What comes first the chicken or the egg?

Gonna tone it down after the last post I put...

What come first the melody (chicken) or the Harmony (egg)?

Just read a bit on Jean-Phillipe Rameau Baroque composer and writer of Traite de l'harmonie and he based his melody around his harmony. So Rameau laid an egg then cracked it open to get a melody....

I personally just fumble about but i do find getting a good melody is easier once you have the harmony down, also helps with phrasing i feel.

Please post your method or whatever...

Melody for sure comes first for me.

I couldn't even conceive of composing by establishing a harmonic progression and then trying to pigeon-hole a melody into it. However, I'm a violinist so I tend to think more "horizontally." I wonder if pianists tending to think more in terms of harmony (a more "vertical" approach).

Melody must illuminate harmony and harmony must illuminate melody. Neither comes first.

For me, it's a ragged jumble of all things that eventually get mashed together.

I will say, it's more likely for melodic content to solidify first, with root-movement, rhythm/groove and harmony all closing is soon after.

But I could easily start in any position, and build tunes from bottom-up, top-down, or side-to-side ;)

Melody must illuminate harmony and harmony must illuminate melody. Neither comes first.

Nonsense!

While a particular melody may imply a certain harmony or tendencies, it's by no means tethered to it. I change harmonic content to elicit different textures from a melody; I'll also change melodies to better fit a harmony I want...I'm sure you do the same, Tokke ;)

Nonsense!

While a particular melody may imply a certain harmony or tendencies, it's by no means tethered to it. I change harmonic content to elicit different textures from a melody; I'll also change melodies to better fit a harmony I want...I'm sure you do the same, Tokke ;)

Oh of course it can. I was just repeating the pretentious "classical" argument.

What come first the melody (chicken) or the Harmony (egg)?

Rhythm (snake).

For me, I consider the melody to be the egg and the harmony to be the chicken. You can't have harmony without something for it to support, after all. I guess it's just a matter of perspective really.

I compose melody and add harmony later. I also compose harmony and add melody later. I do both of these things as I please, whenever I believe it will elicit the effect I desire or help my ideas evolve into something more compelling than what I have using another method.

I also think it's important to consider this a discussion on methodology. Both approaches have merit, and a highly skilled composer should be able to do both on a whim. Me, I sometimes need to concentrate more than what should be necessary to create what I want. I suppose I'm saying that I sometimes find myself weak in one area or the other. Or, maybe a better way to think of it might be... I feel I would be more "highly skilled" if I knew beforehand which method to use, as this might facilitate more efficiency in my work product.

Meh, doesn't matter really. I compose for the enjoyment of the final product. I have yet to "need to care" about such trivialities as "efficiency." I'll leave that up to the music farmers out there producing a work a day. I'd rather take my time and enjoy myself than relive my comprehensive exam from my Masters. God that was awful.

Oh of course it can. I was just repeating the pretentious "classical" argument.

Why?

It depends on how you look at it. Pure or "bare" tones are produced only by electronic means (signal generators / oscillators) as pure sine waves. The spectrum of the other sounds is composed of many such softer pure tones, many sine waves with lower and lower amplitudes, and from this viewpoint one may say that harmony is inherent in the musical tone alone. And this simple acoustical fact is fundamental, since "real" harmony, scales, etc. evolved around it.

As for the compositional practice, simpler melodies tend to imply harmony more clearly and even when they are not simple, you probably envision shadows of harmonic possibilities here and there while writing the melody. And if you begin with block chords only, you may find some melodic traces in your mind, considering that the mere change from chord to chord is already melodic activity.

It depends on how you look at it. Pure or "bare" tones are produced only by electronic means (signal generators / oscillators) as pure sine waves. The spectrum of the other sounds is composed of many such softer pure tones, many sine waves with lower and lower amplitudes, and from this viewpoint one may say that harmony is inherent in the musical tone alone. And this simple acoustical fact is fundamental, since "real" harmony, scales, etc. evolved around it.

