KVR :: Music Theory » Frustration during melody building/creating [View Original Topic]
There are 23 posts in this topic.
MichaelBecerril - Sun Apr 15, 2012 1:50 pm
Hi, I've been producing EDM for 10 months by now. I'm taking piano lessons
at the moment to learn and practice music theory, scales, chords and all of that.
One of my many problems while trying to make a track is building a catchy or good melody.
I often just build up a melody over a synth or an acoustic piano and then add a 4/4 house beat, and then I kind of get
annoyed, because I later decide that the track sucks.
I'd like some advise, I've been having this frustration recently.
Thanks in advance.
Burillo - Sun Apr 15, 2012 2:02 pm
Maybe try different style? You never know where you find your inspiration...
MichaelBecerril - Sun Apr 15, 2012 2:06 pm
Burillo wrote:
Maybe try different style? You never know where you find your inspiration...
Yeah, I forgot to mention. I also produce hip hop beats, and they seem a lot easier for me to produce, since that's what I listened to ever since I was a kid, but I like producing both.
phazedown - Sun Apr 15, 2012 2:24 pm
The first years are very, very annoying concerning this.
Especially when your idea starts to bore you once it takes too long to finish it. But at some point you will get a much better workflow.
If you want to have a 4/4 beat anyway just try to set the kick first.
And if you get unwanted noises while doing this apply a sidechain compressor on the synth with the kick as sound source.
Everything else is just trying. Like using glide, overlapping notes, setting a 1/8 dotted LFO or whatever.
Also try to let some space (let's say within a 2 bar/4bar) so it doesn't sound like a closed sequence. This is what I just learned.
It's all about trial and error, if one method doesn't seem to work try another.
Soon you have a taste of how you can get things done faster.
jopy - Mon Apr 16, 2012 9:15 am
when i get stuck, i've found it helpful to to pick out some melodies or other parts of tracks i like by ear. i've gone so far as trying to completely recreate a track from ear and then rearrange elements from my approximation to sound completely different from the original. this could help you both understand what other people are doing that you find compelling and also break down the barrier between what you imagine as music and what you can execute on an instrument.
MichaelBecerril - Mon Apr 16, 2012 9:19 am
phazedown wrote:
The first years are very, very annoying concerning this.
Especially when your idea starts to bore you once it takes too long to finish it. But at some point you will get a much better workflow.
If you want to have a 4/4 beat anyway just try to set the kick first.
And if you get unwanted noises while doing this apply a sidechain compressor on the synth with the kick as sound source.
Everything else is just trying. Like using glide, overlapping notes, setting a 1/8 dotted LFO or whatever.
Also try to let some space (let's say within a 2 bar/4bar) so it doesn't sound like a closed sequence. This is what I just learned.
It's all about trial and error, if one method doesn't seem to work try another.
Soon you have a taste of how you can get things done faster.
Especially when your idea starts to bore you once it takes too long to finish it. But at some point you will get a much better workflow.
If you want to have a 4/4 beat anyway just try to set the kick first.
And if you get unwanted noises while doing this apply a sidechain compressor on the synth with the kick as sound source.
Everything else is just trying. Like using glide, overlapping notes, setting a 1/8 dotted LFO or whatever.
Also try to let some space (let's say within a 2 bar/4bar) so it doesn't sound like a closed sequence. This is what I just learned.
It's all about trial and error, if one method doesn't seem to work try another.
Soon you have a taste of how you can get things done faster.
jopy wrote:
when i get stuck, i've found it helpful to to pick out some melodies or other parts of tracks i like by ear. i've gone so far as trying to completely recreate a track from ear and then rearrange elements from my approximation to sound completely different from the original. this could help you both understand what other people are doing that you find compelling and also break down the barrier between what you imagine as music and what you can execute on an instrument.
Thank you all for your quick replies
Storms - Thu Apr 19, 2012 2:25 pm
Good EDM should have a motif in the song. The motif is the catchy melody that usually repeats on a 2 bar or 4 bar phrase. It might help to think of the motif as a point/counterpoint or question/answer. Usually the question comes in the first bar, as a rising melody, and the answer comes in the second, as a falling melody. Try experimenting and noodling around on your synth until you come up with a catchy rising melody, then try to create an answer melody that answers the question of the first part of the motif.
