Melody: How do you write one? Do you even need one? And will it ever be exhausted?

So how do you come up with a melody?  There is much literature on harmony, counterpoint and orchestration etc. but the craft of writing a good melody is still mostly a mystery (although I'd be very glad to have someone correct me here if I am wrong).  There are of course plenty of Youtube videos about how to write a melody which you are free to share here as well.

Composing a "long leading melodic line" is harped upon by many as being very important especially in music of the classical and romantic era.  Mozart said that "Melody is the essence of music" but do you really even need it?  Some composers while still writing melody use it more as the jumping off point for some of the other features of their music such as virtuosity most notably.  Others choose to subjugate traditional melodic expectations and write only harmonies or tone-color melodies (or shimmering pointillistic textures as melody).

Finally, will melody ever be exhausted?  Is it possible to use up all the permutations/combinations of tones and rhythms to the point that there would be nothing original left to write?

Hi

Of course there is literature on melody, mainly focusing in classic periods. From the classic The Melody by Ernst Toch until many books on counterpoint explaining motivic manipulation.

I think melody is a column of music, with rhythm, harmony, etc.... A piece of music can be valid when one of these elements is not there (or almost). Of course it is no needed if your composition goes other ways. Contemporary music is full of music without a melody or a clear one, or with a mastering of textures instead. Yes, there will always be a voice leading, but the treatment is differente.

Bellini: the best melodist.

2 hours ago, PaperComposer said:

Finally, will melody ever be exhausted?  Is it possible to use up all the permutations/combinations of tones and rhythms to the point that there would be nothing original left to write?

I don't think so. Now we have microtones.

Sometimes I have uploaded pieces of this kind...... Reaction: there's no melody!...... (What if I didn't want it!)

12 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

From the classic The Melody by Ernst Toch until many books on counterpoint explaining motivic manipulation.

I tried to search for the book "The Melody" by Ernst Toch and couldn't find it - instead, the search engine pointed me towards his other book (apparently) "The Shaping Forces in Music".  I'm sure books on counterpoint talk a great deal about motivic manipulation once you have motivic material but do they really talk about how to come up with good material in the first place?

But how do YOU come up with melody?  And what is it's relative importance to you and in your works?

14 hours ago, PaperComposer said:

So how do you come up with a melody?  There is much literature on harmony, counterpoint and orchestration etc. but the craft of writing a good melody is still mostly a mystery (although I'd be very glad to have someone correct me here if I am wrong).  There are of course plenty of Youtube videos about how to write a melody which you are free to share here as well.

Schoenberg has his famous book "Fundamentals of Music Composition" that covers everything from coming up with motives, developing motive forms, using motives to construct phrases, using phrases to build parts, and using parts to build an entire piece. I've always thought it's not the most well-written book, and a little disorganized, but it has a lot of great information if you're willing to dig through it. 

Personally, I've always taken an "I'll know it when I see it" approach to coming up with melodies. I try to focus on making melodies that are "singable", so I'll often just come up with them by humming either out loud or in my head. They usually start out in an unrefined form, so I analyze and modify until I come up with something more coherent. Melody tends to be the most memorable aspect of music, so I always place alot of importance on them.

15 hours ago, PaperComposer said:

Composing a "long leading melodic line" is harped upon by many as being very important especially in music of the classical and romantic era.  Mozart said that "Melody is the essence of music" but do you really even need it?  Some composers while still writing melody use it more as the jumping off point for some of the other features of their music such as virtuosity most notably.  Others choose to subjugate traditional melodic expectations and write only harmonies or tone-color melodies (or shimmering pointillistic textures as melody).

I wonder if you can truly write music without it. Wikipedia defines melody as "a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity." I think the ear naturally tries to find these kind of linear successions instinctively. Even if a piece of music is mostly chords or arpeggios, or even percussive rhythms, I still tend to hear those as melodic entities (maybe that's just me). Do you have an example of music you consider to be without melody?

15 hours ago, PaperComposer said:

Finally, will melody ever be exhausted?  Is it possible to use up all the permutations/combinations of tones and rhythms to the point that there would be nothing original left to write?

