make a decent melody

Good man.

[o00o]

Step-wise motion

Rhythmic repetition

Avoid jumping more than a 5th too often

Something that is easily sung will generally make a decent melody

Good man.

 

what do you mean with Step-wise motion?

 

repetition creates themes. Do something twice its a theme no matter what it is

Edited January 7, 2012 by o00o

[vkxwz]

Some useful stuff in this thread.

Found this in an aphex interview once: "Everytime you make music, if you’re on form, you should be imaging what you want to hear, which is basically how you want it to be" i don't pretend to know exactly what this means but it sounds more like imagining a melody first, and then creating it in your daw the way you heard it in your head. I have tried to do this a fair bit but like someone said earlier it ends up not being the same as its confined to the piano roll, although some of my favourite melodies i have made have come from this method despite that. Thoughts on this method? Seems like with enough practice you could get to a point where you just imagine the melody, chords, drums etc in real time and then recreate it in the daw immediately after, and surely that would result in more creative / interesting / original music than just noodling or placing down some notes until it sounds right. It'd be the closest thing to recording your internal experience as you imagine the music and for me at least thats the dream.

 

 

 

 

 

[TubularCorporation]

The most memorable melodies are usually phrased like human speech.

[brian trageskin]

20 hours ago, vkxwz said:

i don't pretend to know exactly what this means but it sounds more like imagining a melody first, and then creating it in your daw the way you heard it in your head. I have tried to do this a fair bit but like someone said earlier it ends up not being the same as its confined to the piano roll, although some of my favourite melodies i have made have come from this method despite that. Thoughts on this method? Seems like with enough practice you could get to a point where you just imagine the melody, chords, drums etc in real time and then recreate it in the daw immediately after, and surely that would result in more creative / interesting / original music than just noodling or placing down some notes until it sounds right. It'd be the closest thing to recording your internal experience as you imagine the music and for me at least thats the dream.

what you're describing is what all jazz musicians do when they're improvising. that's why jazz schools were created, to teach this skill. 

 

[xox]

21 hours ago, vkxwz said:

Some useful stuff in this thread.

Found this in an aphex interview once: "Everytime you make music, if you’re on form, you should be imaging what you want to hear, which is basically how you want it to be" i don't pretend to know exactly what this means but it sounds more like imagining a melody first, and then creating it in your daw the way you heard it in your head. I have tried to do this a fair bit but like someone said earlier it ends up not being the same as its confined to the piano roll, although some of my favourite melodies i have made have come from this method despite that. Thoughts on this method? Seems like with enough practice you could get to a point where you just imagine the melody, chords, drums etc in real time and then recreate it in the daw immediately after, and surely that would result in more creative / interesting / original music than just noodling or placing down some notes until it sounds right. It'd be the closest thing to recording your internal experience as you imagine the music and for me at least thats the dream.

 

 

 

 

 

Isn’t it that in his example the “what you want to hear” part comes first?

[vkxwz]

4 hours ago, xox said:

Isn’t it that in his example the “what you want to hear” part comes first?

Well yeah, so I assumed that this just meant imagining music to entertain yourself / make you feel the way you want to feel, and thats what you want to hear. And then the "imaging" part is the act of transfering it from your mind into real/physical music. How else would you interpret it

[xox]

10 hours ago, vkxwz said:

Well yeah, so I assumed that this just meant imagining music to entertain yourself / make you feel the way you want to feel, and thats what you want to hear. And then the "imaging" part is the act of transfering it from your mind into real/physical music. How else would you interpret it

yes, but you...i guess, you first want to ''entertain yourself / make you feel the way you want to feel'' in a known or unknown way, right?

Edited January 18, 2022 by xox

[brian trageskin]

xox once again derailing an otherwise fine thread with gibberish and obscure arguments. i blame his croatian heritage.

mods pls ban.