As for the compositional practice, simpler melodies tend to imply harmony more clearly and even when they are not simple, you probably envision shadows of harmonic possibilities here and there while writing the melody. And if you begin with block chords only, you may find some melodic traces in your mind, considering that the mere change from chord to chord is already melodic activity.

Thats actually great and very interesting. :) But i meant in terms of personal writing? Do you form a Harmonic Sequence first then fit a melody to it or vice-versa.

It's a mess of everything at the same time. Sometimes I even get both at the same time.

Mine is both at the same time as well. When I hear a melody in my head, it already has the harmony behind it. I actually prefer harmonies over a melody to be honest.

Thats actually great and very interesting. :) But i meant in terms of personal writing? Do you form a Harmonic Sequence first then fit a melody to it or vice-versa.

Well, what you don't seem to understand is that by the intrinsic qualities of sound, it's a moot point, because most tones produced by live instruments (and generally "musical" sounds we're accustomed to) carry this quality. A melodic line will invariably have some kind of underlying harmonic sequence that occurs by nature of how the sounds occur. Similarly, a harmony may simply suggest several various melodic ideas, at least in theory, perhaps due to overlapping harmonics produced from the various tones of the harmony.

This is far more interesting than I think you might realize. OF COURSE, it's practically useless, meaning the time it would take to examine the overtones we can otherwise "assume" are being created from a harmony or, for that matter, the harmonics emerging from a melodic line, is far more cumbersome and (in my humble opinion) counterproductive to the creative process. For purposes of this discussion, it illuminates a level of abstraction to the discussion that dismantles the paradox you're talking about.

Well done, Kamen. I applaud your post.

Depends.

If I want something harmonically interesting, I need to map out what I'm gonna do harmonically. If I want something more focussed on melodic interest, I'll write melody first.

Well, what you don't seem to understand is that by the intrinsic qualities of sound, it's a moot point, because most tones produced by live instruments (and generally "musical" sounds we're accustomed to) carry this quality. A melodic line will invariably have some kind of underlying harmonic sequence that occurs by nature of how the sounds occur. Similarly, a harmony may simply suggest several various melodic ideas, at least in theory, perhaps due to overlapping harmonics produced from the various tones of the harmony.

This is far more interesting than I think you might realize. OF COURSE, it's practically useless, meaning the time it would take to examine the overtones we can otherwise "assume" are being created from a harmony or, for that matter, the harmonics emerging from a melodic line, is far more cumbersome and (in my humble opinion) counterproductive to the creative process. For purposes of this discussion, it illuminates a level of abstraction to the discussion that dismantles the paradox you're talking about.

Well done, Kamen. I applaud your post.

No i understand perfectly fine thankyou.

Obviously not as interesting as yourself. Why does it dismantle it though? You saying its useless, cumbersome and possibly none existent dismantle's your argument over Kamen's post dismantling my simple and jovial question?

No i understand perfectly fine thankyou.

Obviously not as interesting as yourself. Why does it dismantle it though? You saying its useless, cumbersome and possibly none existent dismantle's your argument over Kamen's post dismantling my simple and jovial question?

Kamen's post quite effectively unravels this paradox of yours by addressing the matter at a deeper level of sound mechanics. Of course, methodology is another matter. That's what I'm saying. It may seem like a paradox at a "method" level, but at a deeper "mechanic" level it's not paradoxical at all.

Saying that the mechanical perspective is cumbersome and practically useless at the method level does not validate the paradox. We can intuitively infer what method to use from the mechanics (even if we don't perceive them) in a musical event based on what we focus on when creating it.

So, if I'm focused on the harmony in this event, there may be some melodic idea in there that I can later discover and possibly use. It doesn't change the fact that at a deeper mechanical level, both "melody" and "harmony" simultaneously occur regardless of which serves as the impetus of the event.

Most times, the melody gets in my head so I have to write it down quickly before I lose it.