I don't think so. I would bet most melodies that people come up with today have been used before in some form or fashion, just in lesser known or unknown works. I think more likely we'll just find new ways to package what already exists. As the saying goes, "there's nothing new under the sun".

22 minutes ago, gmm said:

I wonder if you can truly write music without it. Wikipedia defines melody as "a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity." I think the ear naturally tries to find these kind of linear successions instinctively. Even if a piece of music is mostly chords or arpeggios, or even percussive rhythms, I still tend to hear those as melodic entities (maybe that's just me).

I see what you're saying and that's certainly confirmed by a quick search on google and youtube I did for music without a melody.  I thought for sure I'd be able to find some background music or film music or just empty and ready to use rap/hip-hop beats but they all have something that the ear attaches to.  One could even argue that a rhythm by itself without pitch content qualifies a melody.  The other extreme where one hears tones that blur into each other without any particular rhythms also qualifies.

29 minutes ago, gmm said:

Do you have an example of music you consider to be without melody?

Despite all of the above I do consider John Cage's "4:33" to be without melody.  If a melody is supposed to be perceived "as a single entity" certainly random and unintentional noise does not qualify.  When one writes melody - certainly one is entering into the realm of aesthetics and bringing beauty out of the everyday mundane noises of life (unless one uses some of those noises intentionally - there is such a thing as "ugly beauty").

43 minutes ago, PaperComposer said:

Despite all of the above I do consider John Cage's "4:33" to be without melody.

I had thought of this as a possible exception. If randomness were to be considered a melody, you couldn't really ask: "How does one write randomness?" If the composer exerts any kind of artistic control over the sound, it isn't truly random. 

One the other side of the coin, can random music even be seen as having been "composed"? Can John Cage really be said to have composed "4:33" if it is made up of sounds he didn't write? Or is it merely an artistic statement?

All good melodies have a strong rhythmic foundation which generally remains fairly consistent throughout the phrase. You can identify the tune of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The 5th Symphony, Super Mario Bros., Zelda, Smoke On The Water, Pirates of The Caribbean, Morrison's Jig, Highway To Hell, etc. just by tapping out the rhythm on your desk.

The next aspect is contour. Usually, the melody has only one highest and one lowest point which are not repeated in the phrase and if you drew a line through the notes, you will see that it forms a clear shape/path. In most tonal works, the melody usually clearly implies a harmonic progression because the melody will change modal frames at regular intervals.

Then there is structure. Pretty much every good melody fits within 8 or some multiple of 8 bars and often in a sentence/period structure or some variant of. 6 and 12 bar phrases also work. Usually, the final bar in the phrase comes back to the tonic, but also offers a pickup that would loop back to the start.

So the easiest way to learn how to write melodies is to start with the rhythm and work outwards from that until you can just do all the components at once without thinking about it.

32 minutes ago, gmm said:

One the other side of the coin, can random music even be seen as having been "composed"? Can John Cage really be said to have composed "4:33" if it is made up of sounds he didn't write? Or is it merely an artistic statement?

That's why I dislike this "thing that isn't a piece" so much.  To me it is just a contrarian anti-artistic anti-masterpiece that got people talking a bunch about what it is/isn't without any real content.

29 minutes ago, AngelCityOutlaw said:

So the easiest way to learn how to write melodies is to start with the rhythm and work outwards from that until you can just do all the components at once without thinking about it.

Along those lines I found a curious way of coming up with (mostly) melodic rhythms I've sometimes used in writing melodies when I'm no longer inspired:  Melody Mining

2 minutes ago, PaperComposer said:

That's why I dislike this "thing that isn't a piece" so much.  To me it is just a contrarian anti-artistic anti-masterpiece that got people talking a bunch about what it is/isn't without any real content.

I long for the days where composers focused not on making some kind of "statement" but rather on...well...composing music 😕

3 hours ago, gmm said:

Schoenberg has his famous book "Fundamentals of Music Composition" that covers everything from coming up with motives, developing motive forms, using motives to construct phrases, using phrases to build parts, and using parts to build an entire piece. I've always thought it's not the most well-written book, and a little disorganized, but it has a lot of great information if you're willing to dig through it.

