Melody-Writing

My biggest problem in composing is coming up with melodies. I understand voice-leading, I can deal with a full orchestra at once. If I could have someone to write a symphony's worth of melody in one straight line, I could orchestrate it no problem! But when it comes to melody-writing, I always get constipated for some reason. Any advice from the more experienced among us, or suggestions of books that might be helpful?

Start humming. Go to the piano and use one finger to pluck some notes out. Anything. Go wild. See what you like. It's all about experimentation. Play one of your favorite melodies written by one of your favorite composers and change it up a little bit, get inspired by it.

A couple of my friends are being silly and are making a sort of documentary about our dorm floor, and all the people on it, etc. I've been volunteered to write themes for everyone and I've got 8 done so far. For me, it's very easy to sit down and create a melody. I simply shut down my memory of themes from other composers and don't worry about plagiarism. So what if it sounds similar? I made it, and it will sound new just because it's in my own voice. I experiment at the piano and come up with something I like for the person I'm focusing on.

The brilliant thing about composing that I always love is how you get to break all the rules. Modern music has progressed beyond rules of the cantus firmus - melodies exist that use leaps of 12ths, etc. Really, writingg a melody is simply a product of how much you doodle. Eventually, one of those doodles will pop out at you.

My biggest problem in composing is coming up with melodies. I understand voice-leading, I can deal with a full orchestra at once. If I could have someone to write a symphony's worth of melody in one straight line, I could orchestrate it no problem! But when it comes to melody-writing, I always get constipated for some reason. Any advice from the more experienced among us, or suggestions of books that might be helpful?

My problem is the opposite. I can compose melodies rather easily but I have huge difficults in orchestration/accompaniment. I'm trying to learn some techniques to help me making accompaniment like chord progressions, arpeggios and counterpoint with only 2 instruments or even just the piano. BTW, if anyone has some advice or tips to accompaniment/orchestrations please share with me :happy:

I think that's because the instrument I play. I only played violin solo. Violin (solo not ensemble) is an instrument that focus on melody. Piano focus both the melody and accompaniment so maybe it's easier to a piano user to compose. That's why I'm trying to learn how to play piano.

So... my advice. I agree with Nickthoven. Start hitting some notes on the piano and try to connect them. Then close your eyes and start humming until you find some "group/sequence" of notes you like. Then try to extend it (not too much) so it can have a beggining, middle and a end (not always necessary tough :( ).

If you just sit there for some time you'll be able to think of something, just don't give up :closedeyes:

So, Agnor: are you Portuguese (like me) or Brazilian?

So, Agnor: are you Portuguese (like me) or Brazilian?

Portuguese from Portugal :blink:

The piano or whatever your home instrument is your biggest ally. As I composer I often hum nonsensical things without thinking, and never write them down, to my chagrin later. Just sing something or doodle on the piano until you hear something that you like. Often deciding on a scale can be immensly helpful. You can always stray but just pick a scale. Try working with the modes, try working with whole tone and octotonic and blues scales. Be adventerous and don't overanalyze. Often something you wrote may sound like garbage the next day...its okay. Don't change it right away, give it time to breathe. One thing I like to do since I am in the same boat as you is write melodies myself under certain conditions. I will say things like there has to be a meter change, or it has to modulate, etc. etc. Also tear apart melodies from your favorite composers and see what leaps, what motives, etc make them tick and just try to emmulate...

I hope this helps

Octotonic? I've never heard that term before. I always heard it called 'diatonic', after the diatonic tetrachord it's based on.

...octatonic is a scale in which the intervals alternate between major 2nd and minor 2nd. Resulting in a C octatonic scale: c, d, eb, f, gb, ab,a,b,c.

Hm, that's interesting. I didn't know about the octatonic scale. But then, you can make all sorts of scales thus just by modifying another scale you like. I like to mix lydian and ionian sometimes, for example.

