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How do you write melodies?
I am, at root, more interested in words and their tunes than backing tracks. I believe, for the most part, that folks listen more closely to the lead, most often a voice, than they do to all that surrounds or supports it.
However, I don't usually spend too much time on melody. I have a line or a couplet and the syllables just find their way. BUT without being overly-analytical I have the feeling I should or could do better.
How do you go about devising/discovering your lead melody?
Comments
Not quite an answer to your primary question, bur the 'backing' is still very important. If it doesn't work and complements the lead, it sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb.
@JohnnyGoodyear: Isn't that a bit like asking, "How do you write lyrics/poetry"? Do you know, or is it something that just happens, without much intellectual craft? I'm sure there is craft involved in refining both lyric and melody but, as for the initial 'idea', who knows?
Often by accident. I make loops. Funk them through effects, record. Trigger them live through more effects, record. Play lead keys over beat, see if anything happens. If it happens, switch off beats and try to hum and then play.
I should then record or write stuff down, but usually then have a break and everything goes flooding out my head and have to start again the next day.
The next day a new app goes on sale. I buy the app. Make new loops. Funk them through effects.........
No wonder I never finish a song.....ever! Lol
I think it's not that different to any other slightly nebulous artistic process: how do you write a poem? How would you draw a cool character? It's impossible to say "how" it's done, to a certain extent, because it usually just happens.
You can guide the process to a certain extent, for example you could decide to stick to a pentatonic scale, or use wide intervals, or more than one octave, or use narrow intervals etc... But those things wouldn't necessarily determine whether the results were any good.
As with all these things I think it really helps to consistently practice. I had a phase of spending 10 minutes every day just writing really simple melodies with iGrand piano and nothing else - and recording the results into Audioshare to listen to again days/weeks/months later.
Generally when I start a track in Gadget I lay down a very basic chord structure (2 or 3 chords as a backing) and then start writing little melodies on top. The trick is to write a few and only keep the good ones - filtering is a key part of the quality control process.
Vocal melodies are trickier. Generally once I have a track in some kind of reasonable shape then I will try and create a vocal melody on top of the various sections. In my case I always need the melody first, and the words afterwards. The reason being is that it's much easier to fit the meter of the words around the music rather than vice-versa. Elton John famously adds the music on top of already created words, but that requires a level of musical invention and creativity that is beyond me.
I think if you have a mood and a theme in mind it's not necessarily that hard to create a good melody. although the process is pretty unfathomable. There's always going to be an element of hit-and-miss so the more you do it, the better. The good news is that in some ways it's quite hard to make bad melodies, since any interval in the key is going to be OK - I think really the trick is to try and avoid boring melodies.
The harmonic backing is important as well, since using notes that are in the underlying chords is always a good approach (and also using other notes at certain times, and judging which to do when), but I think you almost do this instinctively anyway.
Melodies are the one thing I focus the LEAST on.
Often, when I've got a couple of ideas in my head, I simply pick one out and shape the instrumental around the melody.
I find that letting the tune flow can result in a more mellifluous sound. Whereas if I actually work at the melody, the song will feel unnatural, like I'm trying too hard to make it something it's not.
But different people have different ways of working so XD
I find with most creative endeavors if I repeat the same method the result feels flat so I am always messing around with the process. In the end if I need consistency across several items of output I simply rely on editing of the series as a whole to get it rather than controlling it with initial processes.
Rhythm is also an underrated but crucial aspect of melody. I think that's one of the reasons that most people like to write music first and words after, because the rhythm is one of the main things that makes a melody interesting.
One interesting fact is that almost all popular songs are syncopated to have the vocal melody start a fraction ahead of the first beat, otherwise the results sound really stiff and old-fashioned. You can see this explained really clearly in the following clip at 39.45 in:
I have been working at this more, though I come at music from an instrumental point of view, not a song. I found that I was writing interesting chord progressions/movements, but that they didn't have a melody, and were often very uninteresting as a result.
I've been working hard on my ear the last couple of years, as I often get melodies in my head, that I want to pull out. I have started to take those, and put them into notion on the iPad. Once they are in notion, I can mess with them, add on sections, alter them, copy them, move notes and rhythms around. This has been a great help, as I can tweak as much as I want, try different things/variations.
I rarely hear melodies in my head, but I do hear full orchestrations frequently. Different music styles, and sometimes complex soundscapes. I haven't been able to remember these for very long after the initial attempt to analyze it though.
Rhythm is an important part of creation for me. Probably more so than melody as most of my melodies are simple, but at the same time they are usually in odd time signatures. This makes it somewhat easier to write melodies since the rhythm can many times dictate a melody. IMO
Well for years I would just go hum into a dictaphone whatever came into my head and hope something good would come out of it.Then would come the arduous task of writing the music around the melody and then always lyrics last.
Now however with cool apps like "chordbot" I can put together a chord progression and sing a few different melodies over the top until I find something I like.
I literally have over 100 voice memos on my phone of tunes that I discovered while walking the dog,or up a ladder or BASE jumping off of the Eiffel Tower....hmm,ok,maybe I lied about the walking the dog part!:D
Good thread topic... it's something i've been thinking about too.
Although I don't agree with your premise about melodies being the most important thing - certainly not in many forms of music. Often it's the beat, rhythm and overall sound and mood I think... Many of the tracks i've produced you could honestly swap in a various different melodies (lead parts) played with the same instrument timbre and probably not notice any great difference. In fact often poor attempts at dance music genres have too much melody and not enough focus on the rhythm. And i'd struggle to hmm the melody to many of my favourite electronica tracks.
