Cheesy melodies

[bluelife]

It is the way it is presented, no doubt.
Lots of artist can take a simple, otherwise cheesy melody and make it sound interesting.

I just put up a new song which has a very simple melody, but it's not cheasy, and it's only a 3 chord song too:)

www.bluelife.de/music.php

Song is Daddy Don't You Worry.

blue

Beautiful song blue!!!

Brilliant way to prove your point there. It's simple, yes, but the whole mood and your vocals (which kinda proves my point above too) make the melody sound great and not at all cheesy. This would also be an example of the kind of melody Gargoyle was talking about. It's sort of an obvious melody, which only makes it even better.

Thanks for listening and commenting. It's a C F G7 song, a lot of my other songs are a lot more complicated using more extended blues/jazz progressions, but as I said, IMO it's all in the arrangement and delivery.
My main rule is, surprise people, try to do things in the arrangement that keep people listening and things they won't expect, even if they are kust simple things.

cheers

blue

[rounser]

It's heavily dependent on timbre and modulation, too. I had this four chord progression which was just one block chord after another....cheeserama in it's original form.

Add a cutoff LFO synced to 16ths on the chords and layer the timbre until it was a wall of sound, and the cheese went away. I think the layering and the LFO made it interesting to listen to rather than cliche, so the cheesiness vanished the moment the presentation became slightly less trite.

[pekadan]

Thanks for listening and commenting. It's a C F G7 song, a lot of my other songs are a lot more complicated using more extended blues/jazz progressions, but as I said, IMO it's all in the arrangement and delivery.
My main rule is, surprise people, try to do things in the arrangement that keep people listening and things they won't expect, even if they are kust simple things.

cheers

blue

I'll be listening to those other songs of yours too, for sure!

More specifically, what things would you do to an arrangement to make even simple melodies come across as interesting rather than corny or so?

[bluelife]

Thanks for listening and commenting. It's a C F G7 song, a lot of my other songs are a lot more complicated using more extended blues/jazz progressions, but as I said, IMO it's all in the arrangement and delivery.
My main rule is, surprise people, try to do things in the arrangement that keep people listening and things they won't expect, even if they are kust simple things.

cheers

blue

I'll be listening to those other songs of yours too, for sure!

More specifically, what things would you do to an arrangement to make even simple melodies come across as interesting rather than corny or so?

Un-cheesing a melody, IMO, starts during the song writing process, whereby I just critically listen to the melody and if it kind of sounding cheesy I try to move it away by various methods:
Intonation
Substitute chords: then take a different passing note into the melody
Sincerity of the delivery
Timing (that's an important one, you can un-cheese by delaying a line too)
And most important in the arrangement: how long you repeat a part or melody, before a change comes, that has ro be just right.
And the arrangement itself:

Start by playing in the chords on piano or guitar (piano is better because you can easily re-arrange and experiment with the MIDI parts9.
Then add loads of stuff:)
And the crucial step: take it ALL away again and just add very little, step wise if required.

=IMO: un-cheesed.

cheers

blue

[pekadan]

It's heavily dependent on timbre and modulation, too. I had this four chord progression which was just one block chord after another....cheeserama in it's original form.

Add a cutoff LFO synced to 16ths on the chords and layer the timbre until it was a wall of sound, and the cheese went away. I think the layering and the LFO made it interesting to listen to rather than cliche, so the cheesiness vanished the moment the presentation became slightly less trite.

Cool observation!

Generally, I think it's very interesting to see that pretty much everybody so far has said it's the things "around" the melody (context, arrangement, sounds, etc), rather than the melody itself, that make the difference.

[pekadan]

Un-cheesing a melody, IMO, starts during the song writing process, whereby I just critically listen to the melody and if it kind of sounding cheesy I try to move it away by various methods:
Intonation
Substitute chords: then take a different passing note into the melody
Sincerity of the delivery
Timing (that's an important one, you can un-cheese by delaying a line too)
And most important in the arrangement: how long you repeat a part or melody, before a change comes, that has ro be just right.
And the arrangement itself:

Start by playing in the chords on piano or guitar (piano is better because you can easily re-arrange and experiment with the MIDI parts9.
Then add loads of stuff:)
And the crucial step: take it ALL away again and just add very little, step wise if required.

=IMO: un-cheesed.

cheers

blue

[leahzero]

Using clichéd melodies, chord progressions and sometimes sounds and rhythms sound cheesy to me ... I suppose it depends on the context as well as to whether it comes across as cheesy, but there you go.

It's all subjective.

You can quantify musical clichés/"cheese" in music you're very familiar with, and one's culture/geographic region tends to play a large part in that.

If I'm some Western person who is exposed to American mainstream hip-hop on a daily basis, I can easily identify American mainstream hip-hop clichés. But I might then turn around and listen to, say, traditional Indian folk music and be amazed at how "exotic" it sounds...while some guy in India listens to the same thing and rolls his eyes, thinking, "Not this cheese again. I want to hear some hip-hop from U.S. radio, that stuff is raw!"

And so on.

