I've realized lately that my melodies have usually boring rhythms. Does anyone have any tips for getting better at there? This seems to be even problem with arpeggiators. Sometimes I get them right - but very, very rare occasion.

This also doesn't seem to be a problem with drums. Would it be helpful if I just create a drum loop that I like and try out to make a melody with rhythm that compliments the drums?

Any other way around? I've been really tired of doing trial & error with usually no results

Swing, dotted notes, syncopation, repetition.... lots of discrete ideas, but not exhaustive. Don't think of melody writing as "trial and error" but "practice and exploration". Drums might help or might not, it's really up to you and why you think your melodies are boring.

You should post a melody that you've written and get some feedback on it. Learning the craft is hard and there's no reason to go it alone. I would do the same thing if I weren't a wimp

good idea, I say. but drums do have a pretty different role typically than carry the satisfying melody. But I used to write drum parts as though they were to be melodies, before I got proficient at anything else... I think you could maybe find out some things with such an exercise.

also notice how the rhythm of words affects how a tune works...

I'll say it yet again: the people that gain facility with these things have played music by people that mastered the art of writing music for a while before they decided to write music. just as a writer of prose studied composition, understands syntax and grammar to the necessary extent, and has clearly read some things...

If you try to map drum rhythms to melodic rhythms your melody will get un singable very very quickly. As melodies need to breathe just like humans do.

A melody is something that has both repetition and variation. If you are trying to spice up your melodic playing try playing it to speach patterns. Sing what you play. Even better still sing lyric to your melodic line. And if you want the whole enchilada play a melodic line to a lyric while you have a harmony in the background.

Ya know those singer songerwriter types with guitar in tow who strum rhythms while singing a song as a method of writing....That's what they are doing. Same with singer pianiat types.

Covers never killed anyone. They help you to develop your own style while strengthening your skills. If you cant go that route at least try working out lyrical structures against harmonic/rhythmic backgrounds.

Thanks for all the replies, let me make a quick summary. First of all - It's sort of a principle for me to just try to avoid as much as possible using anything that is created by someone else - apart from software & hardware. But everything else that I can actually affect.

But yes, I've started lately to practice some piano melodies that are relatively simple but very, very effective. Coldplay - Clocks, as a good example. Very easy to play and I think it's very clever, gave me a whole new aspect.



And about melody according to singing, brilliant idea. It just happens to be so, that I'd love to have lyrics in my songs and probably the first composer ideas I've ever had was lyrics themselves. If I ever were to produce professionally, lyrics would probably be where I certainly shine. Especially given my gross vocabulary of English that extends further than the space ever will!


Yeah, I'll try out these tips Thanks and happy practicing/composing!


Oh and by the way, I do have them public for my facebook friends for them to hear out, but they never actually criticize them

I guess they just don't understand that it would be a great thing if they did so!

And another friend of mine will review them honestly (yeah, he usually says that they suck and if they don't, he will use them himself! But I don't find a problem with that), but he's rarely available

well, that's a bit daft isn't it. Are you about to reinvent the wheel as though in a vaccuum?

well, you know if you're gearing a melody for a singer, one should heed that singability quotient no doubt. Depending.

however: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eADuDAIVfA&feature=related
So, was Mozart a bad melodist owing to the difficulties of execution of this? I would say it's pretty thrilling, even though I don't care for this style, owing to the virtuosity of the women than can do this, and its melodicism. whether or not one digs this scene particularly I think arguing it isn't melodic will be a tough road to hoe.

as per your disagreement with my point, <putting pitches to 'drum rhythms' might be a good exercise...> look, you have stated an overarching truth, or so one would think reading that, but it smells just like a personal opinion to me.

which I will counter thusly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS4Jt9LV5Rc&feature=related

became this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFygTTtA63Q

(via this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDwRJK8bpb4)

IMO this is great melody. I have, and other people have, interests which may exceed yours in this regard.
Last edited by jancivil on Wed Mar 21, 2012 12:25 pm; edited 1 time in total

I have to say, I agree with the previous statement that a melody can be great, even if not singable.

The Knife - Silent Shout
( http://vimeo.com/29093748 )

Not sure if this can be exactly applied here, but I think it's brilliant and beautiful, and no doubt to it, it doesn't breathe. I think it's more like a fist that beats you down until you're on your knees and know that there's nothing else to accept than what they just gave you. And no other way of accepting it than thinking "This blew my mind".

Okay, maybe went too far there, but that arpeggiator can be considered as a quick melody, right?

