KVR Audio

Daniel V · Post by **Daniel V** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 11:49 am

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone could help me with this problem.

Anytime I start creating a new project I somehow get stuck when it comes to creating a melody. I have it in my mind, but I can't seem to play in with midi / draw it in a piano roll. Any advice on how to improve in this?

Thanks

Dunbar · Post by **Dunbar** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 11:55 am

You could always get a cheap microphone and sing, or hum, the melodies and record the output to hard disk. You could run the recorded melody through an audio to midi converter app, this would save you from trying to figure out the keying on a keyboard.

shankfiddle · Post by **shankfiddle** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 12:42 pm

there's a thread a couple rows down on the same topic.

D.Josef · Post by **D.Josef** » Tue Mar 27, 2012 12:59 pm

Danny V wrote:Anytime I start creating a new project I somehow get stuck when it comes to creating a melody. I have it in my mind, but I can't seem to play in with midi / draw it in a piano roll. Any advice on how to improve in this?

Practicing and making myself at home in scales has helped me an awful lot in this.

In my experience, ANY melody you imagine up or just instinctively hum to yourself is in key. Mostly in major.

pyairmusic · Post by **pyairmusic** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 1:18 pm

When I make melodies I just loop the section and start playing scales over the chords....then start taking some notes out, adding rhythms a and jumps till it sounds cool......the worst is when you have a really good melody one day, and can't remember it at all the next.....

Jake Andrews · Post by **Jake Andrews** » Wed Apr 04, 2012 10:44 am

Ear training would help you out a lot with taking any music in your head and putting it down on piano roll.

I could give you some ideas for some exercises to start with. Do you have any actual physical instruments that you're somewhat familiar with or no?

Syncretia · Post by **Syncretia** » Tue Apr 10, 2012 11:11 am

You need to do aural interval training. This was the first site that came up for me on google:
http://www.good-ear.com/servlet/EarTrainer

The bashed us over the head with this in high school. The basic idea is to be able to distinguish the difference between two notes played in succession.

Daniel V · Post by **Daniel V** » Sun Jul 01, 2012 9:56 pm

Jake Andrews wrote:Ear training would help you out a lot with taking any music in your head and putting it down on piano roll.

I could give you some ideas for some exercises to start with. Do you have any actual physical instruments that you're somewhat familiar with or no?

I have a MIDI keyboard and I guess that it would be possible to practice on it?

Tricky-Loops · Post by **Tricky-Loops** » Sun Jul 01, 2012 10:06 pm

Danny V wrote:
Jake Andrews wrote:Ear training would help you out a lot with taking any music in your head and putting it down on piano roll.

I could give you some ideas for some exercises to start with. Do you have any actual physical instruments that you're somewhat familiar with or no?
I have a MIDI keyboard and I guess that it would be possible to practice on it?

Playing around with the (MIDI) keyboard is a very good way - not only for training, but actually for finding new melodies...

Daniel V · Post by **Daniel V** » Mon Jul 02, 2012 12:44 am

Ok, I'll give it a shot!

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Mon Jul 02, 2012 2:52 am

sing; you have a built-in instrument for melody, resonating in your body. it's a direct way to know from intervals.

learn songs by 'do re mi', solfege; the syllable in your mind as point of reference to the 'scale', the other notes. this also gets the concern of key out of the way so you can focus on the [interval] relationships.

once you have some songs you know this way, you can zoom in on intervals in them; you can pass a test of interval recognition by recalling that bit in a song. rather than being abstract, you can apply the concepts directly to music.

of course you'll need some instrument to compare with.

Loki Fuego · Post by **Loki Fuego** » Mon Jul 02, 2012 8:37 am

jancivil wrote:sing; you have a built-in instrument for melody, resonating in your body. it's a direct way to know from intervals.

learn songs by 'do re mi', solfege; the syllable in your mind as point of reference to the 'scale', the other notes. this also gets the concern of key out of the way so you can focus on the [interval] relationships.

This is a good advice. Learn by "do re mi", so that you could distinguish intervals in the melody in your head. Basically, if you study solfeggio you will be able to translate the melodies in your head into specific notes.

trewq · Post by **trewq** » Mon Jul 02, 2012 5:49 pm

Try restricting melody notes to chord tones of the progression - at whatever the chord of the moment happens to be. 5 tone chords seem to work best for this - just to help compose, not that it has to sound like a chord progression in the end.

I just saw the OP - seems like you could just click the melody on a keys or frets graphic, and it will auto-place or record it to the piano roll for you. Its very easy to code this, so there should be some popular program that has it.

jancivil · Post by **jancivil** » Mon Jul 02, 2012 8:31 pm

trewq wrote:Try restricting melody notes to chord tones of the progression - at whatever the chord of the moment happens to be. 5 tone chords seem to work best for this - just to help compose, not that it has to sound like a chord progression in the end.

that amounts to: here is a way to do as little thought as you can. thereby learning as little as possible about creating melody.

how does 'chord tones only' not result in 'doesn't sound like a chord progression in the end'?

5 note chords at every opportunity, to have more *safe* notes for 'melody'?

Why are you giving advice on composing?

trewq · Post by **trewq** » Mon Jul 02, 2012 8:37 pm

jancivil wrote:
trewq wrote:Try restricting melody notes to chord tones of the progression - at whatever the chord of the moment happens to be. 5 tone chords seem to work best for this - just to help compose, not that it has to sound like a chord progression in the end.
that amounts to: here is a way to do as little thought as you can. thereby learning as little as possible about creating melody.

how does 'chord tones only' not result in 'doesn't sound like a chord progression in the end'?

5 note chords at every opportunity, to have more *safe* notes for 'melody'?

Why are you giving advice on composing?

Because it has worked for me.

Problem with creating melody