Not really. At least not me. I'm in the area of 'more people like it = more people like it'.
There is nothing wrong with gourmet music. I love bop. But I do beleive there is nothing wrong with addressing "outsiders" as well as musicians and "educated listeners", and time to time one should definitely do it.

As for the melody vs. progression debate, a progression in key, with proper voice leading usually provides three lines of perfectly viable melody.
Of course there is no rhythm there yet, but when, say, you sing and play the guitar at the same time, you do time the progression with the lyrics, and there you have the rhythm.
From what I take you are extremely experienced, so I'm sure you know what you are saying, it's just that so far I haven't seen a tremendous (any) difference in listening quality between the melodies I made as melodies, and those I derived from progressions.
Some of the catchiest melodies I made were just the chords of the progression arpeggiated with a "human speech" rhythm added.

my point is not that deciphering a melody out of 'chords' is a bad idea per se, or inferior methodology per se. if you're writing parts you want to know what you're writing parts 'with'.

what I mean is, that taking the melody as primary can give you a freedom that adhering to a harmony might have obviated. describing melodic moves as per the harmony in the terminology of part-writing class gives you words: 'echappe' (escape tones), 'appoggiatura', 'passing tones' and principles in the abstract that you'd have to apply to your score analysis to get anything from, if then. everyone's an individual, but that didn't do a whole lot for me, and if you aren't versed in reading scores it might be mostly jargon.

it's going to be a limiting factor, for most of us, to decide from a harmony the melody. depending on how skilled/experienced we are it can produce blandness... boring, not-happening tunes. (if you're going for 'safe', it's a way to ensure you don't have 'bad notes', clashes and what-not.)

but melody can soar. if what you're doing melody with is harmonic changes, 'progressions', clearly enough you want a grounding, but once you have the understanding - and taking melody strictly out of some harmony is certainly useful, even de rigeur particularly as exercises - singing melody, making decisions with your ear, your musical (more subtle) mind, can be more fun, more lively than an intellectual process of sorting.

The Beatles didn't know harmonic theory. McCartney tells the tale, he got out of bed singing 'scrambled eggs. do do do do do do scrambled eggs' for Yesterday. the tune is primary. I doubt he woke up compelled by a chord progression in his head; OTOH, I bet he had no real struggle to know what the right chords were. He got that gift by osmosis, experience/music in the house constantly, and perhaps inheritance. But, you don't go around humming the chord progression... now, that one is really inextricable from its harmony, you really don't want to ruin the changes if you arrange it.

it's a subtle point that I guess one needs a certain experience to get.

a lead player, the person called on to provide a melody for a break or what-not, is going to tend to be able to part-write more interestingly from the get-go than someone that only ever played rhythm guitar I believe. (Unless they're the singer obviously.)

Well, if you got to where you could come up with melody on the spot/as an improviser, you got a melodic facility out of some experience, that would change.

I have no idea what to tell anyone about how to 'create' a melody' but sorting it from a fabric of harmony might not be 'creating' a melody but something else. One *hears* melody. It might be for some that the light comes on in part-writing class. everyone's an individual, I was making up melodies on the spot for a couple years before I had harmony class. I was exposed to a lot of music as a child, horn players and chick singers...

"more recognizable choruses and less bop solos will probably have more mass appeal regardless of the chords. Which is also a matter of keeping it simple and real." You didn't have "mass appeal" the preferable goal there?

Thanks for the insight. I guess I'll see for myself when I get there. I do practice creating melody for itself, it is especially fun using pentatonic scales...

As for the quote about mass appeal, that one wasn't from me. But I do think that aiming for mass appeal should not be viewed as an inferior goal in music. After all, music is there to be heard, no?

At any given time you always have 12 tones to operate with. Some tones are connosant meaning sounds good with the chord. Some sounds are dissonant meaning doesn't sound good with the chord. Think of them as a range of smooth to harsh.

If you are playing over a C chord. C E and G notes will be the most connosant. They fit the chord because they are the chord. Well you have 9 other notes to deal with and they are varying degress of slight harshness compared to the chord.

If you play a simple primary C chord and then play the notes C# F G# over that C chord they will sound very harsh. The F natural not so much but definatley the C# and the G#

In a melody you want to start somewhere and go to somewhere. So you can start somewhere smooth and go to somewhere that is smooth but you don't need all the notes to be all smooth or all harsh. Some notes may have almost no harshness to them such as A natural when playing over the C major chord.