What bluelife said basically boils down to, break from the traditions and predictability of the genre/style/whatever you're writing in.

[bluelife]

Using clichéd melodies, chord progressions and sometimes sounds and rhythms sound cheesy to me ... I suppose it depends on the context as well as to whether it comes across as cheesy, but there you go.

It's all subjective.

You can quantify musical clichés/"cheese" in music you're very familiar with, and one's culture/geographic region tends to play a large part in that.

If I'm some Western person who is exposed to American mainstream hip-hop on a daily basis, I can easily identify American mainstream hip-hop clichés. But I might then turn around and listen to, say, traditional Indian folk music and be amazed at how "exotic" it sounds...while some guy in India listens to the same thing and rolls his eyes, thinking, "Not this cheese again. I want to hear some hip-hop from U.S. radio, that stuff is raw!"

And so on.

What bluelife said basically boils down to, break from the traditions and predictability of the genre/style/whatever you're writing in.

Last line: that is just a part of it, maybe 10-20%

cheers

blue

[visa tapani]

It's in the arrangement & presentation. The main theme for Lord of the Rings sounds mighty, epic, and timeless... in the original score. Many people would agree. Now look at "They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard!" on YouTube. Same melody... now cheesy!

Well yeah, but that's a bit of a cheap example and doesn't prove your point that it's all in the arrangement & presentation. I mean, it should be obvious enough that cheese can be in many different areas of a song - playing a song with a cheesy arrangement cannot be used to conclude that it can't be in other areas as well.

I mean, generally speaking I would agree that arrangement, context etc dictate the impression of cheesiness to a large extent, but I also think that a melody itself can be plain cheesy. Which brings me to...

Come to think of it, it would be cool do a little test. To come up with a corny melody and try different arrangements to see how much it's possible to change the feeling of it. Maybe even the cheesiest of melodies can actually sound great in a song?

A while ago I heard this maddeningly cheesy melody, and I seriously think it's pretty hopeless. It was beautifully arranged for an orchestra, but no can do, its rotten core was shining through. So yeah, this is something I think can't be made to sound un-cheesy:http://www.elisanet.fi/visa.tapani/cheese.mp3

Just played the melody line back from memory approximately how I remember it, no chords or anything.


Also, kitch, camp, simple etc should be separated from what we are now talking about here. Those things can be good, but if cheesy is defined as "Simple sounding, uninteresting, maybe somewhat pathetic (think bad schlager...)" I can't see it ever being desirable...

[zircon]

visa; well, it depends on how much liberty one is allowed to take. If I can change around rhythm and do basic variations, I could make that into an "epic" film score style track. Or, alternatively, a soft piano ballad. I do think it's all in presentation.

[Chuck E. Jesus]

what's wrong with cheesy?

[the_nihilist]

...while some guy in India listens to the same thing and rolls his eyes, thinking, "Not this cheese again."

[pekadan]

...while some guy in India listens to the same thing and rolls his eyes, thinking, "Not this cheese again."

If it wasn't for the subtitles I wouldn't have understood a thing.

[pekadan]

...
A while ago I heard this maddeningly cheesy melody, and I seriously think it's pretty hopeless. It was beautifully arranged for an orchestra, but no can do, its rotten core was shining through. So yeah, this is something I think can't be made to sound un-cheesy:http://www.elisanet.fi/visa.tapani/cheese.mp3

Just played the melody line back from memory approximately how I remember it, no chords or anything.
...

Come on, that doesn't sound too cheesy, does it? At least not the way you play it solo on piano. But anyway I get your point.

Actually, I heard a song on the radio this morning which made me want to agree with you. It was a rock song. Don't know the band. It was pretty heavy, good vocals, well produced and everything. But the song itself was the most unimaginative thing I've heard in ages. The melody of the chorus must've been used in billions of mainstream rock songs already. No matter the effort and feeling the band put into it, to me it still sounded like just another copy of a weared out melody.

On the other hand, I guess it could've been the very fact that the band tried so hard and ambitiously to make something good out of a totally boring and predictable melody which made the whole thing sound cheesy. Maybe not the melody itself...

[visa tapani]

visa; well, it depends on how much liberty one is allowed to take. If I can change around rhythm and do basic variations, I could make that into an "epic" film score style track. Or, alternatively, a soft piano ballad. I do think it's all in presentation.

Yes, it can be made into a cheesy film score piece or a ballad - no matter how it's presented the suckiness of the melody will surely remain. FYI it was originally an epic film score track, with a real orchestra playing it and all but there's no hiding the melody.

It might have not been the best example though, and as someone said, the cheese is in the eye of the beholder. I don't think it's the worst melody ever - I guess I throwed it out there mainly because I think it's a difficult melody to "hide". Of course it can be presented with varying degrees of success, but unless it's varied enormously, I think it's going to sound like a bad melody.

I think there's a million things that can sound kinda "wrong" (or cheesy) in a piece of music. Too long or short repetition of a passage, blocky structure, instrumentation & sounds, poor playing, other arrangemental issues, a bad melody etc...