Your Approach to Writing Melodies

[Rawbert]

I am currently composing a piece and i have a chord progression and i am going to write a turnaround and solo section eventually. I have a melodie in mind but i do not want to do something wrong. My progression so far is in Db its : Dbmin(maj7) Ebmin7b5/Gbmin7/Gbmin7 Ab13/ I was planning on it either being fast swing or latin(or both). I wanted to know everyones approach to writing melodies. Do you use notes mostly from the key, chordtones/scales, cromaticism, notes from substitution. Your approach will be very helpful to me.

[IbanezAS100]

Hi there..to summarise writing melodies in a single post would be an impossible task, but your chord progression seen as a whole (assuming the last chord is Ab b13-not sure as you wrote 13-do you want a natural F?) seems to denote a Harmonic Minor scale so that could be a start, as in playing around and finding little patterns that you like, using the chord tones of each chord as point of rest/emphasis.

If you wanted to treat each chord on its own (more modal/key of the moment approach) then you could try a sequence or motif that you like the sound of and alter it accordingly as you move from chord to chord. Techinques such as motif diminution, augmentation, extension and of course rhythmic variety will come in handy too in order to get mileage out of the original idea.

David Baker's 'Arranging and Composing for Small Ensemble, Bill Dobbins 'Jazz Arranging and Composing' and Hal Crook's books are really good guides for this sort of thing.

Hope this helps

[3shiftgtr]

Originally Posted by Rawbert

I have a melodie in mind but i do not want to do something wrong.

Why should you let anyone's concept of what jazz is or isn't tell you what to play? You say you have a melody in your head....well, get that thing onto your instrument!! Then reevaluate the melody by recording it and listening to it....and if you broke a few "jazz rules" but you really LOVE the melody....SO WHAT?!!? Your INTENTION is what makes it real, not the adherence to a bunch of "jazz rules". How do you think those "rules" got there in the first place?

A pet peeve of mine is when folks give too much weight to "right" and "wrong" notes....this "jazz approved note choice" stuff has to stop!!! Every great player that you admire got to where he/she is by following their inner ear, and BREAKING the rules....not breaking them for the sake of breaking them....but because they were PASSIONATE and BELIEVED IN the choices they made!

[Rawbert]

Originally Posted by IbanezAS100

Hi there..to summarise writing melodies in a single post would be an impossible task, but your chord progression seen as a whole (assuming the last chord is Ab b13-not sure as you wrote 13-do you want a natural F?) seems to denote a Harmonic Minor scale so that could be a start, as in playing around and finding little patterns that you like, using the chord tones of each chord as point of rest/emphasis.

If you wanted to treat each chord on its own (more modal/key of the moment approach) then you could try a sequence or motif that you like the sound of and alter it accordingly as you move from chord to chord. Techinques such as motif diminution, augmentation, extension and of course rhythmic variety will come in handy too in order to get mileage out of the original idea.

David Baker's 'Arranging and Composing for Small Ensemble, Bill Dobbins 'Jazz Arranging and Composing' and Hal Crook's books are really good guides for this sort of thing.

Hope this helps

Thanks, this is really helpful. I did mean to say Ab13 my bad. Its not harmonic minor it is just a Db minor harmonized. I was possibly going to uses phrases and alter them according to the chords. Thanks again.

[Rawbert]

Originally Posted by 3shiftgtr

Why should you let anyone's concept of what jazz is or isn't tell you what to play? You say you have a melody in your head....well, get that thing onto your instrument!! Then reevaluate the melody by recording it and listening to it....and if you broke a few "jazz rules" but you really LOVE the melody....SO WHAT?!!? Your INTENTION is what makes it real, not the adherence to a bunch of "jazz rules". How do you think those "rules" got there in the first place?

A pet peeve of mine is when folks give too much weight to "right" and "wrong" notes....this "jazz approved note choice" stuff has to stop!!! Every great player that you admire got to where he/she is by following their inner ear, and BREAKING the rules....not breaking them for the sake of breaking them....but because they were PASSIONATE and BELIEVED IN the choices they made!

This is truly great advice, i wrote out the melody that was in my head and oddly enough the notes i used mostly fit and were still "jazz approved". I guess your ear is the most natural approach to making beautiful things(not meaning to say that my melody is beautiful).