Sometimes, I'm just "egging" around on my keyboard and a melody will come by benefit of comping.

More than a few times though, I had a "chicken and egg sandwich" where BOTH were happening at the same time!

There's no hard and fast rules for me, just whatever works at a particularly given situation.

Most of the time it's melody first. There is nothing more difficult than coming up with a beautiful melody. Still, I think harmony's the most evocative and important part of music.

Do you start with the tune, then add harmony, or do you develop the melody from the harmonic progression?

From an educators point of view, I say both. Melody and harmony are interwoven, each one motivating the other. Play you melodies AS harmonic progressions, because they are. Then lighten them up with the appropriate chord support.

I suggest you take a piano class because it's much easier to write/arrange on the piano. You can see the melody and harmony, and if you study piano a while, you learn to voice that harmony with the melody, thus connecting them in a linear way and move forward.

I have different approaches, but one of my favourite is to compose melody & harmony simultaneously, whilst working at a piano.. I'm not a great pianist, but I find it useful to always know where at least my root note is when composing melodies a lot of the time, although there are times when I write melodies/harmonies in isolation first, before adding the other.. I guess there's not one correct way ;-)

Most of the time for me, I create a melody first, then add the harmony. Often times though, I can hear the harmony at the same time I hear the melody, I just happen to put the melody first because it's easier for me to tweak to the way I want.

From the perspective of common practice composition,

The entire piece that you write is based on the melody that you conceive. You conceive the melody, it implies some harmony, that harmony has some particular characteristic that can be exploited, you exploit it in a development section of some sort, etc. etc.

That being said, the plot structure of a piece is also set harmonically. Since the modulation from tonic to dominant is seen as an increase in tension (culturally at least), and there is a necessity for lack of perfect authentic cadences in the development region, the plot of the piece predetermines the harmony.

So ... both? If I write common-practice music, I'll simultaneously draw up a harmonic structure as well as a melody which contains certain harmonic characteristics to be exploited.

Well, for me, any one of the 3 can come to me first. Generally, if it's rhythm, then quite quickly I come up with a P5 to put in that place , if it's harmony, I figure out where I can put in parallel 5ths, and if it's melody, then, I just write it down.

This isn't 100% true, as I do not always put 5ths there, but often times I do.... :toothygrin:

Heckel

I'm not sure how much I can contribute after all of these posts, but I believe that the compositional process is such an extremely elusive one! I would love to have one single method to use that works the same way EVERY TIME, but I always come up with ideas differently with almost every comp I write.

I usually like to have an idea of my form and what I am wanting to achieve before I begin and there are many people that do this as well, BUT there are MANY people that like to just let a piece"naturally unfold" and not "force" anything. Either way works and people will argue their points of view ad nauseam!

The points:

Planning gives me a sort of suggested guide-line to what I am going to do and then I can vary it from there or as I go along. Some people believe that this is "pouring the ideas into a rigid and specific mold to make them fit." I believe it is called structure.

The other side of the coin is to let things come about naturally as sound does in nature... it just happens. It's up there in the air and we're just pulling it down and using it and whatever happens, happens. I believe that this method is a bit too amorphous. Stream-of-consciousness type writing that is formless and has no development and/ or structure- it just goes and goes and goes... NOT for me, but I'm not "nay saying" it, I just desire a bit more form/ structure to follow.

I believe that it really depends on the type of piece you're working on as well:

* Are you using text for a choir piece, oratorio, opera or Art Song? Well then you're probably going to let the text dictate your direction on form, melody and harmony depending on the mood of the text... text-painting, etc.

* Are you looking at sketching out a chamber piece or a full on orchestral piece?

* Are you looking to compose a piece that's atonal, serial, poly-tonal, pandiatonic, diatonic, modal- why is this important? Can you "hear" a serial melody from a row that you haven't created yet? Do you "hear" modal melodies and harmonies before putting them down on paper or putting them into your notation program of choice? etc...

Hope this helps! Happy composing folks!