melodies that don't sound like melodies

Hello guys,

I have problems composing great melodies. If I analyse and play the melodies of famous musicians, I am

always disappointed, because their melodies sound so great and because I would never have come up with this melody. The problem is, when I try to compose a melody it always sounds like a mindless order of notes. I don't now if it is the order of the notes (i play), which is unmelodical and just senseless, or if it is the duration of each note (of the melody) which is senseless and so doesn't shape the character of the melody well. And often I want to play a melody or solo in a particular musical style, but I don't know what makes a melody sound like jazz, pop, rock, blues, flamenco, new age, classical or whatever.

Hello guys,

I have problems composing great melodies.

There's your problem. If you strive to compose great melodies you'll consistently find that you're unhappy with them. Take any idea and run with them. The simplest ideas can be great melodies depending on how you use them.

Hello guys,

The problem is, when I try to compose a melody it always sounds like a mindless order of notes. [/b]

I'm making a few assumptions in this so if there is knowledge here you already have, it's not meant to belittle by repeating it.

Here's a few guidelines that help me:

1) You might think of the harmonies that underly or are outlined by your melody. The chords, where they fall, etc. Does the implied harmonies form some sort of pattern?

2) Try restricting yourself to writing melodies in multiples of 4 bar phrases, since this compromises most music. When you reach the end of your first phrase, you have a choice: Do you want the melody to sound "ended" or do you want it to continue? If you want it to continue, don't "rest" on the tonic note if the preceeding notes outlined the Dominant chord.

3) Some knowledge of voice leading will help you. For instance, if you have found yourself on the leading note, you are not in a sequence and the preceeding note was not the tonic - generally this note will rise to the tonic.

4) Beats 1,3 in common and 1 in 3/4 are strong beats and the others are weak beats. Similiarly, measures 1,3 are stronger than measures 2,4. Keep this in mind when doing rhythmic repeats. One of the things I do when I'm stuck for ideas is to write rhythmic ideas only in meter. I pay alot of attention to what rhythmic ideas I'm repeating, whether they fall on strong or weak beats. After writing out the rhythms, I put notes to them with some idea of underlying harmonies, whether or not I want the melody to sound "ended" or not etc.

5) Generally speaking - Avoid augmented intervals. And if you do a diminished interval - go down. Again - generally speaking.

do you improvise a lot? improvisation is a great way to get familiar with "speaking" the language of music, eventually you'll get a better feel for writing melodies this way, it'll just be as natural as speaking sentences to write melodies. That isn't to say every improvised melody will be amazing of course, but I've found it a very effective method for learning to write better melodies.

"You don't need a killer melody to write a killer piece."

- Giselle's Composition teacher