[Reg]

The problem with writing what you hear... When I was a young burnin player at Berklee back in the 70's I though I had great ears and composed lots of tunes...but the more I educated my ears, through all the educational processes and by just playing and listening to other players and composers, the clearer, more precise and complete my ears became. There are times when you want rough and energetic melodies and progressions... but there are times when you want your music, any aspect to be what you think it is. .. My point is be able to do both. Here's a sample of what I would play if I saw your progression... Best Reg

[mr. beaumont]

you can sometimes come up with a cool melody for a chord progression just by improvising over it for a long time and recording it...take its and pieces from here and there...concentrate less on burning and more on "what would miles do..."

on that same note, record the changes and SING over them, improvising, scatting, humming, whatever. again, go back and find the good bits....

but I'm old school, I guess. I always START with a melody when I'm writing...otherwise, a chord progression is just a clever bunch of chords, not a song.

[Reg]

That's a great subject in itself... Melody or harmony first... the chicken or the egg. After all's said and done I think you need to be aware of both... vertical and horizontal aspects of every note or chord you hear or play. Although like mr.beumont, I'm also pretty old school... Best Reg

[Stackabones]

It almost always starts with an idea in my head or something I'm singing. Transcribe either one of those. Sometimes something just falls off the fretboard and I'm lucky enough to catch it.

[dbucur]

What I am hearing is this: what comes first when writing a song, the melody, the chords or both simultaneously?
Here is my take. Simply put, all songs have a life of their own. Sometimes the melody comes first and then the chords. Sometimes the chords come first and they give birth to the melody. And sometimes they both happen in the same time. To me, the main rule of thumb is that there is no rule. Rules can strangle the creative spirit. Let it all happen as it does and let the critics worry about whatever they worry about.
It sounds to me like you got your chord progression in place and now you are looking for the melody. What I would do is this. I would listen to the chords on and on and on and come up with several versions. Then settle on the one that expresses the best a feeling that I want to convey, an emotion that I want to stir or whatever I feel or deal with. Ultimately the purpose of the music is to move us from where we are to another place prepared by the composer.

[patskywriter]

Originally Posted by Rawbert

... I have a melody in mind but i do not want to do something wrong. ...

if thelonious monk worried about making mistakes, the world would have been robbed of some great tunes!

when i come up with a nice phrase, i work with it away from my guitar in order to avoid 'the same old thing.' i once answered the phone and told the caller, "i'm sorry, you've got the wrong number." i immediately realized that that would be a nice beginning of a jazz tune. i worked on it diligently and made basic demo of the chords and melody. then i took it to a friend, a jazz writer named oscar brown jr, who liked it, took that opening line, and crafted a beautiful lyric. i'm hoping that one of these days a jazz singer will record it; it would be like a dream come true.

write from your heart. if you like what you come up with, others will, too.

[waqarhassan41]

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[dbucur]

u r welcome!
i also talked with my wife on the strategies of composition. she is a song writer, not jazz granted, but in the end the principles are the same. here is her opinion. the main rule is that there is no rule! the point is that if you get stuck in rules you limit your creative spirit. free yourself, let go of restrictions and take chances. you never know where you will arrive if you don't take a chance. i for one, i am absolutely amazed by wes montgomery. buy some songs and listen. wes but the melody in the chords! he used occasional transitions and solos, but for the most part the melody of his work was in the chords. now, that is classy! to me! a friend of mine once told me: think of chords as a texture of melodies, not as chords. hm! something to think about.

[Reg]

Hey Rawbert... I don't know what level of player or composer you are ... but I'll give you some straight ahead advice,( I'm a pro, well educated, can cover... read very well, understand traditional and jazz music, have composed, taught and played music for to many years).... It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing.....There are many styles of jazz and they all have guidelines for composing in that style. Unless your a very advanced composer or player... write in a standard form with something that will groove and have balance etc... It's very hard to be hip when you don't understand what straight is. Composing music is not magic... it can produce magic... but leaving the control of your music to outside influences, your guitar, a feeling etc... takes the you out of it. We are talking about Jazz, aren't we... not using the label to write whatever we feel like. Jazz has a history... and it use to have a pretty good audience. If your simple writing for fun, practice or personal reasons... forgive my comments and write away... Best Reg

