The document discusses tips for expanding on a melody, including:
1) Removing notes from the melody in layers to identify important elements like hooks or rhythmic patterns, then varying those elements.
2) Creating countermelodies and varying the chords underneath the melody.
3) Modulating to different keys for passages, phrases, or individual beats to lead to more interesting areas.
4) Techniques like inversion, sequence, augmentation, and imitation can be used to variate or develop the melody. Changing note lengths, textures, registers, or underlying harmonies can also help expand the melody.
The document discusses tips for expanding on a melody, including:
1) Removing notes from the melody in layers to identify important elements like hooks or rhythmic patterns, then varying those elements.
2) Creating countermelodies and varying the chords underneath the melody.
3) Modulating to different keys for passages, phrases, or individual beats to lead to more interesting areas.
4) Techniques like inversion, sequence, augmentation, and imitation can be used to variate or develop the melody. Changing note lengths, textures, registers, or underlying harmonies can also help expand the melody.
The document discusses tips for expanding on a melody, including:
1) Removing notes from the melody in layers to identify important elements like hooks or rhythmic patterns, then varying those elements.
2) Creating countermelodies and varying the chords underneath the melody.
3) Modulating to different keys for passages, phrases, or individual beats to lead to more interesting areas.
4) Techniques like inversion, sequence, augmentation, and imitation can be used to variate or develop the melody. Changing note lengths, textures, registers, or underlying harmonies can also help expand the melody.
The document discusses tips for expanding on a melody, including:
1) Removing notes from the melody in layers to identify important elements like hooks or rhythmic patterns, then varying those elements.
2) Creating countermelodies and varying the chords underneath the melody.
3) Modulating to different keys for passages, phrases, or individual beats to lead to more interesting areas.
4) Techniques like inversion, sequence, augmentation, and imitation can be used to variate or develop the melody. Changing note lengths, textures, registers, or underlying harmonies can also help expand the melody.
Quite recently, I've had a song waltz its way into my head after a very vivid dream.
While I know how the intro and transition to the chorus will go, the entirety of it feels too short. It's a Waltz in E major played for a classical classical guitar and I've been trying to study similar songs or even completely different ones to maybe create variation within the main melody, but none of them seem to quite fit.
Anyone have resources or tips for expanding on melody, creating counter-melo
counter melody and so on? I feel like I have the main points of the story, but nothing interesting to fill in between the main points.
8 comments 100% Upvoted This thread is archived New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast Sort by level 1 [deleted] 7 points · 3 years ago · edited 3 years year ago
Take your melody, and remove notes in layers, until you have a series of bare bones melodies - take out neighbour/passing notes, then non chord notes, then repeated notes, etc. Consider the important features of your melody - what are the hooks? Is therehere a specific rhythm that defines it, is there a jump of a sixth that then falls a by a second that seems to be really important? Then play with that. The up a sixth down a 2nd can become down a 6th up a 2nd, or it could be generalised to a jump up and a step/lesser jump down.
Do you have maybe a 2 bar hook that you can use at the start of each repetition and then vary the rest of the melody and go off in different directions each time?
Vary the chords underneath, and don't be afraid to vary the melody if the chords require. If anything, that can lead to much more interesting areas. Modulate. Modulate. Modulate. For a passage. For a phrase. For a bar. For a cadence. For a beat. Modulate.
Edit: typos
level 2 JcobTheKid 2 points · 3 years ago
My fear with writing so far has been keeping the integrity / spirit of the song when I first heard. eard. At least when I first started trying to write it, it seemed like every variation just did not fit. Though I also suppose that's the beauty of it. Even if it's all the notes from a particular scale being played at different order, the way it's ordered, played and repeated can all create something that makes sense and paints a story or become a huge mess of discord that might still hold musical value.
Regardless, thanks for the specific answer. I'll try to look up some examples and modulate.
level 1 Soccubus 2 points · 3 years ago · edited 3 years ago
Well.. there is a LOT you can do in terms of creating and expanding upon melodies.
Let's start with simple forms.