Smith Brindle's book Composition has a pretty detailed section on melody writing, and divides traditional melodies (especially from the classical period) into 'phrases' and 'sentences', etc., so it's like taking it measure by measure in what seems like a logical enough fashion. Then it goes on with stuff on memorability, and how critical rhythm is, and the importance of jumps to renew interest here and there, and high notes for climaxes and etc. It would be too much for me to sum up and post here, but the book is only like $8 from Amazon (or was, anyway). The book has a lot of really nice info condensed to be as practical as possible, but the melody section in particular is more detailed than anything I've read on it anywhere else. It gives a lot of examples of what's being suggested from well-known pieces, too. If you were only to take a group of somewhat random notes and apply whatever you learn from that book, I would imagine you could come up with something half decent without really trying.

I have thought about this long and hard, but I can't come up with anything helpful. Melodies just come to me. I don't really work on them. I often do what Nick suggested, either out loud in my head, starting with an interval or two, and things just appear.

Referring to the previous post, I'm skeptical that studying the structure of a melody will help you write one. That said, I also believe that education is never a waste, and study is energy applied in the direction you want to go. Perhaps once you have read and studied to the point of understanding, whatever is blocking the inspiration necessary for a melody to come to you (from God, I believe) will dissolve.

I'll repeat what I've posted before: Haydn used to get down on his knees every morning and pray for an idea. "I can do anything, Lord, with an idea." Asking for help couldn't hurt.

Similar situation here... I'm somewhat able to hide it because I only start seriously working on a piece when I have a decent set of themes to work with. That does mean that almost all the themes I'm using in my current music were written down between 1 and 3 years ago (I have about one half-decent melodic idea every 2 months or so). If you compose faster, it's probably still applicable, just on a shorter time scale?

Although there are guides on how to "harmonize" a melody, I don't think there are really any guides on how to create a melody. This just comes from creativity and experience. This is analogous to creating a story. There is NO guide on how to develop ideas since ideas are created or developed by the brain..however there are methods of how to arrange the ideas which is very different.

For me, I harmonize AND create the melody at the same time because I found that is what works for me personally. You just have to find out what works for YOU personally.

Writing melodies it seems to me is sort of like speaking a language. Start with gah gah goo goo, immerse yourself in your favorite music that you're inspired by, and before you know it you'll be speaking complete words and sentences. That is...mess around. that can be through improvisation, clicking notes into Finale, humming things and writing them down, or if you have really good musical mental imagery, just...well improvising in your head!

I'm skeptical that studying the structure of a melody will help you write one.[/b]

Hopefully no one follows rules too strictly anyway, and Smith Brindle even emphasizes that in the book. My idea was just to get some creative thought going on, based on what's suggested in that book. :unsure:

You know, to be perfectly honest, there is no true way in creating a melody. Melodies are more or less spontaneous in their general creation. One may learn techniques to developing a melody, just as one can study Writers Craft to, but that doesn't necessarily make you a better writer. To be blunt, you're either born with it, or your not.

Here's the best that I can tell you.

Experience life to the fullest. Life is just brimming with melodies. Write music that reflects how you feel. Find inspiration in nature, the city - the rhythm of a train for instant, the flutter of leaves, the kiss of one you love. That's how I get my inspiration, from living.

Secondly, read a lot. That helps.

I write pieces, starting from melodies.

I write melodies from inspiration.

My inspiration comes from one of three places: other composers, my sister, or my emotions.

My advice:

1. Listen to alot of music, and sing along with them (try to complement the music with your own counterpoint/voicing/whatever.)

2. I will also at times ask my sister, "Can you play a few notes on the piano?" She does so, in seemingly random order, but it gets the mind creating true, connected melodies. So play a few random notes, and make a melody out of it.

3. Of course, my emotions are the largest inspiration. Whatever I feel like at the time, this I will compose. If you do a lot of the first two parts I wrote, then your emotion will build the melodies for you.

This takes time. But, then again, everything does. I hope this has been helpful!

