How to compose not starting at root note of a scale ?

[Nystul]

The lady on the video is only using diatonic harmonies with major or minor chords, giving her 6 total chords to work with. From there, she is mostly just following the circle of fourths (the up by 4 or down by 5 rule). These can make nice safe, pleasant sounding chord progressions. It's just a tool, not a rule. If you are on iii, you could go to vi and possibly continue on through ii-V7-I. But you could do a lot of other things instead!

[beboop]

Here's the effect she has on people who know what they're talking about...

something I deleted

aaaaah, yeah well... I deleted that, didn't I? As you know. Not something I'm proud of, not something I'm pleased to see posted again.

yes jancivil can be exasperating, and yes he's targeted you far more than he's targeted me. If you're fed up, ok, that's not hard to understand. I'd appreciate it though if you wouldn't dredge up crap I've deleted to make your point.

(and here I delete some oblique reminiscence that I must've thought made sense when I typed it. On second thought, it didn't.)

enh that's enough. for the record, I haven't stopped posting here because I fear banishment, or because jancivil has run me off. I just don't post much.

[nuffink]

Done.

[MaxSynths]

Whichever chord you're at you can jump to the chord which begins one white note to the right or three white notes the right. Or you can jump to the chord which begins two white notes to the left or four white notes to the left.

[Meffy]

What can I say? I'm rather simple-minded, easily amused, and still think Rocky Horror was a hoot. Won't argue with those who say it's lame though, their opinion's probably more valid than mine.

[tapper mike]

I'd like a stab at getting back to the original post idea of intro.

Intro or lead in?

An intro
An intro is generally or more bars and is often written after the rest of the song is. Popular methods are....
Borrowing from the melody line of the chorusUsually this is a variation not a verbatim(popular with Mowtown)
A variation of the final cadence.
A vamp
Intro's can be but don't have to be melodic the goal is to peak curiousity not give them everything.

A lead in
A lead in starts somewhere before the 1st beat but after the 3rd beat of the previous measure. This can also be thought of a rollover
example "Johnny B Goode" intro
&4&1&2&3&4&etc

Getting back to an intro and borrowing from the already written body of work

While there is no hard fast rule that a melody has to start on the first, fifth or whatever there is also no hard fast rule that a melody/motif has to start on beat one of bar 1 or can not be tied between bars. If beat one is your jump point do you simply jump on one or do you get a running start. What makes a song memorable is phrasing. Whether you approach by modality, tonal center or harmonic justification is less relavent then the metre of your motif. Considering that you would already have the body form done (verse chorus bridge) Try to embelish the motif using variations of time. Same notes, same order. different feel