[paynow]

Originally Posted by patskywriter

if thelonious monk worried about making mistakes, the world would have been robbed of some great tunes!

when i come up with a nice phrase, i work with it away from my guitar in order to avoid 'the same old thing.' i once answered the phone and told the caller, "i'm sorry, you've got the wrong number." i immediately realized that that would be a nice beginning of a jazz tune. i worked on it diligently and made basic demo of the chords and melody. then i took it to a friend, a jazz writer named oscar brown jr, who liked it, took that opening line, and crafted a beautiful lyric. i'm hoping that one of these days a jazz singer will record it; it would be like a dream come true.

write from your heart. if you like what you come up with, others will, too.

Patskywriter, if you are referring to the late Oscar Brown Jr. of "Work Song" and "Dat Dere" fame (among other gems) then my hat is off to you. That must be some tune! Any singer ought to be honored to record it. Best of luck with it.

What you said about Monk speaks volumes. I really think that there are rules and then there are no rules and there are no mistakes if you know how to resolve a note so that the supposed mistake then becomes correct. Then again, who is to say what correct is? There are things I view as musically correct, I know that they are, yet there are others that don't view it that way and write great music. It's often been said that if the Beatles had the background in theory that some musicians have they never would have written the great tunes they did. Still there are others who have all kinds of theoretical knowledge and write great tunes. Of course, this works the other way. There are those who know nothing and write s--t and there are those that know everything and write a bigger pile of s--t than those who know nothing.

Who knows? To me, it's all about how you get down what you hear in your head and feel in your soul and put it across to the listener, who doesn't usually give a f--k if you've used a "Cm7b9#12bb14 Inversion 2 Raised To The 5th Power".

I know my fair share of theory and that used to get in the way. When I first learned a bunch of sophisticated, hip sounding chords I couldn't write a normal tune without trying to force one of them into it. These "tunes" were, in actuality, big chordal piles of dung because they had no real basis on the most important thing, which is the melody, even if it's some kind of bop melody/line as opposed to a standard type of tune. I'd sit there with something that should obviously have had, let's say, a D major played under it and instead would try and force something else under it, because of course D major wasn't cool and hip. No good. Just try to avoid sophistication for the sake of sophistication. If it's sophisticated/hip, then fine.

So now that my rant is done, here is my approach:

1. I almost always write the melody first. If I come up with some interesting chord progression first, then the minute I start playing it I begin singing something over it. Always have your main focus on the melody. One melody can indicate many different chords.

2. I don't write all my tunes on the guitar, to avoid writing tunes that are riff oriented or "guitar tunes". I'm not saying that always happens but it seems to happen more when every tune is written using the axe. I'm no Art Tatum, but I can write a tune at the piano. The fact I'm not a pianist actually helps because I play a melody using the "one finger typing" method and it really forces me to concentrate on the melody. Piano also helps you to really visualize chords and see so many possible variations because of course, you can play voicing with more notes. This can then be translated to the guitar.

3. Enjoy yourself and don't get hung up on theory to the point of hating the process.

[patskywriter]

paynow, thanks for the kind words! yes, i meant 'that' oscar brown jr.
here we're talking about melodies and chords—oscar had to contend with lyrics, melodies, and chords! (he's known as a lyricist, but of course he wrote complete songs, too.)

one thing i like to do is to work on a song for a while and then walk away for a couple of days (after carefully notating as much as possible so it's not forgotten). then, if i revisit the song a couple of days later and still like it, then i know i've probably written a pretty good song. if i don't like it anymore i don't mind dumping it (although sometimes bits and pieces can end up in future songs).

[paynow]

Originally Posted by patskywriter

paynow, thanks for the kind words! yes, i meant 'that' oscar brown jr.
here we're talking about melodies and chords—oscar had to contend with lyrics, melodies, and chords! (he's known as a lyricist, but of course he wrote complete songs, too.)

one thing i like to do is to work on a song for a while and then walk away for a couple of days (after carefully notating as much as possible so it's not forgotten). then, if i revisit the song a couple of days later and still like it, then i know i've probably written a pretty good song. if i don't like it anymore i don't mind dumping it (although sometimes bits and pieces can end up in future songs).

You bet. He's awesome. I agree with your "walk away for a while" policy.