I was just curious, how you guys come up with a melody...
because I think of a melody while I'm at school, but when I get home.... i forget.
At 5/10/12 04:55 PM, K0PPA wrote: I was just curious, how you guys come up with a melody...
because I think of a melody while I'm at school, but when I get home.... i forget.
I mostly experiment. Because scumbag brain gives me best ideas when I'm about to sleep (or away from home).
At 5/10/12 04:57 PM, DJDela wrote: I mostly experiment.
As do I, most times.
I smack my keyboard until it screams something fierce, then I work from there.
At 5/10/12 04:57 PM, DJDela wrote: Because scumbag brain gives me best ideas when I'm about to sleep (or away from home).
I feel your pain.
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sit down in front of a piano or keyboard and just hum some shit until you get something that sounds good
p.s. i am gay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SXpwah0KKo
Two notes only can make a song. Just be creative!
^
Gotta love Animaniacs...
@OP I usually record myself humming the notes over my cell phone and record it. Just the basic melody of course not the whole song lol
by chance, however waveforms emitted from matter and energy resonates within my body in concordance with me being receptive to music, and from there however my brain interprets it.
i guess.
At 5/10/12 04:55 PM, K0PPA wrote: I was just curious, how you guys come up with a melody...
because I think of a melody while I'm at school, but when I get home.... i forget.
then carry a recorder, or write down the general contour of the melody, of course the latter takes dictation without using an instrument skills.
At 5/10/12 08:58 PM, S3C wrote: by chance, however waveforms emitted from matter and energy resonates within my body in concordance with me being receptive to music, and from there however my brain interprets it.
i guess.
At 5/10/12 04:55 PM, K0PPA wrote: I was just curious, how you guys come up with a melody...then carry a recorder, or write down the general contour of the melody, of course the latter takes dictation without using an instrument skills.
because I think of a melody while I'm at school, but when I get home.... i forget.
Same here. I bought a $40 digital voice recorder from walmart and use it when I improvise at the piano or come up with something on the go. Alternatively I get out staff paper and write what is in my head, but ear training and theory has made this possible.
As far as how to actually come up with a melody though? I usually just sing or play piano until ideas begin coming to me. When less inspired, I use theory to derive it from a chord progression I'm using. Or I take a phone number and use the digits as different notes and then come up with a harmony for that melody. That's fun if you're bored and looking for a challenge.
A lot of melodic influence comes from what you surround yourself with. Before I write a song, I pick out a genre and emotion that I wan't to evoke and then listen to a lot of it trying to find inspiration; Writing out any little ideas on the way.
Once I'm started I generally have at least two motifs in my head. If I get stuck after that then generally I just follow the harmony I already have going, and if the harmony ain't goin anywhere, theory is your best friend.
Most of the time I'm just humming and all of a sudden something pops up, and if I'm lucky I get to my PC before I forget it. Sometimes I just experiment but that doesn't work out well for me.
At 5/11/12 10:37 AM, LogicalDefiance wrote: A lot of melodic influence comes from what you surround yourself with. Before I write a song, I pick out a genre and emotion that I wan't to evoke and then listen to a lot of it trying to find inspiration; Writing out any little ideas on the way.
Once I'm started I generally have at least two motifs in my head. If I get stuck after that then generally I just follow the harmony I already have going, and if the harmony ain't goin anywhere, theory is your best friend.
^^ Sound advice.
I like to work within a theme, I can find a lot of inspiration there. Theory certainly helps (especially on transitions), but it is not vital. Melody and music comes from the soul, it should express what you feel and be a refelction of yourself. That being said, I just fumble around on the keyboard until something sticks, haha
Developer by day; Deviant by night
You know, I think learning about different modes/scales will help you a lot. I've been making eastern/ethnic songs lately for a school project and camoshark told me about the phrygian and Jewish scales. I was always used to composing in good old major and minor - now learning these new modes was like starting everything afresh. A stream of awesome melodic ideas came to me and I'm finding it very easy to think of melodies.
Just google musical modes and give them a shot!
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I generally don't write stand alone melodies. If I hear a chord progression though I can usually hear the melody in my head I would compliment it with. I use my ear most of the time but the amount of harmony I know has greatly influenced my choices.