As you extend the chord some previous harsh notes don't sound as harsh while others can sound very harsh. Such as if you play a C7 chord spelled C D E G Bb
And then try to play a B natural in there.

Now you have all the 12 tones to work with not just the three chord tones. You can smooth out and extend your melodic palette by several methods. If you want to add one tone to the arp the logical thing would be a 6th or a dominant 7th. This evens out the amount of notes over the scale/chord. Jazz and pop music use this quite a bit. Metal players hate 7th or 6th arps They much prefer "9th" Arppeggios for working out melodic lines. A 9th is also treated as a 2nd to them So your C E G melodic line would now work off CDEG

For something with a little more yet not quite diatonic there are four pentatonic scales to choose from. Major, Minor, Dominant7 and Minor 6

So we've gone from a three note basis to a four not basis to a 5 note basis.
Some folks don't like pentatonics, They think that the form is too simple or they are afraid it's too blusey. The truth of the matter is it isn't what others have done in the past it is more about what you are doing with it now. People have a tendency to shy away when they haven't aquainted themselves with the notes fully. The performance isn't flawed by the notes just the execution of the notes. It's something new and sometimes takes a little while to work out your chops is all.

The minor pentatonic is often referred to as the blues scale which it isn't and the major pentatonic is referred to as the country blues scale. While both share a history with the blues they also share history with country, bluegrass, jazz, rock, r&b, reggae, gospel and even some electronica.
In most forms there is a certain minor/major 3rd embelishment. As an example you'll often hear "licks" where the player will play both the minor and major third of a chord even when the chord is decidedly major. I could prolly post thousands of songs that have done this time and time again. But It's not how or what others have done it's about what you do with what you have.
Another very popular tool is the b5 as a passing note. This is especially popular with the minor pentatonic. So much so that when one adds the b5 to the minor pentatonic scale it becomes......The Blues Scale. Again millions of videos of songs on the internet in all forms showing off the blues scale used in a wide variety of styles not just the blues or rock.

The other two pentatonic scales the minor 6th and the dominant 7th don't see that much action. Though I'll often hear cat's like Pat Martino super impose these types of scales over some pretty headdy stuff. It's there I've experimented with it but I really didn't "catch" it like many have.


Next your diatonic framework. Unlike classical modality pop modality states anywhere it can work it will because you are playing the scale tones for the chord not the other way round. Which means if you are playing a C major chord you can play any Scale mode with a C Major in it.
So you can play,,,, Your C major arp. or a C6 arp. or a C9 arp or a C major pentatonic, or a C dominant pentatonic or a C major (ionian) C lydian or a C mixolydian. Now there are some guidelines. Such as if you are playing over a CMaj7 Chord you shouldn't play a C mixolydian scale.

However there are many many ways to extend and texture your chords. When you do reach for those textures you need to compensate your melodic structure to match.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlmXCubqheM

Old Joe isn't just explaining chord progressions he's also talking about melodic structures. The better sense of harmony and rhythm the better your melodies will become because you'll be developing "Chord Conciousness" When you do have chord conciousness you are working out where you are going to. When you don't have chord conciousness your always stuck with where you are.

Now sometimes when you are working around a vamp (the chord doesn't change or takes a very long time like several measures) Then you can explore more of where you are as opposed to where you are going. However if you don't know where the harmony is going and don't care you are likely to run into the ....go back to the top for this one....harshness. You find yourself playing something that doesn't align with your harmony.

A little disonnance isn't a bad thing. You've got 12 tones to work with and sometimes you don't want it to be happy sappy paint by numbers. A little harshness never hurt anyone. It actually shows more character to paint outside the lines. As you now have 'dissonance' you have been given the opporitunity to create connosance sort of like tension and release. Release isn't as satisfying without tension. And while I'm not a big proponent of shock the monkey lets make everything dissonant. Starting with a little dissonnace and moving to connosance. Or starting with connosance and dropping some dissonance rather then trying to resolve to the tonic are completely valid.






Popular music (all forms) while having originated from various sources do not share all things with classical music. There are also idosyncrancies between them including rhythm and progressions which are not shared (though some are)
Last edited by tapper mike on Wed Apr 04, 2012 5:55 pm; edited 1 time in total

Wow thanks, awesome lecture.