It's really just a matter of doing this until you get something that sounds good.
I was listening to a lot of David Guetta recently and I noticed that on his tracks he heavily borrows motifs from classical music. You might try something like this, just to get you started. A lot of classical music is repetitive in the same way that EDM is.
jopy - Thu Apr 19, 2012 4:10 pm
Storms wrote:
A lot of classical music is repetitive in the same way that EDM is.
A lot of silly stuff gets posted in KVR's music theory forum, and this is one of the silliest things I've yet read. I've listened to a fair amount of EDM and a lot of classical, and the structural methods used in the two are nothing alike. You can use classical motifs in EDM, but try writing an actual sonata form piece in EDM and see how well that goes over...
Storms - Thu Apr 19, 2012 6:28 pm
jopy wrote:
Storms wrote:
A lot of classical music is repetitive in the same way that EDM is.
A lot of silly stuff gets posted in KVR's music theory forum, and this is one of the silliest things I've yet read. I've listened to a fair amount of EDM and a lot of classical, and the structural methods used in the two are nothing alike. You can use classical motifs in EDM, but try writing an actual sonata form piece in EDM and see how well that goes over...
Whether you agree or not, check this song out and tell me it doesn't have a ton of classical influences: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzE8d5AXImo In fact, if you simply changed the midi mapping from synth to violin it would probably sound almost identical to a classical piece. Is it as complex as "real" classical music? Hell no, but my point is that you could borrow a motif from a classical piece and try to use it in your EDM, if you can't think of any other ideas.
tapper mike - Thu Apr 19, 2012 6:40 pm
Slim to none. And no it wouldn't. Simply repeating a motif does not make it a classical composition.
pyairmusic - Thu Apr 19, 2012 6:58 pm
try learning the melodies of songs you like and look at how they're constructed
dalor - Thu Apr 19, 2012 7:04 pm
jopy wrote:
Storms wrote:
A lot of classical music is repetitive in the same way that EDM is.
A lot of silly stuff gets posted in KVR's music theory forum, and this is one of the silliest things I've yet read. I've listened to a fair amount of EDM and a lot of classical, and the structural methods used in the two are nothing alike. You can use classical motifs in EDM, but try writing an actual sonata form piece in EDM and see how well that goes over...
jopy - Fri Apr 20, 2012 4:34 am
that guetta track has just the one g minor riff; there is no melodic development or key change at all. he does modulate the timbre of the riff, but that's not the sort of development that one would hear in a classical piece. if we're talking baroque, classical, or romantic era music, that motif would be developed across multiple parts of the scale and through different keys or through some sort of inversion or transformation of the melodic idea.
i'll certainly grant that a person could take a riff from a classical piece and use it in a repetitive way to make an EDM track (actually sort of an interesting idea because a lot of classical motifs are taken from european folk music and then developed), but it wouldn't be the same sort of repetition one might hear in a true classical piece.
coquillo - Fri Apr 20, 2012 5:08 am
Storms wrote:
A lot of classical music is repetitive in the same way that EDM is.
Agreed they both use repetition, but EDM rarely has any harmonic variation or development and often has no timbral or rhythmic changes either.
coquillo - Fri Apr 20, 2012 5:16 am
jopy wrote:
i'll certainly grant that a person could take a riff from a classical piece and use it in a repetitive way to make an EDM track (actually sort of an interesting idea because a lot of classical motifs are taken from european folk music and then developed), but it wouldn't be the same sort of repetition one might hear in a true classical piece.
Let's hope not. You'd be writing for a totally different orchestra. Food for thought though.
Storms - Fri Apr 20, 2012 12:48 pm
I am probably overstating the similarities, and I certainly didn't mean to offend any classical music lovers. Obviously classical music is much more complex than EDM.
I do believe, however, that if Bach and Mozart were alive today, they would be composing music electronically, if for no other reason than the tools are there to hear an entire composition without having to hire any musicians.
The suggestion for ripping a motif from classical music still stands, however. I've also heard a lot of pop or rock music that ripped chord progressions from songs such as Pachelbel's Canon.
Jbravo - Fri Apr 20, 2012 12:56 pm
I would just say this, writing music is an art not a science. It's not something that you can create from formulas or rulesbooks or theory. Theory is just there to describe the conventions of the past, not lay down a set of rules which music must conform to.
