"How do you guys do it" II

Hi everyone, this is the first time I post here.

I play piano pretty well and I want to compose song melodies but I'm a bit

confused about how to do that 'cos whenever I attempted to compose a full melody

I realized afterwards that it was just an imitation of something I'd heard before.

So I'm definitely not going for the "play what naturally comes to mind" thing lol

I think I'm able to create original chord progressions & chord changes but I don't know how to create a truly original structure (verses & chorus length, number of

syllabs...)

My favorite kind of music is pop music made with synthesizers & drum machines (mainly late 80's stuff) and when I'm listenning to one of my fav songs I try to analyze how the melody was made but I don't go too far and end up wondering "how the hell did they do that?" and it still seems magical and unexplainable to me lol

What advice would you give me so I could create melodies that really come

from me? Does it require specific music knowledge? Is it possible to "imagine"

melodies before sitting at the piano or is it better to seek for them by pressing keys?

Note: english isn't my first language so excuse me if some sentences sound weird ;-)

Thanks in advance.

Hello Jaspion

I don't know if its any help, but this is how it works for me.

1

I practise vacuumcleaning the room and sing a melody and even try to modulate to other keys (which of course must contain the pitch of the vacuumcleaner)

2

I improvise over existing songs (singing along) and make up a counterpart

3

I look at a text and see what they tell me to do. there are always some keywords to find. (eg "down,down,down,down,down" makes me think of a base doing an downward movement. etc. less direct are words lke sad happy or lovely)

4 I go biking . In amsterdam we have a lot of small bridges going up and down. in my head I adjust the movement of the melody accordingly

5 I choose a meter like 5/4, 7/8 or even 13/16 which forces me to create something original.

6 use dice, Mozart even deviced a system for it , but you can transpose it to modern times

remember that the most tragic thing that can happen is that your first piece turns ou to be your masterpiece

Artisimo

Start messing around in different key signatures. That's what I do on piano. I usually enjoy using the key signature with all the sharps you can have. If I hear something I like while I'm playing, I slow it down, and then write it on blank stave paper.

Usually listening to other songs helps, but if you do start to copy another melody, change a few of the notes, the rythms, or change them into chords.

I also learn to play other songs on the piano, and if I make a mistake, but it makes a really good melody, then I'll use it. An example would be this one time where I had my Acoustic Guitar out of tune on the first string to play the opening to System of A Down's "Question." Never got the part right, but I did manage to come along something to sounded really good and made up the entire second half of my song "Acoustic Jam." But remember, I did more than just write down what I wrote, I added to it.

Haha, I start with lyrics, a poem a friend gives me. I then take the lyrics, pick a scale, and make a melody to match the scale. I even make posotive words in the phrases go up, and negative phrases go down, and then try it flipped the other way. Even if your music doesn't have lyrics, that can be a really neat way to start. You can just throw the lyrics out later.