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Melody creation - tips and tricks

ranaprathap

Active Member
According to me, the most difficult part in composing is coming up with original, simple and memorable melodies that can transform into themes in a score, or become the chorus/verse of a song.

How do you guys come up with simple and memorable (hummable) melodies? Can you share some tips, tricks and advises here? Thanks in advance.
 
Writing a melody is all about a story. Think of a story first, make it clear on your mind while composing, and usually a melody comes up easier. It's the same with drawing. If a teacher says, draw something, it's much harder to draw something on blank canvas than if you're given an idea, what to draw. Same goes with composing.

In practice, when I compose, sometimes a whole melody comes very easily, and usually the theme or the story is also very strong. Sometimes, I need to be more analytical, and think of motifs, repetitions, answers and development. A motif is a short idea about the melody, I might repeat it, then an answer could come to the motif, and then I would develop the motif forward.

In conclusion, if it's hard to write a melody, compose it in smaller pieces (motif, etc), and think what you're telling to the listener, what's the story behind the melody.
 
@ranaprathap Try and use chord tones (from the chords in your progression). Use scale wise motion, going up and down, have a melody start with a few whole steps or half steps and then try and jump up to higher notes in the scales, or lower notes depending on where you've started your melody line. The biggest thing that has helped me with melody writing is focusing on the rhythm of the melody.

A few tips and suggestions, study/analyze some of your favorite melodies and see how your favorite band/composer wrote them. Another thing you can try is your melody singable, try to sing it yourself and really listen to see if the melody makes sense.

I hope these helps, let me know if you have any further questions?
 
Writing a melody is all about a story. Think of a story first, make it clear on your mind while composing, and usually a melody comes up easier. It's the same with drawing. If a teacher says, draw something, it's much harder to draw something on blank canvas than if you're given an idea, what to draw. Same goes with composing.

In practice, when I compose, sometimes a whole melody comes very easily, and usually the theme or the story is also very strong. Sometimes, I need to be more analytical, and think of motifs, repetitions, answers and development. A motif is a short idea about the melody, I might repeat it, then an answer could come to the motif, and then I would develop the motif forward.

In conclusion, if it's hard to write a melody, compose it in smaller pieces (motif, etc), and think what you're telling to the listener, what's the story behind the melody.

Maybe a little off-topic, but your post reminded me of something.

I have not done that much classical or film music writing yet, but often when composing more contemporary stuff I stumbled into a thing, that if I am not able to create sketches of all the different parts of the song at the same session or day, it many times became hard to create the additional or missing parts later on, because they felt like they were from a different realm than the parts that I had made before. The energy was not the same and it often felt that they did not belong together.

For me it is like a stream of consciousness and you pick from there what you can - or in many cases they will be forever gone.
 
Maybe a little off-topic, but your post reminded me of something.

I have not done that much classical or film music writing yet, but often when composing more contemporary stuff I stumbled into a thing, that if I am not able to create sketches of all the different parts of the song at the same session or day, it many times became hard to create the additional or missing parts later on, because they felt like they were from a different realm than the parts that I had made before. The energy was not the same and it often felt that they did not belong together.

For me it is like a stream of consciousness and you pick from there what you can - or in many cases they will be forever gone.

Interesting, I've experienced that too. I try to make sketches as much as I can in one session. Then later on, it's easier to connect back with the piece. I have a few or actually many unfinished songs, and I've tried to finish them, but many times I feel disconnected with the piece, and I actually start to produce material to a totally new song.
 
How do you guys come up with simple and memorable (hummable) melodies? Can you share some tips, tricks and advises here? Thanks in advance.

The mistake a lot of us make, is to try and write long melody lines. This can start to sound arduous and turgid after a while, especially if the orchestration stays the same. In other words, boring.

Melody lines are not a trick, but try and keep them short. The guitarist from Deep Purple said that the knack of playing lead breaks, were to keep them short and in phrases, most importantly with breaks or gaps. A lead break can be and sometimes is, just really a melody line.
 
According to me, the most difficult part in composing is coming up with original, simple and memorable melodies that can transform into themes in a score, or become the chorus/verse of a song.

How do you guys come up with simple and memorable (hummable) melodies? Can you share some tips, tricks and advises here? Thanks in advance.
What is your background? Do you perform live, solo, in a band or ensemble. This is a weird question, but do you go to church? What music do you listen to, and what do you do "for fun."
 
Writing a melody is all about a story. Think of a story first, make it clear on your mind while composing, and usually a melody comes up easier. It's the same with drawing. If a teacher says, draw something, it's much harder to draw something on blank canvas than if you're given an idea, what to draw. Same goes with composing.