(But either way, it has nothing to do with drums, on the other hand)

Oh and by the way, I'm not reinventing anything! I just like to DIY, it's sort of a my thing. I'm not saying nobody should use samples, hell no, I think if people find them useful, it doesn't matter, hell, they can spice them up themselves if they wish to do so!


What I am saying is, I'm just a person who likes to do things myself. If I make a generic pluck in sylenth1 that fits to dance music, I don't think that's really unique. Even if I add FX to it, it's gonna sound probably similar to something else that already exists.

And if it does, then so be it. It won't make me say "No, this I can't use, feels too familiar...", that logic would make any instrument useless except for FM synths, because else the sound might be like something in the past.


I did like a week ago something similar that sounds to the pads used in Marble House by The Knife (accidentally) and instead of thinking "oh damn", I loved it and made up a quick demo for friends to hear it out! And I loved the progression I put to there, but it's just a progression for pads

I am actually glad someone decided to ask this because I have been struggling with my writing lately too.
Hopefully good answers are given that help with my problem so I don't have to start the same topic but about MY lack of writing ability.

Per the actual topic; I can understand the DIY attitude about things - i hate using any samples other than drums. I refuse to take a loop or something created by someone else and use it in a piece I call my own.
But, that's not to be resistant from covering music. I have only done a few covers/remixes of songs, but when I did them it gave me some insight and fresh ideas.
I remixed the Russian folk song Korobeiniki (made famous by Tetris), covered a song by my favorite artist, The Gathering (And they said they loved my cover, one of the best days in my life ), and about a year and a half ago I remixed "I gotta Feelin'" by the black eyed peas.
One thing that always helped me was hearing a song's melody out of context with the rest of the music. Finding some remix stems on songs you are familiar with might help. You can hear exactly how the band played the melody without being distracted from the rest of the instruments.

I can never do that. As soon as the first note is played I've got key and chord in tow. My mins is always thinking harmony. Though I do vary rhythm for the melody as well as the supporting features.

One thing I've been doing recently is to read poetry/lyrics where there is no reference to a song. I'll build my melodic rhythmic structures to how the words flow and while exploring motives.

In regards to singable melodies they don't need to contain words they do need to contain enough repitiion and variation along with rests so you can sing/hum them. Jan is prolly stewing right now. but the acid test of melody is that you could sing/hum it while driving in your car. Or that someone else actually would. That for me is the definition of good melodic writing as opposed to simply soloing over something no one hums eruption by EVH although people do hum quite a bit of classical, jazz and other instrumentals where the melody is memorable and easy enough to follow.

listen to classical music.

if most of the music you have been exposed to is rock/folk/pop then you will have fairly simple ostinato-esque melodic (and harmonic) ideas. what you write is influenced by what you have experienced, simple as that. that's true in any creative endeavor- if you want more interesting output, go out into the world, have more experiences and grow.

and when using the umbrella term classical, I mean all:
(g.chant)-baroque-classical-romantic-modern-jazz

there's orders of magnitude more melodies, countermelodies, textures, there than in what's being put out these days.

AND get this: composers quoted each other ALL THE TIME and stole melodies before the advent of trademark and copyright law... So guess, what? you can steal from the geniuses, cause, hell, that's what they did too!

you don't have to lovvve it (around your friends), just cop a Brahms melody, take one from Mahler down a couple octaves for a bassline... add a beat... and no one will ever know, it'll be our little secret

as a little analogy: melody mining is kinda like going on a forum, and finding people who have thoughts I want... then i steal them.

Listen to stuff you like. Hendrix didn't study Holst, The Beatles didn't study Brahms. Zimmer did study Wagner.

Isn't it better to study the music you like then to study the music you don't like?

You're SO right:
We should all just eat candy and chocolate all the time!
And read playboy, screw philosophy and the classics!
And kids should never go to school, play play play, only what I like!

sorry, that was a little much. but the point is that in learning and growing sometimes you gotta have a little discipline and do something you might not like- because the payoff in the long-run is worth it.

Everything you write is influenced by what you've heard, those ideas remix and recrystallize in your own writing. so if you only listen to music from the past 30 years, you will only have those ideas in your memory to work with. want more interesting output, study what's out there, what the masters have already done. If you listen exclusively to gaga and bieber your music will be simple and one-dimensional. listen exclusively to classical, you'll be restricted in different ways, what if you study EVERYTHING, and not just what you find appealing? that's called learning and that will make you a much more powerful musician.

What would happen if scientists didn't read the established literature and everyone just ran experiments on what they liked... we'd have a helluva lot of psychedelic researchers- and a scientific community that gets progressively stupider.

I've made my point.
Last edited by shankfiddle on Fri Mar 23, 2012 8:00 am; edited 1 time in total