Seven Steps To Writing Memorable Melodies – Part 1
Tutorial Details
- Difficulty: Beginner/Intermediate
- Time: 30-60 minutes
- Requirements: None
- Seven Steps To Writing Memorable Melodies – Part 1
- Seven Steps To Writing Memorable Melodies – Part 2
- Seven Steps To Writing Memorable Melodies – Part 3
One of the most common questions I get asked by my students is ‘How do I come up with a really good melody?’ The answer, as with all million-dollar questions, can’t be given as a simple “You do it like this…” However, over the years, I’ve developed a series of techniques and tips which can be used to help beginner song writers and composers come up with stronger melody lines.
I’ve listened to a lot of songs in my time, many of which have been composed by amateur performers and music enthusiasts. I’m sorry to say that the a lot of the song writers seem to forget about the most important element (in my opinion) – the melody – and concentrate far too much on instrument selection, production effects, lyrics and so on. The melody simply becomes an almost random selection of notes at worst, or a very dull and ‘obvious’ melody line at best. Without a strong melody line, a song is rarely going to make it on to someones iTunes playlist!
So, how do we transform the oh-so-common, and dare I say ‘boring’ melody line, to be something that is pleasant to the ear, interesting, memorable, and capture the heart of the listener? In this short series of tutorials I’m going to offer you my seven steps to writing a memorable melody, where you’ll learn how to create a melody a little something like this…
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The example audio above and those throughout this series of tutorials were played on piano, as unfortunately I haven’t been blessed with a singing voice that’s worth sharing ousite of my own car and bathroom. However, I’ve accented the melody notes (the highest notes) so that you will easily be able to pick them out from the backing chords and accompanyment. The example song is one I simply played within a couple of minutes of sitting at the piano, it could have turned out very differently depending on my mood, the day, the weather or whatever… but each version would all have one thing in common. They would all follow the basic steps outlined in this series of tutorials.
I shall give various examples during this tutorias. Each will show the musical score / notation, plus an audio file for those who don’t read music so well. Just be aware that the score is written in it’s simplest form with the accompanyment or backing being displayed as straight forward chords. Where as the audio breaks these chords out a little to provide a similar sound to that of the original example audio track that we’re building up toward.
Step 1:
Understand The Interaction Between The Chord And MelodyThis is arguably the most important of all the tips and thankfully is the simplest to achieve for any new song writer. The essential aim is to ensure that at various intervals during the song (such as the first beat of a bar, or the end of a musical phrase), the melody note ‘lands’ on one of the notes that is being played in the chord. What do I mean by this? Well, if the chord that is being played is C Major, then, the melody note to feature should either be C, E or G (the triad that makes up the C Major chord). If the chord being played was G Major, then the melody note to feature should be either G, B, or D.
Lets take the example of the following common chord sequence.
C -> G / B -> Am -> C / G -> F -> Em -> Dm -> G
(If you’re not familiar with this standard method of writing chords, then C means the C Major chord, Am means A Minor. G/B refers to a G Major chord, with a B as the bass note – instead of the normal G bass note. You can learn more about chord notation here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_notation).
If we were to write a melody to this chord sequence, using only the advice from Step 1 in this tutorial, we’d get something like this.
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Here you can see, the first melody note is E, which is played with the C chord, because the C triad is C, E, G. I could have selected C or G and it would have sounded equally correct, but this time I decided to use E. In the second bar the chord is G and I have chosen melody note G (from the triad of G, B, and D). In the third bar, the chord is A minor (A, C, E), so I’ve selected melody note C.
Ok, having played this back, I realize that, purely by accident is already sounds like a rather famous melody from a classical piece of music (Pietro Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana – Intermezzo, about 1minute 40 into the piece). Despite this similarity to an already existing famous piece of music, what is clear is that it’s very easy to listen to and pleasant sounding. It doesn’t sound like someone picking random notes out from the chromatic scale, there’s some structure to it. That’s because each melody note sits within the basic chord being played at the time.
