Sequencing & Understanding Melody

Chords, scales, harmony, melody, etc.
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Sequencing and understanding how to build a great melody is something I'm always working on. Not having musicians around me, or other producers to help me wrap my head around it I've found I hit a small wall when it comes to this topic. I've read a lot of theory books and I play several instruments but when it comes to sequencing inside my DAW I am often stuck.

I've been listening to a wide variety of tracks, and I've found a couple similarities between them.

*The melody is often dueling... in 2 or 4 bar patterns... the first 2 bars do something... and the latter 2 bars respond...

*The movement is often up or down over those 4 bars... repeating every 4 bars...

Can anyone shed some light into the mentality behind these songs? For example:

Crookers - Knobbers
Download .mp3 http://www.mediafire.com/?djznkzximwp
On YouTube

What key is it written in? Intervals used to create the movement etc.

Different genres use different methods but I am looking for a way to practice writing and sequencing. Just seeing a sequence might help...

thanks KVR peeps.

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What you are talking about is called musical form and the frequently occuring call-and-response thing is a sentence that consists of an antecedent and a consequent phrases.

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mauricio andrades wrote:I've been listening to a wide variety of tracks, and I've found a couple similarities between them.

*The melody is often dueling... in 2 or 4 bar patterns... the first 2 bars do something... and the latter 2 bars respond...

*The movement is often up or down over those 4 bars... repeating every 4 bars...
Also known as tension-and-release. That happens on lots of levels. For instance C-G chords build tension, G-C resolves it.

Here's a pretty good discussion of such extremely general principles: http://www.musique.umontreal.ca/personnel/belkin/bk/

Victor.

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That's a very good link, Victor! Alan Belkin is great.

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Ah yes thanks a lot for that link. I knew it had to have some term I could study. Diving in... NOW

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