5 BEGINNER Tips for writing a Melody

do you ever find yourself struggling to come up with a memorable and effective melody in this video i'll show you five practical tips which you can use to take your melodies to the next level [Music] i'm simon from composing academy the channel devoted to helping beginning composers get started with writing their own music if you're looking to kickstart your composing journey be sure to check out my free beginner's guide to writing cinematic music in five easy steps ebook a link of which is in the description below okay so let's start by trying to find a short motif a group of notes which we can use as a starting point to eventually develop into a longer melody here i've chosen the notes of e g and f sharp with a rhythm of a half note or minim followed by two quarter notes or [Music] crotchets i'm going to repeat the rhythm for bar 2 but change the pitches of the last two notes to d and e to provide some variation i think this motif feels like it would work best as a four bar phrase so let's finish off the motif with something a little different to offer some contrast i'm going to try using two more half notes of f sharp and d followed by a whole note of f sharp so i now have a longer four bar motif which i can further develop into a longer piece of music here is the four bar phrase in full [Music] some of the most successful melodies make good use of movement by step moving by step in a musical context is playing successive notes which are next to each other either as half steps or whole steps for example in my motif here the movement between the g f sharp and e is movement by step all of the notes are next to each other this is also the case for the d e and f sharp in the second bar try to avoid lots of large jumps between notes in your melody there are of course exceptions like the large octave leap at the beginning of the song over the rainbow or the opening jump of five notes at the beginning of the star wars theme but in general try to have your melody made up mostly of steps or small jumps when moving between notes some large jumps are a good thing as they help to give direction but try to keep them to a minimum so going back to my motif here i now want to extend this four bar phrase into something longer a strong melody makes use of both repetition and variation so i want to begin by copying most of the elements of my first four bar phrase into the second four by phrase constructing a melody is a fine line between balancing repetition but also giving some variation so the listener doesn't get bored i'm going to copy the rhythm exactly as well as the general shape of the notes but change the pictures of the last five notes to add some variation this way the two four bar phrases are similar but also different enough to achieve some development of the melody when writing your own melodies try to take an element from your main motif such as the rhythm and repeat this into subsequent bars to help give a sense of continuity in your music let's take a listen [Music] as well as variation using contrast to music can help to create tension and maintain a sense of the music progressing forward on a journey contrast could come in the form of new pitches rhythm or the shape of the melody again achieving effective contrast is a fine balance you want this new phrase to be different enough that it sounds fresh and indeed contrasts with the original material but you also want it to sound somewhat connected to the original phrase and not a completely new piece of music i'll use this third four by phrase to create the contrast needed to keep the listener interested here you can see i've made use of the same rhythm which was a hallmark of the top two phrases but the notes themselves have changed making use of the rhythm in this case again helps to keep a sense of continuity in the music for the final four by phrase of this melody i have again opted for contrasting material compared to that of phrases one and two i've still tried to make use of the main rhythm though in order to again achieve musical cohesiveness let's take a listen to these two four bar contrasting phrases [Music] a useful way to help make the music feel like it's on the journey is to make sure that there are rises and falls in the shape of the melody if the tune goes up then try to bring it back down afterwards here you can see the first two phrases have very small rises and falls phrase three then starts on a higher pitch and then gradually descends through to the end of the line the last phrase then starts high going down and then back up and down as we come to the end you can also see the highest pitch of e comes in the second half of the melody in phrases three and four try not to have your top pitches in the opening stages of your melody as you want the music to try and have a high point or climax again helping to feel like it's traveling on an emotional journey now that the melody is fleshed out let's take a listen to the finished version which i've harmonized orchestrated and recorded with a string section [Music] okay so there you have five ways to help you improve your melodies remember in music there are always exceptions to rules and guidelines there'll be extremely successful melodies out there which include some of these techniques but equally there are also many which don't as always if you've enjoyed the video make sure you subscribe and click the bell to be notified every time i release a new video if you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments below as well

Channel: Composing Academy

Views: 48,338

Keywords: Melody, Melodies, Melody Writing, Melody Writing tutorial, Composing Tutorial, How to compose, Songwriting, Melody writing techniques, how to write a melody, Composing Music, Composing, Beginner composer, Film Music, Composition, Composition Techniques, How to compose orchestral music, How to compose music, composing film music, How to Compose Music Begin Composing music. Composer, Beginner Composer, Cinematic Music, Soundtrack, Music Theory, Film Composing, How to Compose

Id: MM6fyvz2BKU

Length: 7min 57sec (477 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 11 2021