When i hear the word 'melody' i picture something that develops a bit more; you have one chord which you tentatively move away from and immediately return to; a simple melody is something you can do with one instrumental part without even having chords, but it tends to move a little further from where it started, in terms of the scale. A melody line will usually have more than three chords.
This is underselling what you're doing there though, which is, you've got a bassline that plays one tune, and then you've got some chords overlaid on top of that which harmonize with it. That's quite complicated! Which is to say, taken as a melody, it's a good start. But you're doing things there besides melody. Taken as a whole, what you have there is a good overall sound, which is actually a lot more difficult than just composing a melody. A melody in isolation doesn't really amount to much whereas what you have there stands on its own.
idk I keep getting the criticism that I 'need to' add more chords / melodies to my songs. Which would be fine if it were something I could do but I can't really seem to.
anyway I'm going to upload the finished version of that song now.
It might help to at least familiarize yourself with scales (as in the major/minor sound, not nesc. specific scales to begin with), if you aren't already?
i'm not trying to put you off here, i think having more of a grasp of melody would definitely give you more to work with and help you develop your music. But you should be aware that you already have a better grasp of texture, rhythm and harmony than i think most people do when starting from the very basics.
Just like, scales in general? Sorry if this is condescending but i mean, i think to talk about melody you need to be comfortable with the idea of moving about the scale, if that makes sense. If it doesn't, then reading up on scales might be a good idea.
i can operate a mixing desk if you don't ask me to do anything fancy, i can (laboriously) sequence midi if ditto, i can sorta read music but not well, and i can play piano to, idk, grade 3 standard maybe? i tried to learn guitar but couldn't get my head around it, i could sing pretty well before my voice got deeper, when i was a kid i wanted to rap but this was a stupid ambition since i can't even form sentences properly (i am so much less articulate irl, you have no idea)
so like, me trying to teach you, with multiple albums under your belt, even the first thing about music theory, is not so much blind leading the blind as, like, the extremely nearsighted trying to lead the mildly longsighted down a route she actually knows pretty well already, and complicated by i don't think we even have the same music vocabulary in common, but it's frustrating because the stuff i do know seems to be precisely the stuff you don't?
it's also presumptuous as heck of me and Yarrun, TNS, Glenn, probably half a dozen other heapers could explain this kinda thing better than me
I apologize. I didn't mean to post just that, but I was half-asleep and I hit 'post' without expanding on that.
You've got something of the beginnings of a melody in those G to F riffs you have going on. Best thing to do would be to expand on that. Can't have much of a melody with two tones. The song has a general G minor tonality to it, so you could start off by adding, say, an Eb before the Fs for a section of the song.
Comments
inspired by sunn's Problematic House joke
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
This is underselling what you're doing there though, which is, you've got a bassline that plays one tune, and then you've got some chords overlaid on top of that which harmonize with it. That's quite complicated! Which is to say, taken as a melody, it's a good start. But you're doing things there besides melody. Taken as a whole, what you have there is a good overall sound, which is actually a lot more difficult than just composing a melody. A melody in isolation doesn't really amount to much whereas what you have there stands on its own.
i'm not trying to put you off here, i think having more of a grasp of melody would definitely give you more to work with and help you develop your music. But you should be aware that you already have a better grasp of texture, rhythm and harmony than i think most people do when starting from the very basics.
i like the finished version.
e: why is it so hard to find good resources on this
does this help at all?
i can operate a mixing desk if you don't ask me to do anything fancy, i can (laboriously) sequence midi if ditto, i can sorta read music but not well, and i can play piano to, idk, grade 3 standard maybe? i tried to learn guitar but couldn't get my head around it, i could sing pretty well before my voice got deeper, when i was a kid i wanted to rap but this was a stupid ambition since i can't even form sentences properly (i am so much less articulate irl, you have no idea)
so like, me trying to teach you, with multiple albums under your belt, even the first thing about music theory, is not so much blind leading the blind as, like, the extremely nearsighted trying to lead the mildly longsighted down a route she actually knows pretty well already, and complicated by i don't think we even have the same music vocabulary in common, but it's frustrating because the stuff i do know seems to be precisely the stuff you don't?
it's also presumptuous as heck of me and Yarrun, TNS, Glenn, probably half a dozen other heapers could explain this kinda thing better than me
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead