what goes into a good melody?

[nasenmann]

hey, this spawned off some cool discussion.

my view on singability is that it does play into it on some basic level, but the crucial thing is, how singable is it in your head. and that comes down to pattern recognition, culture, folklore, as woggle pointed out.

catering to the human voice has a benefit in that it's more likely to touch upon similarities across culture, as that's the instrument we all use, and can easily hear in our head.
that said, huge cultural differences apply of course. good luck getting anything but a diatonic melody out of a random western whistler. except if it's really offkey

i got a lot of mileage out of trying to sing the stuff i sequenced when i started out. made me realise how hard it is to break some basic culture imposed patterns.
then again, some of it seems universal. like, a clean tritone being much harder to sing than a fifth. physics 'n shit?
but then you hear what great flavor it can bring to music, and it becomes part of your repertoire. it's very singable, of course. you just need to break that harmony safeguard.

you gotta distinguish between something that's theoretically singable, and something that's very unlikely to come out of a mouth, like a prog metal guitar solo.
imagine we'd all get a nanotech upgrade to our vocal chords at some point that makes singing yngwie malmsteen easy as pie. i'm quite sure it'd drastically change our melodic sensibilities over time. note i'm using the plural in a lowest common denominator kind of way.

[damoog]

imagine we'd all get a nanotech upgrade to our vocal chords at some point that makes singing yngwie malmsteen easy as pie

that would be totally awesome,not a fan to be honest but you have to admire malmsteens technical ability

[nasenmann]

haha i hate malmsteen. i just wanted to paint a clear picture

[Musicologo]

Jancivil, posted two NOT-human-singable melodies, however anyone noticed how all the melodies he posted were played by flutes or the likes?

My theory when I picked up the Theremin for the melody of one of my songs was that I loved the theremin because it was able to "sing" and even "scream" the melodies like a human voice. I believe the flute is out of the winds the one that also does that the best. But any wind instrument is capable of similar qualities, namely - the ability of changes of intensity, timbral variance according to intensity, slight detunings and quick ornamentations, in some cases even portamentos, vibratos...

All those qualities are qualities resembling a human voice.

Again, is the Varese piece really a non-singable melody? Does it sound good at all in a piano?... Does it sound good at all when played "flat"?...

So, what happens to a non-singable melody when it is actually sung by a melodic instrument?...

[jancivil]

wanted to say that copyright of melody alone is silly and all melodies should be treated as folklore, sort of like ragas.

I don't know why you would think that. It seems to underline your statements regarding melody belonging with harmony.

Per previous example, Somewhere Over the Rainbow has some pretty definite 'changes' and one who is accustomed to this kind of music recognizes the harmony in the melody. I don't know what you mean, why would copyright be necessarily protecting more than the melody in any case?
Bebop got going with taking the chord changes as a template and creating a new tune. What makes it a new tune? The melody.

A James Brown composition, let's take Say it Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud. It vamps on one chord. What determines it's that composition?

I don't really have what 'folklore' means in that sentence. A raga has to do a number of things to be that raga, technically. It's actually rather involved, generally. I never thought about copyright regarding a raga. I think one would protect a recording of the work and the composition itself is open. I think Debussy copyrighting the melody of Syrinx is not in any way silly, unless one thinks that composing music shouldn't even be a profession, that everything is up for grabs.

worthwhile example countering me, anyway. i think the difference is, when we're talking about melody, we're usually looking at it as this central building block of a couple bars. maybe a better word for that in western language is "theme".
point i was trying to make is that as such it's really only a potential.

i think that process of fleshing out, of development is what matters in music, no matter where you go from the starting point. in that sense i think that melody, as a starting point or building block, is overrated.

Interesting. Almost strange, really. I think of melody as a result. A raga isn't a melody, it is a structure made in order to facilitate a mood, a sound world, in which the singer or instrumentalist reveals in terms of melody. I'm not seeing the necessity to make like a dichotomy between process and result.

Such as Debussy Syrinx and Varese Density 21.5, the melody is *it*. What are the chord changes to Density 21.5 do you think? Where does this line between building block and result exist?


I do tend towards melody as like unto a vocal quality. But I would say that a favorite melody of mine is Frank Zappa's Black Page #2, which doesn't seem like a vocal melody. But, it only is hard to sing in the same way it's hard to play, there are some faster things and a lot of people don't understand the rhythm. That's the best case for that I have off the top of my head.


Let's lose this identing me as a he, though. Not every person that does what I do has to be of the male gender. a bit

[Bobbotov]

Such as Debussy Syrinx and Varese Density 21.5, the melody is *it*. What are the chord changes to Density 21.5 do you think? Where does this line between building block and result exist?

Completely agree with those examples. The melodies are so strong on their own they require no embellishment. It would destroy the incredible lyrical strength they embody.

On the other hand, take something like Eubie Blake's where the chord structure is an integral part of the melody.


He does it such that it is hard to imagine the melody without it or it would be so thin.

Having said that, it would be a trip to see what Evans could have done with Density 21.5

[jancivil]

Oh yes, the art of much of jazz is taking a middling if not paltry tune and finding the light in that stone making it seem a gem.

There is a tradition in western art or 'concert' music where the 'development' is perhaps the greater part of it.

[nasenmann]

well, i guess my definition is kind of centered on 'pop music'. music that's played by combos/ensembles and that often looks at melody in a theme-like way.

classic example, most simple one you could find in terms of melody:

(of course, you could argue if the harmonica is even the main melody here. it's certainly the iconic one, and the other melodies seem to develop from it. not strictly composition wise, but in an inspirational sense, if that makes any sense.)

but yeah, it's a beautiful thing that music is so hard to generalize.

[arkmabat]

Happy Hardcore melodies aren't exactly singable. Err without rhythmic gating I guess they could be.

[Katelyn]

Something that keeps coming up in my head when writing melodies is that you can kind of break down most melodies into 4 basic patterns in regards to pitch/tone.

The most basic would be the same tone/pitch repeating at various durations and timing. Even if I like how something like this sounds I still consider it a "non-melodic melody" even if technically it is a melody.

Then there is where the notes tend to rise, say ABC BCD CEF, something like that.

The third would be the same as rising but reversed, so going down. Both this and rises are pretty simple and I usually see this mentally as being in these two categories whenever two notes or more in a row go up or down in pitch.

The fourth is kind of like a curves in a sense, going down and up and is somewhat harder to make sound nice but can be really good when done right. It's actually more of a 'free form' but my mind sees it as a series of 'waves'. Like waves it has a rhythm and timing ect

Those are the basic ones, it can get more complex because while you can take an indivual series of notes and it be any of those, the over-all melody can be something else. Say you have the 4th, wavey kind as half a measure but if you take the entire melody which goes over 2 measures it slowly rises. In this sense the entire melody is going to be a rise, but a rise based on slight tonal variations of a wavey-type pattern that slowly rises in pitch (the tonal variations wouldn't be the same as the slight rise, but rather notes that are slightly different to stop the melody from sounding too repetitive).

You could really do a whole lot more with a combination of those things when you take into account variations in note length and timing, but since I mostly work on trance more of the psychedelic variety I tend to use shorter notes and timing that isn't too different from note to note except where I need emphasis or to stop it sounding too repetitive, least it loose the characteristics of the genre.

I don't really know how useful this view/perception is on melody, but it's the one I've learned that I subconsciously work on and that I keep seeing. When I look at sheet music or a piano roll I can't help but see lines or curves follow the notes in these patterns.

Ideally I'd want to learn how to do something of the 'complex' variety beyond say this:

<pic removed>

C5 is middle C on this piano roll, just a bunch of 16th notes nothing special (135 bpm btw). But like in my mind, I see this as a 'wave' pattern consisting of smaller 'waves' that have a predictable up-up down-down with an ocassional up-down. Then sometimes I look at it and see that in every measure one note is hit 4 times and so then in my mind it's the first, 'simple' pattern with 4 other notes added either above or below.

It feels kind of weird to see sound put onto 2 dimensional space... maybe I should just give a sound bite of the melody. The first time it plays is with some delay (I suppose that the delay adds another element of complexity to it) and the second time is without delay and so would be the same exact as my picture above:

https://soundcloud.com/katelyn-rajas/me ... ay/s-ekDxq

TL;DR

In reference to my OP post, how can I make a better melody than the one that the picture and soundbite above represent (keeping in mind that I'm doing something kind of like psytrance)? And when looking at sheet music and seeing the notes as consisting of combinations of flatline, rises, falls, and wavey patterns useful or potentially limiting?

[Nystul]

From what I've heard of psytrance, it seems a trippy and almost ambient genre. It's hard to pin down any sort of rules for such a thing. Analyzing strong singable melodies probably won't help much if it doesn't fit the style of music you are trying to make.

In a riff like the thing you just posted, the notes that are the top of the waves so to speak are going to stand out to the listener more than the rest. Jumping up and back down like that is one way to create a natural accent. There are other types of natural accents, like for example long notes vs. short notes. The timing of the notes which stand out as accents will create a sort of groove which will typically be in contrast to the super steady bass pulse in a lot of dance music. In your example there is kind of a steady accent on the second eighth note out of every group of four, so it becomes a question of whether this is the desired effect for that particular piece of music. You should experiment with cases where the accents occur at different places within the pattern of eight beats or so.

There is also a question of harmony. When you have a line that jumps around like this, a lot of times those notes are chord notes in the overall harmony. If certain notes sound "strange" or "out of tune" it can be a case of going against some expected harmony or clashing with other lines like the bass. So that is something to consider. It doesn't mean every note has to fit a chord, but if something sounds off there is probably a reason.

[Katelyn]

Good point, psytrance typically isn't melodic. I think on another topic though I posted a couple of songs that were exceptions (though one was technically Goa Trance).

I have considered how singable melodies won't help me directly, but understanding other styles and genres will help me as a musician. I may not use a singable melody but if I have a generalized knowledge I think that would help me in the long run. Likewise I want to understand it.

Also I figure I could learn some stuff about melody to make my leads a bit' more melodic, as that is a bit of the spin I'm going with. I think my example was on an automatic chord if I recall correctly, you can make out lower notes with the higher ones.

Someone else commented on the relationship of harmony and melody, and something I've been wondering. About doing stuff like mixing say major chords with minor scales ect, is there any 'rule' or I suppose more of a generalness for how those will sound? Like in the way that scales kind of do? I've noticed that with some things I have made that say mixing a chord set on minor notes but set to a major scale sets this mood that I really find appealing.

[jancivil]

The way you're wanting to construct that, you could indeed have, or perhaps more precisely imply, a 'singing' if not soaring melody through treating the highest notes as its own line. At this stage that may be a mite ambitious, however.
I can't know what you're after with it, but in terms of an average sort of expectation, the contour appears rough/jagged through certain odd note choices. As per Nystul and 'harmony/wrong notes'. I don't think using odd notes in itself is the problem, I would find it more interesting, vs the most predictable things, but the line feels interrupted by it and a failing equilibrium.

[Harry_HH]

In Italy we use to say the "SENTIMENTO"..!

Sentimiento, por favor!*

* sorry, that's the Spanish version...

Well, in portuguese, we marry the two: "Sentimento, por favor" (well, not really. That is portuguese, but we would rather say: "deixa o coração falar" (let your heart speak).

I don´t think you can get much closer to the "truth" than the above, when trying to give a short answer to the header question.
An interesting addition to this emotional approach is the fact that many great composer have underlined just the grief (or sorrow, sadness, bittersweet experience) vs. the happiness as a fruitful seedbed for creating a masterpiece. Of course there are good "happy songs" but "the song is made of sadness". Two great examples: Chopin
etude 3 op. 10, (listen especially the theme 1.40-2.00...)

Sibelius Valse Triste


Also, earlier was mentioned Somewhere over the rainbow, 15 years back this ukulele medley-version was much played respecting IZ funeral ceremony - bitter sweet sentiment, too.

[RunBeerRun]

I like a good vegetable medly, peas, carrots, and squash circles.