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Posted : Mar 10, 2011 16:31:53
hello, i've been making electronic music for about 4 years, mostly psychedelic stuff and also played the guitar for a couple of years.
did this by myself and never went to any classes, so i've got basically no musical theory background at all except for what i've learned these years making tunes. so, dont get me wrong tho, i do know stuff.
anyway, to the issue.
i've got no problem working out a nice danceable or.. soon to be storytelling beat, grooves, leads etc.
its rather the melody itself, i never manage to get that "catchy" feeling to it.
for instance, lets say you listen to a sweet ass goa song you have never heard before, and then the melody kicks in, and you can definately feel it, its almost as if you "know what its going to sound like in the next 3 seconds", and you're totally flowing with it. you all know that feeling, right?
this is exactly my issue. when working with melodies, it sounds good at that moment, and i guess thats only because IM working on it and I do know what to expect.
but then i take a break, lets say, an hour? after that i come back and listen to the track and the melody sounds like crap and really random, eventhough im maintaining myself in the very same scale throughout the whole melodic section.
why is this? what am i missing?
aciduss
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Posted : Mar 10, 2011 16:59
Have you tried showing your melodies to someone else? Why not post some samples?...
knatch
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Posted : Mar 10, 2011 17:15
here you go sir
orgytime
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Posted : Mar 10, 2011 17:35
sounds good, if you are looking for the feeling, and this "i know whats gonna happen the next seconds" you will have to change the bass root key.
the bass have to work together with the lead etc...
you have to tease the melody until you cant wait to hear the lead playing along with the bass.
Freeflow
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Posted : Mar 10, 2011 23:18
Sounds good knatch, and i agree with orgytime to some extent,
Its those magic transitions that make you get the thrills,
And i often find them to come either in a short break or with a change of key, But also counterpoint and going from counterpoint and back to something with complete harmony.
PoM
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Posted : Mar 10, 2011 23:32
are you clean when you make these melodie? no offense man i m really serious , it hapened me thousands of times when making tunes stoned in the night,me it was not one melodie but more like half of the tunes hahah, when i wake up in the morning listen and wtf lol
orgytime
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Posted : Mar 10, 2011 23:46
freeflow... that video is sick shit haha,
you think about counterpointing the lead with the bass?
or just 2 leads?
aciduss
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Posted : Mar 11, 2011 01:02
Hey knatch, i believe your melody is ok but is just a 2 bar melody on a 4 bar loop usually goa melodies are a little more complex.
I think it needs a little stronger sequence for that feeling you are looking for... is like your current melody is ok for starting the track (or ending it) but for a deeper more solid sound you should vary notes, use counterpoint as suggested or a strong chord progression.
The already mentioned advice on bass movement could be useful too but i'd work much more on the melody notes in order to get a memorable emotional hookline / motive.
Good luck.
Koozer Mox
Koozer Mox
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Posted : Mar 11, 2011 01:03
I like the melody knatch, this happens to me alot too, i whink to all us?. well try making some changes, change the mood in the melody itself. copy and paste the notes and do changes, make the lead have a begining and end so when its playing in the track..catches ur attention from begining to end, not boring, and let the listener say..Wow..what a melody i that was (=. only 1 thing i detected. (IMO of course) there are 2 Notes playing from 0.05 to 0:06 that may be sort of misplaced. (IMO) i think its a D Sharp and another one. make the harmonize so it can have a specific mood. thats just me tho.
Freeflow
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Posted : Mar 11, 2011 01:13
Quote:
On 2011-03-10 23:46, orgytime wrote:
freeflow... that video is sick shit haha,
you think about counterpointing the lead with the bass?
or just 2 leads?
cheers
I do pretty simple counterpointing, most often there are between leads, or two melodies countering each other which often can make fantastic harmonic tension in melodies.
Often i dont mess around with the baseline, but i make mostly forest psy, and hypnotic stuff. So all leads and other melodies must not follow the bass where ever they go as long as they are in the scale, And there is much freedom in this. Lets say i have baseline in A, and i make a melody with ABCD
So far so good, to make it interesting i use instrumentation, otherwise it will fast become boring, So with these tones i can make something very interesting. But to raise the tension i might transpose the melody to a different key. Then of course the bass root will follow. If it needs to follow i let it follow otherwise i try and build on other things like atmospheres and sound FX and Rhythmic drive
Many times have i locked my self in a structure that is hard to get out.
When working with certain melodies i find my self getting stuck, maybe cause of lack of creativity in instrumentation or the lack of knowing how to transpose a melody. It simply dosent work to just move all the notes in a melody to a different key, and i blame those damn sharps and flats
But sometimes i just cant get out of a melody, it has to be how it is and to make it move i have to transpose it to a new key. then maybe even a third key.