It doesn’t matter which of the notes in the chord we choose. Here’s another example where the melody still conforms to the guidelines in Step 1, but using a different melody note for the G chord in the second bar.
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Again this works really well. (And, if you notice, this is also by complete accident similar to a very famous piece of music, Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major from about 20 seconds in). As long as you understand the notes of the chord being played at any one time, you can start to piece together the ‘main’ or ‘featured’ notes of your melody line.
Step 2:
Making Use Of Other Notes In The ScaleOnce we’ve found some of the chord notes (Step 1) to feature in our melody, it’s time to think about adding some melodic movement and interest to the melody line. But how do you choose which notes to add?
Well, the most obvious thing to do is work out what key signature your song is in, and then ensure you only use notes from that scale. This will ensure you don’t get any ‘clashing sounds’ that are unpleasant to the ear. (Of course there maybe times when a melody purposefully uses notes from outside of the songs key signature, but, for simplicity we’ll ignore such melodies for now.)
In the previous example, the song was in the key of C Major. Knowing your key signatures is a critical part of writing a good melody. If you don’t know your key signatures, then I suggest you learn them (there are numerous websites and books to help you do this). C Major has a key signature where there are no sharps or flats; on a piano keyboard, no black notes. As such, when composing a melody for a song in C Major, we should focus only on the ‘white notes’ of the piano to ensure we get a pleasant sound.
Ok, so now we’re going to use melody notes from the key signature C Major, either going up or down the scale, as we move around to each of the featured chord notes (as decided in step one).
I’ve used a fairly simple movement around the notes in this next audio example, using the tips from steps 1 and 2, to produce the melody line as follows.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Clearly adding the extra notes from the scale as we moved from the E in bar one to the G in bar 2 has added some more interest to the melody. Again, it didn’t matter which notes of the scale I played, I could have move down the scale instead, and it would still have sounded pleasant. Try it yourself and experiment a little. What is important is that I used only the notes that are in C Major (no sharps of flats) to get me from the featured melody note of E (in the first bar) to G (in the second bar).
Review Stage
Using steps one and two above will get you to what I termed in my introduction as an ‘obvious melody’. What I mean by this is the western ear is ‘trained’ to readily accept these kinds of melodies over the given chord sequence and they’re fairly simple in their structure. They don’t jump around much and have a fairly limited technical involvement.
In part two of this series, we’ll look at more techniques to add further interest to the melody line and develop it in to something a little more unique.
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Im have just started learning Piano, and was wondering, from your visual examples you wrote in the chords, but in your audio did you play broken chords? Thanks for the feedback
Yes, the music notation was produced specifically for beginners to understand and see visually that the melody note came directly from the chord notes. The audio tracks however are played similar to that of overall example song at the beginning of the tutorial. So yes, the chords are broken out. Thanks and good luck learning the piano, I hope it brings you much pleasure.
Nice article, even though a bit obvious… I have been, more or less, subconsciously doing both of those things already, but it’s always nice to read some background information (as I’m not musically educated at all). Looking forward for the next installment!
Interesting article, but like the comment above, I too am led by my subconscious when it comes to writing a melody. I don’t think about chords/thirds/fifths etc. I think a melody comes from deep within, and I’ve never thought about the mechanics of where it should go/what path it should follow according to theory/practice. The interweaving of the melody and the chordal structures in music provides the most satisfaction for me, and I like to approach it as openly as I can. Coming up with a melody for me at least, involves using a part of my mind that is not analytic in any way…….. but I can see the science behind it – I want the magic.
Antii / Steve, thanks for the comments. I think it’s fantastic if you can come up with great melody lines automatically / naturally… and if they’re strong melody lines, then that’s really great. This tutorial is however written for those who struggle to do this. Perhaps they’re great at strumming out chords on a guitar / piano, but their melodies always let them down and they get frustrated. The tips in part 1 of the tutorial are the very basics to get a good solid grounding of choosing ‘featured notes’, but in next two parts, I expand this with further ideas to help budding composers create more interesting / memorable melodies. It’s also worth keeping in mind that sometimes it might help to take a subconscious-created melody from something ‘good’ to something ‘great’ just by tweaking the odd note consciously at the end. Thanks again for comments and enjoy composing :-)
I recently read a book by Rikky Rooksby called “Melody: How to write great tunes”. I would recommend this as an essential read for those who want to write great melodies. The basic techniques being described here are the same as are taught in the book…inside notes (notes that are part of the chord), ouside notes (notes that are not part of the current chord but are part of the scale). Inside notes reinforce harmony in the melody, outside notes add tension to the melody.
