How many different melodies suppose to be in the song ?
liquidnoise
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Posted : Feb 25, 2010 01:03:43
Hi everybody,
i am new here, but not really new with music production.
I remember that my teacher told me if more melodies are playing in the song, then better. Do you guys think so ?
When i listen most of the tracks there is usually 1-4 different melodies in one song. I mean different instruments playing different melodies in the same time.
How do you guys think ?
How many different melodies (whatever lead, arpegiated, or short motifs) suppose to be in a song ?
soulfood
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Posted : Feb 25, 2010 01:32
I'm say anywhere between 0+.
As long as they fit and compliment each other I wouldn't worry.
An acoustic guitar has 6 strings and therefore are capable of 6 part harmony and they're often accompanied by several other instruments i.e bass, guitar, piano, flute and vocals.
... I wouldn't worry too much about this. Just write whats in your heart be that a symphony or a drone
ArcaneInquisitor
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Posted : Feb 25, 2010 02:50
Is any song "supposed" to be a certain way? I would have to agree with soulfood and say that it doesn't matter.
In my songs I tend to focus a lot on melody and progression but I still don't really have more than about 2 or 3 melodies playing at the same time (or else it just gets really busy sounding), but in the entire song there will be a few more. I will have one melody going, then often another comes in while the previous one fades out and I continue as such.
If you want things layered then I guess you would get into counter melodies and harmony parts. That can sound really great if done right but can be rather difficult if you don't know any music theory (if you do know theory then by all means).
Lastly, in electronic music it can get difficult to layer the sound since they often have lots of harmonic content and are sonically very rich. If you layer a lot of leads for example, their frequencies may clash and in the end they just ruin each other. That tends to be the main reason why I try to keep them separate.
Acoustic music has much more layering potential since things like strings and voices tend to be much more mellow harmonically and don't clash as severally as say, two distorted saw leads would when played together.
SCircuit
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Posted : Feb 25, 2010 03:37
Psydust
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Posted : Feb 25, 2010 04:04
why not start with just one and perfect it.
minddoctorsmakeacid
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Posted : Feb 25, 2010 04:39
I used to have a problem with melodies, I had too many ideas and ended up with loads of diferent melodies that by the end of the song you wouldn't remember any of them.
Nowadays I try to use less and more coherent melodies, I think that if you make the listener focus more on one melody there will be more chances that he will remember it.
Of corse there is allways the trick of giving little bits of the main melody trough the wole song and blasting the full melody part in the chorus winch usually works very well.
soulfood
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Posted : Feb 25, 2010 04:49
Or write 1 melody with several variations.
Sit down for hours penning several harmony parts for each melody, then split all those harmonies into seperate melodies and chop and change to reinforce your strongest melody.
Or just fart in a mic and loop it running through a distored filter and turn up the tempo...
it's all good.
dija
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Posted : Feb 25, 2010 05:42
You must first define what a melody is. A melody is the "hook" the catchy part of the song. The part that people are always waiting for the song to return to. You should have at the most 2 melodies playing at a time. This is called creating a counterpoint melody. Sure there may be other instruments backing these 2 melodies or 1 melody if it is not counterpoint but those instruments are not playing melodies. A melody is a part of the song that continues for say 4-8 bars. I'd write one and create several endings for it. Then create a couple variations of it. But the hook part of the melody (the thing that listeners are waitin on) must be present and remain fairly similar.
Also, I agree with the above poster. It is a good idea to drop hints of the melody in down parts of your song. It creates tension and makes the listener more aware of where the song is leading which is back to the main melody. In the case of many types of psy such as dark psy, screw a melody u dont need it. Slop a kick/bass and a bunch of sound fx together that fit rythmically and your done. Many types of dance music nowday has no melody at all.
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Larrikin
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Posted : Feb 25, 2010 07:18
Quote:
Or just fart in a mic and loop it running through a distored filter and turn up the tempo...
Ascension
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Posted : Feb 25, 2010 15:57
Quote:
On 2010-02-25 04:49, soulfood wrote:
Or write 1 melody with several variations.
Sit down for hours penning several harmony parts for each melody, then split all those harmonies into seperate melodies and chop and change to reinforce your strongest melody.
This is the way to go. Bounce all your leads to audio and either send them to an effects channel or make new channels with effects on them that compliment the sound.
I like to write a long lead pattern, then cut out some of the parts to make single shots and add things like delay, beat repeat, frequency shift, etc.
A good way to keep continuity in the track is to do some call and response with lead 1s single shot clips with longer parts of lead 2 (or short parts of lead 2 with long parts of lead 1).
http://soundcloud.com/ascensionsound www.chilluminati.org - Midwest based psytrance group
Uedi
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Posted : Feb 25, 2010 21:25
Start simple, one thing at a time.
Create a initial melody... than extend it with variations.
You can use binary mode: question and answer!
Or ternary mode: annoucement, development and recapitulation!
The most important is to resolv the melody, on tension and expectation.
Then there's harmony!
Chords, arpeggios, motifs!
If the tracks needs more... fill it out.
Add more layers!
Put diferent synths playin the same notes.
Or put onee synth playing annoucement and recapitulation, and other playin development!
All goes arround a main theme.
I found this short piece, made by a kid on FL studio! Briliant melodic stuff! Lacks on EQ skillz but it's fine!
liquidnoise
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Posted : Feb 25, 2010 23:13
Thanks guys, your advices are really great. I appreciate that !
Now i am looking at this whole thing from different perspective and i see much much much more interesting techniques to make songs which keeps listener interested.
Axis Mundi
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Posted : Feb 26, 2010 01:33
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Zoopy
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Posted : Feb 26, 2010 01:36