I'm often not competent enough to enter into these discussions about harmony, so I'll just link to something I liked that Keith Jarrett and Ethan Iverson were discussing regarding the use of harmony as "chords" vs. harmony as "voice leading. The "left hand" here is going to be the set of harmonic structures you use to accompany your melodic structures, whether it's actually played by your left hand or your right:



The whole interview:
http://dothemath.typepad.com/dtm/interview-with-keith-jarret t.html

The only problem with using block chords written from the melody up as opposed to the harmony down is when They come in contact with external chords. Situations where the ensemble consists of more then a bassist a keybord player and a drummer. If a keyboard player is doing that sort of thing with a guitarist swinging a rythm pattern even if he's just comping that guitar is going to have to sit way way back in the mix.


In regards to the activites of the left hand one also needs to make considerations for the bassist in the room. Back during the ragtime and stride era a lot was happening on the low end of the keyboard and when there was a bassist present he was mimicking none of what the keyboard player was working with on the left. The only good part of that was you couldn't hear the upright bassist for sh!te.

When you are a soloist or performing a solo and the rest of the band fades away you can take certain liberties that can't be done in an ensemble (band/ muliti instrument) situation.

When you work with a band or multiple instruments you have to be concious of what the other parts are playing. No one likes being stepped on. And if everyone is playing the same thing at the same time all the time it becomes very tiring.

I love bill Evans. Bill Evans did most of his work as a soloist or with a very small ensemble (bass and drums) In the ensemble everyone had to groove to BE's time or it would fall apart. Because of his unique sense of meter, inner harmonies and subsitutions. Even then guys like Eddie Gomez had to go outside the range of perfuntory bassist in order to play with Evans anywhere close to where they were going. You don't hear EG playing standard walking basslines behind BE because they would be roughed both in time and in harmonic relationship. Which is why EG riffs the pockets BE opens for him.

Had Eddie Gomez played the same way with McPartland as he did with Evans it would have fallen apart rather quickly as McPartland had quite a different take on harmonization and melody. Perfuntory bass works well when the stage is set for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx0avLnj4Os

Notice how the bass is simple and direct yet still walks and MM doesn't clutter up the low end in the above example

Evans and McParland discuss what separates Evan from his contemporaries and Eddie Gomez a bassist that they both worked with on separate occasions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIfHtPwF8wY

Gomez knew the differences between the two and played in a manner supporting McParland when he was working with her and played in a different manner when he played with Evans. And that is the nature of being a good accompanist. You play to support the structure not to take away from it. Not all musicians have this type of flexibility.

But none of all that stuff is relavant to dance/electronic music for several reasons.
I've stated this at the end of my previous post.


All the above stuff about Evans and whatnot is Mouse Music
It's fine in the context of ambient chill when you have plenty of room to ramble and dabble with excentricites of time and harmony. It doesn't work in dance, high energy situations.

In a Dance situation much is about don't bore us take us to the chorus. You want to say what you mean and mean what you say in a very concise manner.
The riff is short and sweet, you know it repeat.
Give IT to Me
Give IT to Me
Gimmie That Stuff
That sweet that hot that funky Stuff
Give IT to Me
Give IT to Me
Gimme That Stuff


To make the riff work you don't want it to be all legato, notes shouldn't fall on each other. Just like when your shouting you cut each word off a little to make them stand out and separate more from one another. Sure some of the notes can be rolled into the next one but it's that sharpness of staccato. You can create a great deal of variation within repetition by altering the accents, meter and varying which parts are legato or staccato.

About metre. There is a push /pull effect in timing. If you play the note or even chord slightly ahead of the beat thats push. It's also called anticipation. It can give a little more energy to your phrasing. If you play slightly behind the beat that's pull. It gives your sound a little swagger.
If you push to far and too hard it'll sound like your a scared little bunny. If you pull to hard it'll sound like your drunk. If you try to combine push pull it'll sound like you have zero sense of timing. Keith Richards is the king of swagger. He pulls so far behind the first beat it's almost on top of the next one. The trick with push or pull is to keep it consistant.
So if you want to push on "The One" (meaning the first note of the measure) then consistently push the one. You can play the rest straight or pushed to the same degree as the one. The same rule applies to pull.