Melodies

God damn it's so hard to come up with a good melody! I've just started writing proper songs and I find writing riffs and instrumental parts etc come without too much trouble, but when it comes to vocal melodies it takes me ages! I can never seem to hear great melodies in my head. What techniques do you guys use to come up with good melodies? What makes a good melody?

Help!

try fiddling about with a scale on your guitar and find a lick which is singable and good for you to replicate. Repition is important, and improvisation around that repitition is what makes a structure.

I must say, I find this pretty hard to, your not the only one

If writing a memorable melody was easy....well you know the rest. Sometimes it comes easy, and other it is just painful. Stick with it. There is no pat answer as to how. As far as what makes a good melody, well there is good, and then great. Great ones touch your soul. It is a subject soul. Good ones, make you start singing them. They command you from within to participate and you willing comply.

I like this answer.

Good songwriters.

They use a piano a lot, and many of them have taken music theory courses of some kind.

But for the rest of us, first I think of a good hook line lyrically, then without any instruments I hum, scat, yell, and warble... usually I come up with something eventually, then I write chord progression to compliment that.

But, looking back on the last 100 years of popular music, the best melodies ALWAYS come before the music!

My 2 cents? A good melody is FUN to sing! Can be quite simple, but should be FUN!! I am thinking pop music. Melodies for symphonies or jazz, another story!!!

A cliche, but listen to the Beatles! FUN to sing AND listen to!

Except I AM THE WALRUS! Fun to listen to, not fun to sing. Or REVOLUTION #9!!

Ok, first post here. Forgive me if I do something wrong. I'll learn.

But this is a great thread. I am in the same boat. Making riffs and licks come fairly easy to me. The vocal melody always follows the guitar for me and that sucks. I give my stuff to the singer in my band and then he comes up with the melody. Then he writes, or I write the lyrics or we co-write.

My two cents on coming up with melodies is to open up and just try something. You never know until you try and make yourself break away from your normal mode.

Another tip is go walking. Ride a bike. Do something where your body is working and you have nothing but your thougths on your mind and melodies will pop in there.

Of course, there's always the drug route... but I hope we're not all advocating the overindulgence of that.

There's no set pattern for me as far as melody goes. Occasionally I wake up with one, ala McCartney's "Yesterday" (working title "Scrambled Eggs"). Other times it's just hammering it out on guitar until something comes. Sometimes it begins with a riff & takes off from there. I get into a lot of extended meditation & prayer and quite often something will come out of that experience. As someone else said, go for a walk in the woods or on the beach (as I do because I live at the NJ shore) and just start humming until something comes. Every writer has to develop methods that produce results and vary them in order to not fall into a predictible patterns that become stale. Also, get in the habit of carrying some kind of portable recorder so when you get piece of something good you can capture it.

Try some listening to music from some genres outside of what you're accustomed to. For instance, traditional (folk) music is a veritable gold mine that a number of classical composers have seen fit to exploit.

I'm pretty partial to Scottish/Irish music myself, and there are great melodies ranging from airs (suitable for vocals) to uptempo jig/reel dance music. They have some range to them for sure, frequently an octave to an octave+third, and lots of neat interval jumps.

1. Learn how to read sheet music. It is important to see the notes on paper and then direct them where you want to go.

2. Take music theory lessons. After 10 or more years you 'll be able to hear the melodies and shape them in your head like bethoven... A little long but shure solution. Can do without it but you 'll gain almost everything with it.

3. Analyse every melody you hear, sing or play. Analysis is the first step befor composition: Analysis-> vocabulairy-> form-> arrangement-> composition.

4. Transcription. Transcribe as many things as you can in music. Especialy what you like and what you want to create. Write them on paper and analyse them.

General things you can do to clarify the melody 'thing.

That is ONE way. Still, I do not think melody, or music in general, is something that can be accomplished with only "theory" like a recipe or a scientific method. It has to come from the heart, the mind and the soul.

Writing down a melody in musical notation won't tell you anything about whether it is a moving memorable melody or not.

But I suppose it depends on the kind of songwriting. I do not believe that will work with pop or rock. But who knows? Anything is possible!