But no i dont counterpoint the lead with the bass(maybe i should try now), mostly just two leads, or i would say one lead with a counter melody. And to me often this happen by trail and error, or luck. I mostly play around, not knowing where i am or where i am going. Things sort of fall from the sky and good ideas breed new ideas and sooner or later than shape into something.
And when doing trance, i find staying in one key with the bass for a long while gives best trance inducing feeling, than working it up and going a half-step to create release and then back to tension. Thats the classic way. But this really depends, sometimes a twisted track will sound great going around in the bass, i think mostly its me that is limiting my self. But going 2 bars in A then 1 bar in C and 1 bar in B, that can be nice.
When doing more melodic stuff i mostly work with chords, Like the bass is in the root, going F - C - A then i write a melody with chord hands, and adding ontop of those.
So then we probably come to something called Cadence and i am very limited on music theory and only use a small fragment of it, like i said most is on trail and error and i dont practice scales and chord progression so much, though lately i started to as its a good to know this when jamming.
But i am far from ready to really discuss theory about counterpoint and cadences, but its good to have a little idea about them.
I am lacking in reading music sheets thats a shame with all good guides, still i understand some which is good, but i dont read them like i read text.
loki
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Posted : Mar 11, 2011 02:21
dude, your bass in that example is barely audible, but i'm not here to hate. it's fucking groovy! seriously!
as for the melody, i like it. my advice: out of every 8 bars, make the last 2 something different, something that 'pulls' back to the original root note.
i.e. if you are in the key of A Minor, make bar 7 in Fsus, bar 8 in Gsus, and then listen how it magically pulls back to A Minor.
for that "i know what's coming up" feel, make the bassline follow this sort of change up was well BEFORE every introducing the melody. then, when the melody drops, we all know where it is going to head because the bassline is already in our heads.
this is a very simple example of what can be a much more complex operation. one of my favourite examples is to build up an ENTIRE song before dropping a major melody - and then when you finally do drop it, everyone already knows exactly how it's going to sound - it's like finding a long-lost friend on the dance floor, in musical form.
example:
note how the melody doesn't drop until the break at 5:35 or so - but you already know exactly what it is. sure, it's mirroring the bassline, but there's nothing wrong with that.
and as an added bonus, the more time you allow for this build up to happen, the stronger the melody is when it drops. to be honest, Jack in the Box is one of my favourite Logic Bomb tunes not because the melody rocks, but because DUDE, does it EVER feel good when it they finally actually let you hear it.
and that's songwriting for ya.
Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room. ~Kurt Vonnegut
www.soundcloud.com/mixyott
knatch
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Posted : Mar 11, 2011 03:25
cheers for all the replies fellas! you have definately given me some major ideas and inspiration which i'll be putting together tomorrow.
and its actually making alot of sense just by thinking about it, will def. dig deeper into this.
at one point i honestly got stuck with pretty much all my melodic songs cuz of this, so i was basically just making groovy stuff without proper melodies, but hopefully i'll be able to put together a decent one soon.
thanks!
Freeflow
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Posted : Mar 11, 2011 03:31
knatch -
Just sit with your guitar and keyboard a lot and play.
This will give you lots of inspiration and try your dilemmas and move things around...
Loki - great post and example, gave me great ideas and I love those Suspended chords, tried what you said and it did sound so much better than going from Am to F to G, which after awhile sounds boring.
Btw great track and example of what you was talking about, Logic Bomb are great song writers, there is some meaning behind the tracks in terms of craftsman ship.
cheers
knatch
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Posted : Mar 11, 2011 03:40
@freefl0
at the moment i dont have a guitar in my possesion, unfortunately.
dont get me wrong tho, its not like i look for help everywhere and then do a little work and then look for more guides, not at all.
i spend pretty much all the time experementing and exploring the possibilities of ableton, which in most cases gets me all side tracked and stuff
i thought i had a grasp of the very basics of melody construction, but little did i know, there's alot more to it than i thought it would be. and the help you gave me is sorta what i needed as i felt like something was missing, i just couldn't figure out what.
guess a little music theory wouldn't hurt, heh.
anyways, thanks alot.
Quantic Mind
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Posted : Mar 20, 2011 22:17
If you are looking for some things to study, 2 things that have helped me a lot it's
1- The book, Music Theory for computer musicians
2 - The DVD Fundamentals Melody from Dance Music Production.
They are really worth the money, and have helped me a lot.