At 5/10/12 04:55 PM, K0PPA wrote: how you guys come up with a melody...
Shit happens.
: What? No I won't level up, I like my watergun.
At 5/12/12 03:45 PM, NikeTheSword wrote:At 5/10/12 04:55 PM, K0PPA wrote: how you guys come up with a melody...Shit happens.
Pic self-explanatory.
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At 5/12/12 04:17 PM, Step wrote:At 5/12/12 03:45 PM, NikeTheSword wrote:Pic self-explanatory.At 5/10/12 04:55 PM, K0PPA wrote: how you guys come up with a melody...Shit happens.
Coming down a tier or two. I usually write anything that plays in my head down as basic chords and the structure, then I let it brew until I get to my com. Whenever i try to write down the melody, it gets waxed and perverted in my head while I'm still heading home.
I encourage you to try this, makes composing bit different and more technical :)
: What? No I won't level up, I like my watergun.
I just dick around some random scale until I find something useable (my current favorite is C minor).
Ok, well I'll be upfront and say I have no formal training whatsoever, but I did manage something interesting recently.
I took a simple bassline, and then made a simple melody to go with it mostly in tune; the interesting part is what I did next. I took the melody, and added it to itself as a chord lower but delayed by half a beat and wrapped around when it overflowed the pattern; I repeated this a number of times. By managing volume levels, the introduction of the delays was almost inaudible, but the flourish at the end kept building on itself.
Next, once I had a sufficient number of chords - more or less - I then "compiled" it all together as one melody by "picking the notes that felt different." (Again, I don't have any good formal knowledge, so I won't even pretend to try and look like I know what I'm talking about.)
Here is a snippet with the selections I made boxed in:
In case the resize is too garbled, http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/0cc025518b1ff707c8379ed7 c2381e0e
I don't mind sharing...
Latest Creation: Wiretapped Wormhole | Website: Tydusis.com | Also, check out this webcomic I like: Inhuman
Random melodies can come to me at any time. I could be doing something else and some melody just simply pops out.
Of course, there's the problem that most of the time I forget it by the time I'm at a computer or when I translate the melody to notes, it doesn't sound as well as it did when it first popped to me.
I steal from other, more accomplished artists.
hum in the microphone
reproduce in DAW
I think that finding the right melody is the most difficult thing about composing. Personally, I get inspired while I'm playing my piano, or just improvising, other thimes I just choose a chord loop and see what comes out
At 5/11/12 10:37 AM, LogicalDefiance wrote: Once I'm started I generally have at least two motifs in my head. If I get stuck after that then generally I just follow the harmony I already have going, and if the harmony ain't goin anywhere, theory is your best friend.
If my melody isn't going anywhere, I generally stop until I figure out how to make it go somewhere. (That applies more to concert music, though.) Music is a journey, and the worst thing you can do is get stuck going in a circle of repitition.
There's a fascinating clip on YouTube where Leonard Bernstein (I think?) plays the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Then, he plays a couple of Beethoven's early sketches of the start of the first movement, and shows how Beethoven started with a descending pattern, and got stuck in a repetitious restatement of the motif, another that also goes nowhere, and then the final version of the theme with its adventurous, heroic statement and variation of the theme.
Now, in video game and film music, of course, repetition of at least some elements is very necessary for establishing a consistent mood or feeling, that's not to say it needs to be repetitive, though: the best contemporary film composers have impressive development and variation in their longer cues.
i steal from classical.
transpose up a few semitones, reverse it, speed it up, slow it down, who's going to know??
oh yeah, it's also free, really easy, and legal \m/
Ah - the melody - the part everyone waits for. Well I like to say that the environment tells me what to make. Essentially its either trial and error ( the most difficult ) or inspirational - or where the world around u just gives u a sound - and ur mind synthesizes a melody.
Enter the Trance - Lets listen to some progressive shall we?
Chord Progression+Arpeggiator+Gating= Melody.
Then I layer more notes over that, fitting the progression, with a chosen rhythm that complements the beat of the song and the bassline, messing around until I get something that sounds nice.
At 5/12/12 03:45 PM, NikeTheSword wrote:At 5/10/12 04:55 PM, K0PPA wrote: how you guys come up with a melody...Shit happens.
Pretty much.
lol fuk u