In practice, when I compose, sometimes a whole melody comes very easily, and usually the theme or the story is also very strong. Sometimes, I need to be more analytical, and think of motifs, repetitions, answers and development. A motif is a short idea about the melody, I might repeat it, then an answer could come to the motif, and then I would develop the motif forward.

In conclusion, if it's hard to write a melody, compose it in smaller pieces (motif, etc), and think what you're telling to the listener, what's the story behind the melody.

Thanks for the useful advice. It is true that it is much easier to have a melody idea when there is a story or picture to refer to. And I need to practice developing motifs without it being repetitive.
 
@ranaprathap Try and use chord tones (from the chords in your progression). Use scale wise motion, going up and down, have a melody start with a few whole steps or half steps and then try and jump up to higher notes in the scales, or lower notes depending on where you've started your melody line. The biggest thing that has helped me with melody writing is focusing on the rhythm of the melody.

A few tips and suggestions, study/analyze some of your favorite melodies and see how your favorite band/composer wrote them. Another thing you can try is your melody singable, try to sing it yourself and really listen to see if the melody makes sense.

I hope these helps, let me know if you have any further questions?

Thanks for your help. I really liked the idea of taking apart the melodies is some of my favorite songs. But when I do, those tunes are so simple that I end up wondering "why did I not come up with this?" And good advice on focusing on the rhythm, because I realize that more often it about the rhythm than the notes itself.
 
The mistake a lot of us make, is to try and write long melody lines. This can start to sound arduous and turgid after a while, especially if the orchestration stays the same. In other words, boring.

Melody lines are not a trick, but try and keep them short. The guitarist from Deep Purple said that the knack of playing lead breaks, were to keep them short and in phrases, most importantly with breaks or gaps. A lead break can be and sometimes is, just really a melody line.

I agree with you that short phrases makes the melody more hummable and memorable. Yes sometimes, the pauses are as important as the notes itself. It all depends on the context too - sometimes you just can't go without having a long soaring legato line as your melody.
 
What is your background? Do you perform live, solo, in a band or ensemble. This is a weird question, but do you go to church? What music do you listen to, and what do you do "for fun."

I come from a piano background. I have performed live - both solo and in a band. When I did, I played other's music.

I haven't gone to church before, because of a different religious background.

I listen to a lot of Indian classical music, Indian film music, fusion music(western classical-Indian classical), film scores, trailer music (the soft variety), New age (eg.Yanni), World music(eg.Tinariwen), Dubstep, soft rock, modern western classicals, etc etc

I am primarily a doctor, and for fun, amongst other things I watch tutorials on music production, listen to demos of sample libraries, and compose music when asked to, when I get the time.
 
sometimes you just can't go without having a long soaring legato line as your melody.

Then a technique to use when doing that, is to embellish it with a sort of question and answer routine to try and break up the possibility of any monotony to the listener. Examples



An old one below with not brilliant use of samples I admit.

 
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I come from a piano background. I have performed live - both solo and in a band. When I did, I played other's music.

I haven't gone to church before, because of a different religious background.

I listen to a lot of Indian classical music, Indian film music, fusion music(western classical-Indian classical), film scores, trailer music (the soft variety), New age (eg.Yanni), World music(eg.Tinariwen), Dubstep, soft rock, modern western classicals, etc etc

I am primarily a doctor, and for fun, amongst other things I watch tutorials on music production, listen to demos of sample libraries, and compose music when asked to, when I get the time.
My sincere apologies for the abnormal questions, Doctor, but I have always personally believed that composing melodies are affected by one's background and what type of music they both listen to and perform. I have a 3 year-old daughter named Molly in which we sing, play instruments, and dance constantly since she was born, and we even sang to her in the womb. Now we play this game called, "Sing a new song," that she invented where she will just break out into a very melodic song with her own words. I will ask her, "What are you singing, Molly?" And she will say, "I just made it up," then she will put me on the spot and say, "Now Daddy, it's your turn!" We play this game all the time. Once we were in Target and she just belted out a wonderful theme for a march. I looked at Momma and said, "I'm stealing that one!" The songs she listens to are mostly children's nursery rhymes, tunes, and spirituals, but in the different styles of Disney, jazz, country, and rock. When her mother and I sing songs with her we don't sing in "child's song voice," but sing it how we would perform, and it's amazing just to see a child mimic our performances emulating singing in tune, adding vibrato on whole-notes, and even emotion and correct style, example swinging the eight-notes. She is also the one child that loves to go to church, and she is expose to a wide range from traditional hymns, contemporary Christian, Bach chorales, madrigals, chant, Yiddish, and modal. I do not say all this to preach religion, but what all of these religious styles have in common, with probably the exception of chant, is that they are all extremely heavy melodic and she is truly absorbing that style.

