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Conclusion

To sum up...

1. Choose a scale

2. Work out which notes correspond with 1, 4 and 5.

3. Create chords from the notes 1, 4 and 5.

4. Design a progression using those chords.

5. Follow the progression using the notes from the chords to create a melodic phrase.

6. Add more interest and fine-tune the melodic phrase.

Finally

Go and learn as much about music theory as you can. Learn about the other relationships between notes, not just 1, 4 and 5. Practice your chords and scales. Practice playing from sheet music and try to apply what you have learned here to what you learn elsewhere.

There are many free websites covering music theory to an advanced degree, I urge you to study other writing techniques as much as possible and generally broaden your musical awareness.

Until next time...Happy song writing and good luck! RT

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Making Things More Interesting

These melodies are a little boring, but there are many ways of making a basic melody much more interesting.

Stacking Boring Melodies to Get Better Melodies

Layer some of the things you have programmed already.  This is a quick way to come up with more interesting results. Go back to the original C Major scale for this example.

Say you take this 1,4,5 progression...

...this melody...

...and this melody...

...and how about throwing in the two bar C Major scale just for the heck of it...

...all pretty dour on their own, but stack them all in the sequencer like this...

...and you get something that when sent through a quality synth, a couple of delays and a reverb could sound pretty good. You see, the chord sequence automatically keeps everything together. Remember, this is the result of me following a basic progression and playing any old melody with zero emphasis on rhythm. Imagine the results you could get if you started taking time over the positioning of the notes, their velocities and length.

Adding Other Notes

Use the other notes around the notes of the chords to create ‘tension links’ between them and make things sound more interesting. At this point, things become more difficult and explaining this properly would mean going too deep into music theory for this short tutorial (I might write a more advanced composition tutorial for this site if I can find the time). Nevertheless, just to show you what I mean and point you in the right direction...

From the C Major 1, 4, 5 progression...

...you could write a melody like this...

 ...and add tension, yet still keep the relationships working.

Try playing the example...

Can you hear how the main notes (in red) ‘drive’ the melody while the lesser notes (in purple) act as linking notes? The linking notes make things sound fancier, but it is the notes of the chords that hold the melody together.

Note Length and Position

For these examples, I have used uniform note lengths and positioning so you may concentrate on note pitch. However, when writing your own melodies you must pay attention to the lengths of your notes and their position in the bar to make things more interesting. These two factors create style and contribute to rhythm. Obviously, you want to write your melodies in a rhythm that works well for your own style of music. This is where playing along or ‘jamming’ with your tracks really helps.

Velocity

The velocity of your notes can have a great deal of an effect on the character of a melody. Make sure to fine-tune the velocity to your taste.

Using Octaves

You can add interest to a melody by simply transposing parts of it to higher or lower octaves. Try it out.

Page 4

Changing Progression

Just to prove the point that the chords are ‘creating’ the melodies, you can try the same melodies, with a different chord progression and they will work, albeit in a different turn of phrase.

For simplicity, try a 1, 5, 4 progression. In the C Major scale that’s C (1), G (5) and F (4).

This chord progression would look like...

...from which you may come up with this melody...

...or this melody...

Practice the 1, 5, 4 chord progression and these melodic examples.

Can you hear that the relationship still works but in a slightly different way?

Changing Scale

What if you don’t want to use C Major?

Let’s transpose this technique onto another scale. For simplicity, we choose the scale of A minor. The scale of A minor consists of the notes ABCDEFG (yes the same as C Major, no sharps or flats but beginning on A and not C).

This is the A minor scale...

The numerical order of the notes in the A minor scale is A=1st B=2nd C=3rd D=4th E=5th F=6th G=7th.

The 1st, 4th and 5th notes still have a special relationship, even though they are now A, D and E.

So using the 1,4,5 system and doing the same as you did with the C Major scale, you could come up with this 4 bar chord progression...

...which could lead to this melody...

...or this melody.

Page 3

Progression

Now you have three chords that work well together, C Major, F Major and G Major. You need to arrange these chords somehow so they last the duration of your melody.

In this example, we will take a hypothetical length of four bars. Three chords into four bars? Hmmm...Which chord should last more than one bar? The answer to that question is C, because C is the 1st or most important note and the melody will ‘run on’ C. Therefore, C will last two bars. The remaining two bars will be taken up a bar each by F and G. 

Arrange the chords in order 1(C), 4(F), 5(G) and you have created a 1,4,5 chord progression.

The 4 bar chord progression looks like this...

Which in the Cubase sequencer would look like...

Practice playing this 1, 4, 5 chord progression over and over in a loop. Notice how G Major returns your ear nicely to C Major as the progression begins again. This is the special relationship, which is known as cadence.

Melody

So how can I build a melody from these chords?

Simply follow your chord progression using the notes from the chords, but instead of playing the notes as a chord progression, play them as a melody. Yes, it is that straightforward. Let me show you what I mean by example...

Here is the 1, 4, 5 chord progression...

Melodies you could build from this progression might be this...

Or this...

Practice playing these simple melodic variations, and then come up with one of your own.

Can you see that the notes in the melody follow the path of the chord progression? Do you hear that the bars of the melodies have the same relationship as the bars of the chord progression?

Yes...? Good (an added bonus to this is that you already have the perfect harmony to compliment your melody, the chords you made the melody from in the first place!).