Unfortunately my local library does not at the moment carry this book.  Maybe I'll buy a used copy off Amazon for about $10.  Thanks for the tip!

8 minutes ago, PaperComposer said:

Unfortunately my local library does not at the moment carry this book.  Maybe I'll buy a used copy off Amazon for about $10.  Thanks for the tip!

 

A book I recently picked up called "Musical Composition: Craft and Art" by Alan Belkin would also be a good choice. He covers alot of the same ground as Schoenberg, but he's a lot easier to understand. He also has a good YouTube channel with alot of free content.

1 minute ago, gmm said:

A book I recently picked up called "Musical Composition: Craft and Art" by Alan Belkin would also be a good choice. He covers alot of the same ground as Schoenberg, but he's a lot easier to understand. He also has a good YouTube channel with alot of free content.

Once upon a time I asked Alan Belkin for online composition lessons.  He emailed me a set of chorale exercises to do and when I did them and sent them back he just blew me off LoL...

2 minutes ago, PaperComposer said:

Once upon a time I asked Alan Belkin for online composition lessons.  He emailed me a set of chorale exercises to do and when I did them and sent them back he just blew me off LoL...

 

Wow he didn't even respond? That sours me on him quite a bit...

In that case I'd say go with the Schoenberg book lol!

2 minutes ago, gmm said:

Wow he didn't even respond? That sours me on him quite a bit...

LoL I don't remember if he said anything or not after that.  I am glad to hear that he finished a decent book on musical composition though.  I did see some of his Youtube content and he seems to use some examples from his own works and symphonies but I've never heard his music anywhere - have you?

5 minutes ago, gmm said:

In that case I'd say go with the Schoenberg book lol!

LoL 😂  Thanks for the tip nonetheless!

18 minutes ago, PaperComposer said:

LoL I don't remember if he said anything or not after that.  I am glad to hear that he finished a decent book on musical composition though.  I did see some of his Youtube content and he seems to use some examples from his own works and symphonies but I've never heard his music anywhere - have you?

Other than his YouTube channel no. What he has there is very modern if you're into that kind of stuff. I will say he does a really good job of using samples. I would be interested if he posted a video about how to make a good audio recording using samples.

Quote

Finally, will melody ever be exhausted?  Is it possible to use up all the permutations/combinations of tones and rhythms to the point that there would be nothing original left to write?

classic Vsauce video on the subject 😄 

Not coming from a musical perspective, but interesting elements of answer anyway

Hey, you're not thinking of contemporary music, there are many many works where melody has little relevance (or non).

I agree with Luis here. Even contemporary music intended for listening to and attempting some kind of communication doesn't need prolonged melody. It can run on motifs or just carefully organised wadges of sound as modern impressionists might write. Doesn't mean melody is redundant. Some composers are happy enough to use it.

It seems to be more essential to earlier established forms from renaissance polyphony through to the romantics. Schönberg seemed to feel its scope had been exhausted after Gurre Lieder and decided to give it a new definition. But then it continued in more popular styles

10 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

Hey, you're not thinking of contemporary music, there are many many works where melody has little relevance (or non).

In the case of the Ligeti there is still melody - although mostly Chord-textures which qualify as sort of chord melodies.  Other times even though Ligeti might not have written them out chromatic melodies do pop out.  Those Atmospheres are quite creepy btw.

9 hours ago, Quinn said:

It seems to be more essential to earlier established forms from renaissance polyphony through to the romantics. Schönberg seemed to feel its scope had been exhausted after Gurre Lieder and decided to give it a new definition. But then it continued in more popular styles

I know there are plenty of pop songs that sound the same but I also happen to hear some quite original melodies when I happen to hear them in public (on the radio or at the supermarket).  Unfortunately, as I don't follow pop artists as closely as I should I can't name the songs or artists that sound exceptionally original to me (maybe Camilla Cabello?)

16 hours ago, Quinn said:

I agree with Luis here. Even contemporary music intended for listening to and attempting some kind of communication doesn't need prolonged melody. It can run on motifs or just carefully organised wadges of sound as modern impressionists might write. Doesn't mean melody is redundant. Some composers are happy enough to use it.

