Not every song will have a notable melody. In general terms, the slower the song, the more important the melody becomes. Perhaps that’s because slower songs use melodies that use longer notes, making them more noticeable. With fast songs, melody notes typically fly by, and the basic groove of the song is probably more important. […]
Many songwriters feel uncomfortable writing songs by starting with a melody. To them, a melody-first songwriting process means sitting with a digital recorder and mindlessly humming some notes until a usable melody miraculously appears. Then you’ve got the task of adding chords to that new melody, and it all seems daunting. Trying to get a […]
At first blush, creating musical tension in a song doesn’t sound like something you want to do. We’ve learned in our everyday lives that tension is usually something negative — something that needs to be resolved. But in music, tension is a crucial characteristic of some of the best song melodies written. That’s because musical tension […]
“The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” eBook bundle includes “Writing a Song From a Chord Progression”. Learn how to write great songs by starting with the chords, and then avoiding all the potential pitfalls of the chords-first songwriting process. Recently I wrote about the importance of musical energy in all songs, whether they’re loud or soft, and that […]
If you’ve written a melody and you want to explore the many ways there are to add chords to it, you need to get “How to Harmonize a Melody.” It shows you step by step, with sound samples, how to create the chords that will bring your melodies to life. Here’s a bit of a […]
A song melody is made up of notes that either move by step (i.e. adjacent notes: C-D-E-D-E-F…) or by leap (i.e. skipping a note, or several notes, to get the next note: C-A). It’s probably correct to say that most song melodies use stepwise motion more than leaps. Some songs might use mostly leaps in […]
