composition: making melodies

Subject: composition: making melodies
From: JedMarum
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 10:24 PM

Seeing the "lifting lyrics" thread reminded me of something that nags at me from time-to-time.

As a songwriter, sometimes I try to develop a song that has a known 'feel' - that is a melody and perhaps lyric that sounds like a known style. Also, as a songwriter, I carry around with me, over months at a time, bits of melody that I am fooling with - working on, kicking around - you know, not something I intend to use (as is) - but like to kick around and experiment with - something that usually forms the base of a new melody that one day I will craft.

Anyway - sometimes when I choose to create a melody for a song, and use a known style, I am bothered by, "Is this something I've heard before? Is this something like the melody lines I've played with? Or is this something brand new?"

Well, when a genre uses a particluar scale, set of known chords and numbers of bars per verse/chorus - as a familiar patern - you greatly reduce your chance of truly being unique with a new melody - and increase the liklihood of reusing common phrases within a melody - I take it as a compliment when I know a melody is quite unique - but people say it sounds familiar.

The trouble is, I carry so many bits of old melodies, my own and those I've heard for years ... I don;t always know what's what - fer sure.

Ya know what I mean??

Subject: RE: composition: making melodies
From: Deckman
Date: 12 Jul 03 - 10:36 PM

I know extactly what you mean. Sometimes that melody you carry with you is not so much a "melody" as it is a rythmn, or a chord sequence, or, as you say, just a feeling. I have found, over the years, that if I play around with that basic "melody" on the guitar, and start to experiment with all the possible chords, it can grow and evolve into something else, without necessarily losing the flavor of the original. You know, try the relative minors, work with the obvious bass lines, get into some chromatic runs, etc. The next problem is that once this "new tune" has evolved, you now have to get of that one! Good thoughts. Bob

Subject: RE: composition: making melodies
From: hesperis
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 12:11 AM

Heh, it's like that for all of us...

Too bad copyright has strayed so far from it's original purpose, eh?

Subject: RE: composition: making melodies
From: Deckman
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 12:13 AM

Hesperis ... I don't understand your reference to copyright. Could you explain a little more. Thanks, Bob

Subject: RE: composition: making melodies
From: pavane
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 04:37 AM

My program HARMONY can generate new tunes in a number of styles, i.e. jig, reel, etc. They can be awful, but sometimes quite playable. Even the bad ones can provide some new ideas though.

One thing they seem to have in common is that they never seem to be like any tune I have previously heard!

HRMONY

Subject: RE: composition: making melodies
From: pavane
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 04:38 AM

Oops, it escaped before I had finished!
I was also going to say that HARMONY can play existing tunes backwards, as another source of new ideas.

Subject: RE: composition: making melodies
From: nutty
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 04:45 PM

On singing a new composition to a friend I said that I was not sure if the tune was original, the reply was ....I'm sure its original because the tune doesn't go where you expect it to.
I've used that as a benchmark ever since.

Subject: RE: composition: making melodies
From: harvey andrews
Date: 13 Jul 03 - 07:23 PM

I've phoned people and sung them songs a couple of times because the melody seemed so old I must have re-found it subconsciously, but not so they told me.
The thought of a computer programme playing songs backwards to simulate creativity......well...

Subject: RE: composition: making melodies
From: Bert
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 11:30 AM

I know what you mean Jed. Every time I write a song I'm scared to sing it to anyone for the first time in case I've unknowingly lifted the tune.

What I do sometimes, is deliberately start with a known tune and then modify it until it is hopefully unrecognizable. No one has yet told me that the tune for Bathing Angel resembles the Eton Boat Song although that's where it started.

Then there are those songs that use a tune that you had written for an earlier song and the tune refuses to be changed because it fits the new song better than it did the old one.

Subject: RE: composition: making melodies
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 11:35 AM

start with a known tune and then modify it until it is hopefully unrecognizable.

that shouldn't be hard for me...I do that with song tunes all the time! (without meaning to!)

Subject: RE: composition: making melodies
From: M.Ted
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 01:37 PM

A while back, I began compiling and notating my old songs, and realized, to my horror, that I had used the famous and notorious "Mr. Bojangles" descending bass line(Really derived from Pachelbel's Canon), underneath a the same iambic tetrameter way too many times---

Funniest thing was that when I asked others, including people who had actually played the songs with me,no one had noticed any similarites-The difference in subject matter in the songs, coupled with the differing moods, an differences in the underlying feel, seemed to have separated the songs from one another for them.

Since I'd created the stuff, I continued to recognize the pieces I'd used, where others saw only the complete song--

In spite of that consolation, I've made a point of finding new musical ideas(or at least new for me) for each song that I work on, at the outset, and, no matter how good it seems, if I feel like I am writing new words to the same old song, I through everything out and start fresh.

I finally realized that the reason that people break musical "rules" is simply that there are only so many unique musical ideas that you can pull out of a any particular musical style before you start to repeat--

Subject: RE: composition: making melodies
From: GUEST,T-Tone
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 10:35 PM

This is a good thread Jed...Hey, there's a melody! But seriously, a good thread for the writers out there. I've thought of and felt these pitfalls too in writing songs but end up congratulating myself that I am writing at all. The act of writing takes a measure of courage and this is something I'm grappling with at the very moment as I try to improve my singing. I've been playing guitar for over twenty years and only recently have focused more on singing. I now live alone and this probably has something to do with letting it come out. New thread? Shy singers? I've been aided by a friend lending me an eight track home recording unit which allows me to hear back what I've done and it's helpful. Any insights out there?

Subject: RE: composition: making melodies
From: M.Ted
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 12:20 AM

One thing that you make me think of, T-Tone, and that is that for quite a while, most people have been writing the guitar chords first, and adding the voice part as an afterthought--when you work out the melody part first, whether on keyboard or single note-wise on guitar, you discover that there are a lot of interesting possibilities that have been neglected--

Subject: RE: composition: making melodies
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 02:14 PM

Jed's technique resembles the one described here.