It seems to be more essential to earlier established forms from renaissance polyphony through to the romantics. Schönberg seemed to feel its scope had been exhausted after Gurre Lieder and decided to give it a new definition. But then it continued in more popular styles

There's a lot in this post and, as is so common in these discussion, the word at which we start to hit the crux of the problem is "Schoenberg" 

Schoenberg, like most of his peers, was deliberately an architect of destruction of the centuries of tradition of composing melody with some BS that basically boiled down to "equality" for pitch. Which of course is antithetical to music itself, as beauty only exists within music (as within everything) if there is a hierarchy. Dissonance is only beautiful within a hierarchy of consonance, for example. Scales sound pleasing precisely because they exclude, they are not "inclusive" as Schoenberg sought to make them.

Today, what he has to show for his "revolutionary" thinking is a large body of work that is insufferable to almost everyone but unemployed university graduates fluent in subversive, anti-western artspeak.

 This brings me to the entire problem with Luis' observation and your elaboration upon it:

16 hours ago, Quinn said:

Even contemporary music intended for listening to and attempting some kind of communication doesn't need prolonged melody. It can run on motifs or just carefully organised wadges of sound as modern impressionists might write.

This makes the assumption that such music is on equal footing to music which does make great use of melody.

Centuries of human experience have shown that it is not. This doesn't mean that enjoyable ambient or mostly-chordal pieces can't or don't exist, but it doesn't take nearly the level of skill to compose such pieces, and is irrelevant to the OP's post anyway.

The question of "how do you write melodies" should not be answered with effectively "Have you considered just not writing melodies?" 

I don't mean for this post to come across as being all snobbish and such; it's just that I don't see this point as being at all helpful to the topic at hand.

6 hours ago, PaperComposer said:

In the case of the Ligeti there is still melody - although mostly Chord-textures which qualify as sort of chord melodies.

technically speaking, there is "melody" whenever there is a change in definite pitch. But what most people, even Mozart, mean when they say "melody" is a "tune".

and as Mozart said: "Melody is the essence of music" 

I hope this doesn't turn into one of those bitter arguments about tonality and atonality that I've had the *privilege* of reading in some of the old threads.  I think the two approaches are often quite useful in combination.  Sometimes the melody is more diffuse and sometimes it can be more dense and attention grabbing.  The effect of various different kinds of melodies on the spectrum from tonal to atonal can be useful in various different kinds of musical contexts and not all melodies have to be "tunes" even while still mostly keeping to the tonal side of the scale.

Examples:

War of the Worlds - Opening Scene

Pandora's Fanfare

6 hours ago, AngelCityOutlaw said:

Schoenberg, like most of his peers, was deliberately an architect of destruction of the centuries of tradition of composing melody with some BS that basically boiled down to "equality" for pitch. Which of course is antithetical to music itself, as beauty only exists within music (as within everything) if there is a hierarchy.

I disagree, a bit. In atonality there is harmonic hierarchy. Any music from any ages is based on tension and relief. Tonal music uses that with tonal functions. Schönberg does it in a different way, but it's the same principle. Debussy does the same, etc...

Whenever there is a contour, voice leading we can say there is a melody. But when this shape goes far away from the standards of classic tonal music, it doesn't sound as "melody" for many listeners.

1 hour ago, Luis Hernández said:

I disagree, a bit. In atonality there is harmonic hierarchy. Any music from any ages is based on tension and relief. Tonal music uses that with tonal functions. Schönberg does it in a different way, but it's the same principle. Debussy does the same, etc...

Bro, even the Wikipedia entry on Atonality begins with

"Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality, in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day, where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale function independently of one another (Kennedy 1994). More narrowly, the term atonality describes music that does not conform to the system of tonal hierarchies that characterized classical European music between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries"

@AngelCityOutlaw

But tonal centre is one thing and harmony is another one. Atonality provides harmony with tension and relief.

Im studying a book that discusses rules of melody writing in detail. It was written over a hundred years ago and is a classic on the subject. Its worth a look. 

https://archive.org/details/exercisesinmelo00goetgoog/mode/1up