In real ‘music speak’ these are actually arpeggios rather than true melodies, but arpeggiation alongside the ‘unpacking’ of chords is the basis of great melody and from a beginners perspective this is the best way to learn.

Page 2

Chords

Ok, now you have had a little play around with the notes C F and G you will see they are not quite enough to write a decent melody. You need to expand the palette of notes that work well together.

What you need to do to ‘get more notes which have a relationship’ is build triads from the notes C F and G and then use the notes from those triads to write a melody. This method is based on the classic ‘three chord trick’ song writing device and although it sounds complex, it is actually quite simple. Let’s look at this a little closer now...

A chord is a combination of two or more notes played together and a triad is a chord consisting of three notes played together.

Because the notes C F and G work well together, we know that triads built from these notes will also work well together. However, not just any triads, the triads you build should consist of notes within the scale.

I do not want to go too much into detail about building chords here, as that would get too far away from melody writing. Suffice to say, the triads that correspond to the 1st, 4th and 5th notes in the C major scale (C F and G) are C major, F major and G major.

The C Major triad corresponds with the 1st note in the C Major scale. It is built from the notes C, E, and G.

Below is the C Major Triad…

The F Major triad corresponds with the 4th note in the C Major scale. It is built from the notes F, A and C.

Below is the F Major triad…

The G Major triad corresponds with the 5th note in the C Major scale. It is built from the notes G, B, and D.

Below is the G Major triad…

Notice the chords stray into the next octave up, which is fine.

Practice playing different progressions of the triads C Major, F Major and G Major.

Listen and understand that these chords have a similar relationship as the 1st, 4th and 5th notes, i.e. they work well together.

Page 1

So, you want to start writing great melodies, but every time you try to come up with one, its sounds like complete crap. You start well, but end up hitting more wrong notes than Trinny and Suzanna pick wrong clothes.

Perhaps you’re thinking your musical heroes come up with all their great melodies off the top of their heads, with some kind of divine inspiration, as if like both Mozart and Britney Spears, they ‘got it from God’. Maybe you think that if you bang around blindly on your keyboard long enough you are eventually going to come up with something masterful. Well I can tell you right now if that is what you are thinking, you will spend a long time making that album. You could even be one of the wise ones, deep down your thinking there is some secret method to this melody writing stuff that you don’t understand, well your right, there is. The secret melody writing method is 100 percent fail safe, tried and tested for over 500 years and! It isn’t even an eBook! It’s called...

Learn Music Theory

Yep, the truth is that the majority of great artists don’t come up with their melodies by chance; they come up with them by design, that’s what makes them great artists. Of course, the occasional great melody does come out by chance. However, most consistent artists will have at least some knowledge of music theory and what binds a melody together. 

Music theory is a very complex topic though; sometimes it can be difficult to figure out which part of it you are supposed to learn for melody writing. Well, if you want your melodies to be truly great, the answer would be all of it. However, I know you want to start writing melodies right now! Today! So I’ll cut to the chase a bit here, I am going to do this by bypassing a lot of background music theory and get straight down to ‘how to write melodies quickly and effectively’.

The Scale

First let‘s look at the scale. A scale is a collection of notes that fit together. Different scales consist of different combinations of notes.

When you are writing melodies, you must choose a scale to use. All the notes in your melody will lie within the boundaries of this scale. If you use notes outside the scale, they will not work and the melody will go wrong. You don’t need to know why or how for the moment, just accept this as fact.

Shown below is the C Major scale. The C Major scale consists of the notes CDEFGAB. When you reach the next C, you are entering a new octave where the scale begins again. You do not need to know why for now; all you need to know is that these notes CDEFGAB make up the C Major scale.

You must also understand the notes in a scale have an ascending numerical order.

The numerical order of the notes in the C Major scale is C=1, D=2, E=3, F=4, G=5, A=6, B=7. However, we do not refer to the notes as just 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7; we refer to them as 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. Like this C=1st, D=2nd, E=3rd, F=4th, G=5th, A=6th, B=7th.

Using any combination of notes within the scale to write a melody will keep everything sounding correct, but it will not make everything sound good. In order to make things sound good you need to understand the relationships between certain notes in the scale. These relationships between notes are numerous. Some notes will ‘call to’ other notes; some notes will ‘answer’ those notes. It is as if some notes ‘like’ some notes better than others.

You will learn which notes ‘get along’ as you practice playing but for now you need to know that the 1st, 4th and 5th notes in a scale like each other very much. Just like George, Tony, and Cherie, they have a ‘special relationship’. You will exploit this ‘special relationship’ in order to write effective melodies.

So, let’s look at the relationship a little more closely...

In the C major scale, C is 1st. He is like the ace in the deck, the main man. Because C is the most important note, he will usually drive the melody. All the other notes will revolve around C and when the melody comes to rest, it will rest upon C.

F and G have a special relationship with C. For example, if you play C and then play F, your brain will automatically expect to hear C again. If you play C then G, your brain will also automatically expect to hear C again. Both F and G return the melody to its resting point C. However, F and G also have a special relationship with each other. You can bounce the melody between F and G before playing the C and allowing it to rest. This is difficult to put into words but trust me, once you start playing and writing more music you will understand.

Try playing around with the notes C F and G on your keyboard and see if you can hear how they fit together.

Please note, the notes C F and G only have this relationship when you are using the C Major scale because they are the 1st, 4th and 5th note in the scale. Once you switch scales this relationship is between whichever notes are the 1st, 4th, and 5th, of the new scale.