My whole point of this story is that if you want to write melodies you must first listen and perform music that has great melodies. So many times I have listened to people's music and while their production skills are top notch, their music doesn't truly hit that lasting level because they fall into what I call "the epic loud legato whole-note horn melodies that are made up of arpeggios and perfect 5ths trap" With a little more work and attention to details those lines could absolutely become more melodic making their music even more "epic." My own music is heavily melodic even my "atonal" music. If you want me to go in more detail I can if you wish how I personally develop a melody.
 
Then a technique to use when doing that, is to embellish it with a sort of question and answer routine to try and break up the possibility of any monotony to the listener. Examples



An old one below with not brilliant use of samples I admit.



Thanks, I understand the point you are trying to make here, especially with that second example.
 
So many times I have listened to people's music and while their production skills are top notch, their music doesn't truly hit that lasting level because they fall into what I call "the epic loud legato whole-note horn melodies that are made up of arpeggios and perfect 5ths trap"

That is exactly the kind of thing I wanted to avoid. There is a lot of music out there that sounds great while listening but do not have a melody that stands out, making it immemorable.

My whole point of this story is that if you want to write melodies you must first listen and perform music that has great melodies.

The Indian classical style of music is extremely melodic, and poorly harmonic. But these melodies are based on Ragas (Indian classical equivalent of scales) making it suitable only for the Indian audience. And that is fine.

I guess it is time for me to widen my musical palette, and listen to more melodic content.
 
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I agree with what's been said here. Mainly, feed your mind great melodies. A lot. Some analysis, sure, but as you said, the best ones are simple. Just by listening you will begin to imitate, and soon come up with your own.

Get some staff paper (or print some online) and a pencil. Write 4 or 5 8-measure melodies - however long that takes you to do. Then let them sit for a day and come back to them and play them back, and pick the best ones or the best parts of each. Throw out anything that isn't great. If you don't like any parts of what you have write another 4 or 5. Keep doing this until you come across the "gold". Keep that, throw away the rest.

The good stuff will often give you inspiration for other parts or where it will lead.

Also, improvise melodies at the piano. At first, you may just want to "doodle" on the keys if you're not sure what to do. Set limitations for yourself: only the black keys, only one note at a time, things like that. Don't worry about modulations or creative accidentals. Keep it simple. Then if you come across something you like, something that tells you what to do next, that's your gold.

There are many, many other ways to go about this, but the main point is that you do it often, and learn to discern what is interesting or good by how it sparks ideas in you, or how it sticks in your head afterwards.
 
Just my random 2 cents, and not from an especially educated place:

Phrase length - are you making a statement (a short motif), a sentence (2 - 4 bar phrase) or having a conversation (e.g an 8 bar phrase). When I used to write radio/TV commercials I became trapped in short phrase thinking, a period in my career that I wish I'd skipped for several reasons.

Tension (e.g resting the initial phrase on 2nds, 4ths, 6ths, 7ths) and release (e.g. resolving the answering phrase to 5ths, 3rds, tonics).

Melodic rhythm - does the melody sound interesting without pitch when you tap it on the table, with just the right amount of rhythmic interest, repetition and variation.

Pitch direction - like melodic rhythm (and in conjunction with it), and without focusing on the specific notes, does the pitch generally flow, leap, change direction etc, in interesting ways.

Tonic fatigue - does your melody revisit the tonic too frequently. If it does, and if you're happy about that, be sure to move the bass note elsewhere to stop the melody sounding too dull and unexciting.

Just thought of another one: if you over-syncopate the melody, particularly if you avoid the first beat of the bar, it's like avoiding eye contact when you talk to someone, lacks impact.

Not sure if any of that resonates.....
 
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I don't know how to write a great melody, but I know that to do it you don't have to get fancy with harmony. I think that the Force Theme is one of the best themes ever, and it's pretty much just v-I. It gets dressed up a little more than that in the second half of the theme, but the first statement really is just that simple.

One thing I try to be cognizant of is writing melodies that fit into chord progressions that resolve (1-6-4-5 or the like, I don't know the proper musical term for it) vs writing melodies that don't have a "circular" underlying harmony. I think the two lead to very different feels.

The notes that hit on down beats are important (take a look at the Force theme), and as was previously mentioned hitting chord tones is important.
 
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