It’s interesting to study nursery rhymes and the like – they ofen only contain “inside notes”
I recently read a book by Rikky Rooksby called “Melody: How to write great tunes”. I would recommend this as an essential read for those who want to write great melodies. The basic techniques being described here are the same as are taught in the book…inside notes (notes that are part of the chord), and ouside notes (notes that are not part of the current chord but are part of the scale). Inside notes reinforce harmony in the melody, outside notes add tension to the melody.
It’s interesting to study nursery rhymes and the like – they ofen only contain “inside notes”
Great article – with great (i.e. simple, clear) examples. I look forward to the next installment :)
What considerations do you have to keep in mind if you write your chord progression and melody and then decide to use a few chord substitutions? I assume the ‘main’ notes in your melody may influence which substitutions are suitable?
And if you were using 7th or 9th (extended) chords, can you “safely” use the 7th and 9th notes as “main” notes of the melody, or should you stick to members of the triad?
Meowsqueak, good points you raise and thanks for the positive feedback. Firstly, if you change a few chords after you’ve written the melody my advice would be see how it sounds with the new chord progression and existing melody. My tutorial points are after all just tips / guidelines, not strict rules. As many composers will gladly tell you, there are no rules when it comes to writing music…. so try it out, if you think it sounds good stick with it. Otherwise if you get some unpleasant sounds, go back to the section of the song where you changed the chords and tweak the melody; use the steps in my article to do so if necessary (remember, more steps to follow in the second and third parts of the mini-series, to be published in a couple of weeks I believe).
As for the second point you raise about 7th and 9th extended chords, then I would say that these are still just chords… therefore the notes that make up those chords are absolutely going to to be a ‘safe bet’ to include in your melody line.
Thanks again for the comments, Jon
Thanks for this excellent tut. I’m looking forward for the next parts. Cheers!
Nice article!
I am a high school music teacher who is not overly gifted in the piano department. I am fine with teaching the elements of melody writing. But I find that I have more trouble with the left hand when trying to do more than just play the basic chord. I really like how you break up the chord into something far more interesting I could do. I was wondering if there was a way to create these broken chords as I think they add a great deal to the melody/song writing process in regards to stylistic traits, mood etc.
Looking forward to part 2!
Hi Darrin, thanks for the positive feedback re: the tutorial.
As this tut’s main focus is about composing melody lines, I think it would be the wrong place to go in to detail about particular piano techniques for breaking out chords and ‘filling out’ basic piano playing to get a better and more full sound. However, it is something I could perhaps explain in a future tutorial because it’s something I have taught quite a few students how to do when improvising, to avoid the ‘plink-plonk’ piano style. It seems to work quite well for them. So… watch this space and I’ll see what I can do here. Thanks again, Jon.
John – fantastic article! I’ve been following pretty well exactly this way of explaining how harmonies and melodies fit together in my theory courses. Now that it’s all written down here, I have less work to do! :)
A++ Well done
Haha, thanks Dave, I’m pleased it’s saved you some work. Parts 2 and 3 are now avialable on Audiotuts+ if you hadn’t already found them.
A good melody comes from your soul and don’t give a damn what it sound like. das a good melody.
One question: Let’s say during one section of a song you want to use a secondary dominant 7th chord to transition to say your IV chord. During that section, from the second you hit the secondary dominant chord, you’re basically modulating to another key, right? The key that your IV chord is the root in. Hence, you would use notes from this key or scale, during that section. Right? Or continue using the scale you started in.
D.