A simple song form would have (a-b-a) form. Main theme, secondary theme and the main theme again. If you want, you can consider this (a-b-a) to be your capital A. Now you can do the same thing with your capital B and do a (c-d-c) song form in a different key.
So if you want it to be nice and "finished", you could go with a simple (A-B-A) form. It's basically similar to (a-b-a), but in a greater scale. So (a-b-a)(c-d-c)(a-b-a).
If you want it to be slightly more sophisticated, you could add some sort of modification in the repetition. A-B-A'.
So for instance (a-b-a)(c-d-c)(a-b'-a'), where b' is shorter and a' is longer.
Or if you wanted you could add some development in there as well. So A-B-(development)- A', where the (development) part could be like (a'-a''-d'-e) or whatever. Neat.
BUT. That depends on what you're doing. Sometimes you don't want that. So let's get to the melody itself.
How can I make A' out of my dreamy A? Or add on top of it? Well. You can do various things.
• Reducing the melody. Making it shorter. Skip some notes, leave the most important ones there. Or completely change the second half of the melody and make it into a modulation to a new key, or a gradation that leads up to the next part. • Thicken the melody. Add ornaments, trills, chords, octaves, intermediate tones.. make it sound like the melody in the beginning was just a stripped down version of this. You could even create a simpler version of the melody you already have and put it in the beginning of the song, so it "develops" into your current melody. • Imitation. Keep the rhythm, ditch the tones. Make a new melody with the same rhythm. Or the other way around. Keep the melody and ditch the rhythm. • Make the note lengths double or half the original length. I prefer making the melody twice as long and adding some stuff in other voices. This can act as a great reminiscence of the original theme. Or if you decide to put the main melody into lower voices, it could mask it nicely and you could build a different "important" melody in the higher voices. • Inversion. Your melody was going up? How about now it went down? This can be used to variate the melody, or to create a continuation of the melody (or other parts of the songs) • Add ostinato. A motif that repeats itself over and over and expand other voices on top of that. • If you want a new melody melody after a fast passage, you can create contrast. Make the second one softer. The first one had rhythmical drive? This one could be simple and lyrical. Imagine a singer. Or even better, sing for yourself. Singing is a great source of new inspiration. • Dialogues. ues. You can make the high voices play something and then the low voices could reply. Or you could divide one melody so that first half is played in the upper registers and the second half in the lower ones. And vice versa. • Keep the melodies (or slightly alter alter them) and change the underlying harmonies. • Create a sequence!! Meaning that the same melodic model keeps moving up or down within the scale, ale, one step at a time.
Remember. You can always use your existing material as inspiration. There's so much you can do with it... you just need to be brave and willing to experiment. Play around. Have fun.
Anyways... this comment has barely any structure..
structure.. it's just me enthusiastically rambling about stuff... if you have any questions feel free to ask!
Happy composing!
level 1 bonumvunum 1 point · 3 years ago
I have this exact problem. All my songs end up being super short, but I just can't figure out how to make it longer
level 2 JcobTheKid 2 points · 3 years ago
There seems to be two great answers here, so I guess we got somewhere to go. :D level 1 ljse7m 1 point · 3 years ago
What you need to investigate is something called "melodic development" and it is the study of how to take some simple motives and using techniques to build them into phrases and larger motives and to develop a small amount of information into a complete song or symphony.
Some of the elements include but are not limited to:
augmentation, fragmentation, inversion, elongation, sequencing, inversion, retrograde and
other elements.
If you contact me through private email or my website I will be happy to send you some links and searches that will give you a lot of the concepts and you can then ask specifically about which ones you don't understand. We are forbidden to post "searches" on reddit and that is the way I usually do my "list making" but I will be happy to give you some suggestions "off reddit" but those terms are found in some of the side bar theory links and they are easy to find.
I will be happy to go into detail when you narrow down some of the techniques you may want to use.
LJSe7m
level 2 JcobTheKid 1 point · 3 years ago
I think you pointed me to the right direction. I haven't thought of actually looking towards melodic development in my google searches instead of searching for songs and studying them.
I've been working harder, not smarter...haha.
I will private message or whatnot if I come across a question. Thanks!