JoeCat - Fri Apr 20, 2012 1:17 pm
MHO:
Structurally, classical music is certainly infinitely less repetitive than EDM. However, the use of repetitive motifs in classical music is something that I think can be applied to EDM (and all music) - especially the use of applying the same rhythm to different sounds and melodies.
One of the most famous examples is Beethoven's 5th - almost the entirety of the opening theme is the same four note rhythm repeated.
Another trick is to quicken the occurrence of related chordal structure (or melody) to build tension - in other words, if something occurs every two bars, you change it up to every bar before approaching a climax/change. Again, Beethoven's 5th is a great example - it's 4 measures (of 2/4 time) in C-minor, then 4 in G. Then it switches to one measure each - a simple, repetitive chord structure made exiting because of it's headlong rush (he did as much in his first sonata, which brilliantly doubles the speed of essentially the same progression, twice).
(That said, I can never apply these ideas to my productions - I almost always start out with something I like, then grow bored and toss it without knowing how to take it a step further. I'm much better at critiquing other peoples work than applying the same lessons to my own
)
Good luck!
coquillo - Fri Apr 20, 2012 1:39 pm
JoeCat wrote:
I'm much better at critiquing other peoples work than applying the same lessons to my own )
)
Aren't we all?
jancivil - Tue Apr 24, 2012 6:06 pm
JoeCat wrote:
the use of repetitive motifs in classical music is something that I think can be applied to EDM (and all music) - especially the use of applying the same rhythm to different sounds and melodies.
One of the most famous examples is Beethoven's 5th - almost the entirety of the opening theme is the same four note rhythm repeated.
what this assertion leaves out is that you're talking about serious and elaborate development of a motif, as if to make a comparison with music that just isn't doing that, and reducing that treatment of the motif to 'repetition'.
One of the most famous examples is Beethoven's 5th - almost the entirety of the opening theme is the same four note rhythm repeated.
ie., the word to use is 'reiteration' in the first place. It isn't literal repetition, it gets sped up, it gets to scan differently, etc.
JoeCat - Tue Apr 24, 2012 7:15 pm
jancivil wrote:
JoeCat wrote:
the use of repetitive motifs in classical music is something that I think can be applied to EDM (and all music) - especially the use of applying the same rhythm to different sounds and melodies.
One of the most famous examples is Beethoven's 5th - almost the entirety of the opening theme is the same four note rhythm repeated.
what this assertion leaves out is that you're talking about serious and elaborate development of a motif, as if to make a comparison with music that just isn't doing that, and reducing that treatment of the motif to 'repetition'.
One of the most famous examples is Beethoven's 5th - almost the entirety of the opening theme is the same four note rhythm repeated.
ie., the word to use is 'reiteration' in the first place. It isn't literal repetition, it gets sped up, it gets to scan differently, etc.
My greater error was using the redundant term "repetitive motif".
I understand "reiteration" to be the same as "repetition", but now I'm just splitting syntactical hairs...I'd argue that reiteration of an element, elaborated upon, is the definition of a motif in musical form.
I'd agree the development of any idea in classical music is typically more elaborate (and serious?) than in pop, EDM, etc., IMHO the same principles apply - periodic structures in music, elaborated upon, provide a hook while maintaining interest. And some of the best EDM producers often utilize subtle and similar tactics, even if they are not as consciously aware as a more serious composer would need be to produce a symphonic work, etc.
BTW @jancivil - I'm a great admirer of your work. Zappa would have been a fan. You don't play by these rules at all.
jancivil - Wed Apr 25, 2012 12:38 pm
thx
in the concrete, the motif in Beethoven's fifth, the first iteration, the establishment of it, the motif begins on the downbeat. soon enough the last note of the motif is on the downbeat, and it's now four times faster. So, as a motif, which is rhythmic, it's a reiteration rather than a repetition.
Monib - Thu Apr 26, 2012 8:24 pm
Try using step sequencing in your DAW.
Play out a quick melody you think sounds good on your keyboard (don't record this, just play a riff)... Listen to is carefully, and then step sequence it in. That's what I've been doing lately, and it seems get closer to what I hear in my head.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejWN3M1RIw4
Monib
There are 23 posts in this topic.