Writing Melodies

Does anyone have any tips for writing melodies? I find I'm always stuck using chord tones, and don't know when to venture out into 'neighboring' or 'passing' tones.

Using harmonic passing tones on unaccented beats is a safe bet. Using non-harmonic passing tones on unaccented beats takes a little more deliberation. Using harmonic passing tones on accented beats requires use of suspensions and the like. Using non-harmonic passing tones ought to be reserved until you've mastered the previous three "techniques".

Remember that it's almost always passing tones that make a melody interesting. The only thing you have to fear is fear itself and bears.

A melody is usually made up of short phrases made into a longer phrase. There are two types of melodic motion, conjunct and disjunct. A conjunct melody moves mostly by step, but a disjunct often jumps around a bit. It is a good idea to mix conjunct and disjunct motion. The 1st, 5th, and 3rd tones are the most stable. Other tones are unstable, especially the 4th and 7th. All unstable tones tend to resolve downwards but the 7th tone normally goes to the tonic.

A melody can come more easily and naturally if you look at some lyrics, or random words or a poem, sing them and record yourself, and then transcribe them.

You can increase melodic tension by not immediately resolving to a stable tone. For example, going from the 6th to the 7th to the 2nd creates a lot of melodic tension, and then the melody could be tonally closed by landing on the tonic at the end. Landing on the tonic really closes the phrase, but it could be slightly less open by ending on the 3rd or 5th for example.

Both the last note and the first note of the phrase are important focal areas. It is possible to make a smooth connection from one phrase to another by making the first note of the second phrase the resolution of the last note of the previous phrase.

An unstable tone may resolve immediately, or resolve after a number a beats, or even after a number of beats, or not resolve at all.

It is important to use melodic outline. The melodic outline is formed by the most important notes of a melody, referred to as structural tones. They tend to be on important beats, start a phrase, be the highest note in the phrase, or have a longer duration than the other notes. You can embellish a melodic contour in several ways such as repeating the tone, using neighbour tones, a changing tone, a scalar pattern, anticipation and leap. It is a good idea to combine all these into a phrase, but don’t lose track of the structural tones. Using changing tones is when you use both the lower and upper neighbour notes of the structural notes straight after each other.

It is also useful to use a variety of melodic contours. This is the general direction of the melody. Contours can be ascending, descending, an arch, an inverted arch, or stationary. Too many phrases with the same contour may cause monotony and be boring.

You can decide how closed you want a phrase to be. You can do this tonally or rhythmically, or both. Melody should have sections such as, a, b, a, b. A, would have one rhythm, and B, another rhythm. However, the pitches would change. Here are some other sections. A, a, b, a. A, b, a, a.

So far, to make a melody, we could do the following. Decide on a structure, the rhythms, the melodic contour, and the melodic outline.

Using a motive or idea or hook is important. This is memorable; it could be rhythmical or melodic. You can develop a motive by retaining the rhythm but changing the pitch and melodic contour.

Here are some more techniques. Sequence. Inversion. Retrograde, where you present the motive backwards. Diminution, where you shorten the note values. Augmentation, where you lengthen the note values. Permuation, where you change the note order. Conjunction, which is new material, usually one or two notes, that connects two motives together. Ornamentation, which retains all the main notes of the motive but embellishes them.

Or you could start with a chord progression:

A chord progression could be simply a repetitious pattern, for example, consisting of two chords, one per measure, which repeat for 8, 12, 16, or more measures. These two chords could by the one and four chord for example.

The melody should have its own integrity and not simply be dragged from place to place by the harmony. The melody should really contain non-chord tones. This could make a sus chord.

The melody could have rhythmic activity in the areas of weak harmonic stress. This helps propel the music forward. It also creates a type of give-and-take activity between the harmonic and melodic phrases that continually enlivens the music.

The melody can begin and end in areas that differ from the beginning and ending of the harmonic phrase. This technique is called interlocking.

Back-heavy phrases are good. This is when a melodic phrase begins on a weak measure within a harmonic or metric framework. For example, if an F chord lasts for 2 bars, the 1st bar has no melody, but the 2nd has melody. The first bar is mainly harmony, but the melody is the main thing in the 2nd bar.

Don’t refrain from using common chord progressions.

whistle, whistle anything, whistle until your lips bleed, then whistle some more.

I gets rid of the chords. It gets rid of progressions. It is just flat out melody.

At least, this is a start (assuming you can whistle.)

I find the best way to ensure that your melody comes out as melodic and not just as, "hey, I need some notes between these chords" is... well, make up a melody. Something singable. Sing/play to yourself until you've got something you like, and then build the chords around that, not the other way around--more organic and melody-like this way, I find.

whistle, whistle anything, whistle until your lips bleed, then whistle some more.

I gets rid of the chords. It gets rid of progressions. It is just flat out melody.

At least, this is a start (assuming you can whistle.)

thats exactly what i do! :laugh:

and oh, remember to sing in the showers. im serious. it works.

Also remember to bring some staff paper in the shower so you can write down your ideas. (Maybe laminated, and with wet erase markers? Then you'd need to keep it away from the water, though, which would be nearly impossible. You could use permanent markers if you have a lot of laminated staff paper.)

O_O

good idea.

Listen to Nobuo Uematsu, he has a god-like knack for lovely melody, you can learn off him

and oh, remember to sing in the showers. im serious. it works.

Seriously. I could sing anywhere else on my own and it just wouldn't generate the same amount of good melodic material that singing in the shower does. Maybe it's cause I'm alone and in an echoey place with nothing else to do...

Really? I'm usually too busy washing things...

In all seriousness, the singing thing is a pretty good idea. If you can't write down the tunes you sing fast enough, you might record them.

Remember that we interpreted melodies as spoken sentences. So your melodies should make sence. The should have some inherent logic in them. Try to interpret a melody in your head untill they make sence, untill you've understand them. What does the first melody of Chopin's thirth nocturne mean?(to you, of course). If you understand the 'human' logic of a melody it's easier to follow thru on them and you may understand where you can go next.