Melodic writing can be more than just about the notes, too. Try playing with numbers. Arrange a sequence of numbers to stand for intervals. Pick 12 numbers randomly, and then write those intervals. That intervallic content becomes your theme, and you can transpose, retrograde, invert, all that fun stuff, with that material.

Generally, when I write a melody it'll evolve from a feeling, generally relating to something that I saw or heard. You might want to start with watching a movie you really love, or a really great TV show (Grey's Anatomy!!!) and then think about musicalizing it. Try to express what you're thinking\feeling with the musical "language" you already know. If you have to think about it in logical terms, you could think about the chords that you've known to express particular moods and try to begin a melody from that point. That works for me a little.

Writing Melody is simple and complex when you get saturated. Few rules to be followed to generate good melodies.

1. What kind of mood do you wish to produce? Happy, Sad or dark??

2. Once you decide the mood, then we need to choose the Scale that has the ability to produce such mood.

3. Choose any Minor Harmonic Scale...for example Am...ABCDEFG#A...

4. Take a paper, write the Notes of the ROOT, fourth and Dominant Chords as below...

Am = ACE

IV =DFA

V =EG#B

Just observe, these 3 Chords have covered all the notes of the Harmonic Scale Am = ABCDEFG#A

5. As a basic step, start the melody from note A and then make sure that you come back to A again....

It's like travelling from your home and come back to home while visiting several other places in between...

Make sure that either B or G# is before the last note....Think that B is your BEST Friend's home and G# is your Girl friends home....

Make sure that you visit any one of B or G# before coming back to A.

Good luck ....bbye

But don't ignore the possibility of intramelodic tonicization. Taking that A minor harmonic scale again as an example, start with the tonic, subdominant, and dominant chords.

Example melody with all that...

A, B, D, C

Then, tonicize the submediant:

F, Bb, A, G(natural)

And then move on to tonicize the Maj. subdominant:

F#, C#, D, G

Then the minor submediant:

F, G, Ab, Bb

And then bring in the tritone (the key-defining interval), and end on your beginning key.

C, G#, A

I sympathise with the original poster - long staisfying melodies rarely come my way so I tend to work with motifs. Sometimes a melody grows out of motif development.

M

learn firstly what constututes a motif and then how a motif is developed to become a phrase.sometimes the phrase is the motif. but to be succssesful with working with motifs you must learn the compositional tools of variation.eg

...inversion

...retrograge

...retrograge inversion

...transposition

...diminition

...augmentation

...addittion

...condensation

...rhythmic displacement

...cannon

...imitation

etc.etc

whan you learn these melodic devices you can turn just a few notes into a good melody.all long symphonies are based on no more than 1 to 3 motifs,and they just get put though a HUGE washing maching of variation and development and sometimes one motif gets developed to become a new one.

this is how the greats worked. they all worked motivically.but the super talaented ones got the HUGE head start of on occasion being able to spit a "fantastic" phrase out of their creative mind first.then they work with it motivically.i had a debate with this guy who said he was a composer on another site,and he said that the only way to write music is to improvise it step by step until you just come up with something.he has no idea.the non composers work that way and rarely get great results,but composers work motvically,because it is the most productive way and there is nothing wrong with improvising some times for a fresh change,but i preffer the old school.

Writing melodies it seems to me is sort of like speaking a language. [/b]

I seem to remember reading or hearing somewhere that traditionally, many times melodies are intricately intertwined with the sounds and especially rythymic cadences of the spoken language of the composer. This makes sense because composers have generally been steeped in the music of thier country of origin. Especially folk music. The example I seem to remember alluded to the rythyms found in the music of Stravinsky

Didn't Beethoven or Mozart write a symphonic work based on a cough or a sneeze or a burp or something like that?

Ives would transcribe the music of the marching band coming down the road alone with the birds that were singing or the student practicing piano, or the out of tune church choir, at the same time.

I remember transcribing rythyms from the clicky-clack of the subway train when I was going to music school.

All of these things are potential sources of melodic inspiration because they come from your real life experiences.