Anyway - some thoughts on how I do it...
I never hear melodies in my head
I work hard getting the sound for the lead parts right
I've started noodling fairly randomly with step sequencers recently, looping until it sounds right (BeatStep and using genome as simple step sequencer) and creating very spaced out melodies (maybe a note every half bar or so) with long sustaining notes. Works well for down tempo, spacey ambient music. The exact notes don't seem to matter too much, it's more when they hit and which general octave they are from (using 3 octaves works well). This is a totally different method to other ones i've used and I agree completely with the benefit of changing things up and using different approaches.
I've had success using a pretty complex patch I made TC-Data that uses the sequencer to apply a rhythm (e.g. XoXXoXXoXoXXoXXo) and then applies this, in sync to different notes in a scale - and you move legato between notes or you lift your finger and restart the sequence. If you jam this to the beat it can create some great leads. It's basically how Figure does it. And you can do the same thing StepPolyArp if you give it a straight sequence rather than an arp - and just jam on the keyboard.
I read somewhere about making patterns - and that basically melodies are either steps up and down or they are jumps. So you might have step up, jump down, step up, jump down, step down, jump up - or something - and that might work well over 4 or 8 bars.
Often i just play live over a rhythm and/or chords into Gadget with it quantised and then tidy up what i've got until it sounds better...
I made a nice track a long time ago by strumming chords into Gadget from Guitarism, then remembering the sequence of chords and going back and then picking the lead into Gadget while changing chords in Guitarism so that the notes I picked where always from the right chord. Guiatrim gives a wide range of notes across a few octaves from the chord. Then i tidied up the midi in gadget...
MidiFinger Pro will basically do the above too, quantised to 8ths or 16th - although really annoyingly you now can't start the clock on it other than starting the app (useless) - so it means you can't run it in time with any other app. So I don't use this anymore - but it was good for jamming with
Firo is nice for jamming melodies over a chord progression because it highlights the notes in the chord as it cycles through the chords - but it also allows you to hit notes from outside the chord too. And it also highlights the root note of the current chord - so you can start to work around resolving or creating tension with the root of the current chord - not just the root of the key you're in. Must admit, that;s the theory but i haven't really used it much because it requires hooking Firo up to Gadget or whatever and running the chord progression in etc. etc... so it takes some setting up - and I normally just noodle out a melody
Most of my melodies are really just like hooks or riffs that repeat. I think I need to work on this part of my music though... and the above methods definitely help...
Sorry for the essay - but it's an interesting topic.
Thus the name, Flo?
Have you read Zen and the Art of Archery? That's pretty much the Zen way. I've experienced it on rare occasions either playing guitar or drawing, it's cool but elusive.
@Martygras @richardyot Very good points on the importance of rhythm.
Messiaen opened my ears to a new way of thinking about melody by thinking about rhythm:
"Most people believe that rhythm means the regular values of a military march. Whereas, in fact, rhythm is an unequal element, following fluctuations, like the waves of the sea, like the noise of the wind, like the shape of tree branches."
Taken from the Rhythm section of this site (which is a fascinating read IMHO):
http://www.robertkelleyphd.com/messiaen.htm
You are welcome @Flo26
. I find your playing style to be very lyrical and fitting to this topic. When I think of well crafted melodies I am drawn to melodies that can stand on their own without any backup. Eg. The classic "Somewhere Over The Rainbow".
That one is partly memorable because it's so unusual, starts with a whole octave step, then the next phrase goes from root to 5th and 4th, and the melody uses the whole of the major scale - it's very well crafted but those wide intervals are quite rare, and not that many melodies use the whole of the scale quite like that. That opening octave leap is very distinctive and almost "belongs" to that tune.
Going back to the flow point though, in many ways not thinking too much but being in the moment and doing is always a good approach in any artistic activity.
@richardyot. Nice analysis of that melody. Would love to hear the composer's thoughts on the creation of that melody. I suspect that the melodies I am most drawn to are those where the doing preceded the thinking:). Sometimes melody just happens...
For me I write the melody last but after writing the drums and background synths in a loop and then write the melodies over the top of them. I jam with a keyboard to the backing loop.
Thanks everyone. Much to mull over. Interesting input.
Circle and yearn: )
+100
Since you said that, I can hear it. But I don't tend to analyse music on a note but note level like that. I should I think.
It's only because I learnt how to play it on the piano that I can make that analysis, I wouldn't be able to figure all that out by ear, sadly.
Badly.
Then I try again, and again, until it sounds like something I'd want to listen to
And the leap;)
Great video and another good analysis. Echoes some of what @richardyot said. Appears that the lyrics preceded the melody here. Thanks for sharing that:)
It's like slow sculpture for me.
Another thing for me is the type of synth sound you use to write with which for me is determined by the backing loop. For me longer synth sounds generate fewer notes in the melody.
Yes. Which makes it loads easier
.
Sometimes i find punching out something super fast and slowing it way down or working super slow and speeding it way up can yield interesting inspirato.
There have been melodies that I have carried around in my head - some for years & years - which I have made various incarnations of over the years, especially with all this neat iOS stuff. Where they came from I couldn't really tell you - it's like when I draw caricatures at parties & people ask how I do it & I don't know how to explain it.
Theft works for me.