Chords for melody. HELP!

[dream eater]

This is the starting position: You have only the melody (the singing for a song) and now you want to do the chords for the song. Is this how to do it?:

You can put A N Y chord from the scale that the melody is from. E.g. if the melody is in c-major you can use e.g.: C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, (B dimished), in A N Y part of the song. As long as the chords sound OK related to each other. Or does the chords have to remind somehow the melody?

 

Right? Yes, no??

[lyxian]

It's one way of doing it. I usually start with chords, though. Don't forget you can get out of the mold once in a while. Mixing major and minor keys can be very effective. For exemple, in the key of C, you could do the following: C then Ab (major chord of the flattened 6th). It's quite simple, you get the idea. Oh, don't forget that each chord in a given context has a different meaning. Don't need to think about in too much though. Have fun exploring.