Simple Tools for Better Melodies
Simply put, melody is rhythm plus pitch. The pitch tells us what note to sing, but the rhythm tells us when and how long to hold it. Many times we songwriters play with pitch while turning a blind ear to rhythm. But it is rhythm, I think, that produces a more definable melody than pitch alone.
As a singer-songwriter, sometimes I’ve felt my melodies can be long, wandering phrases of medium length notes. Add to that rather tasteless concoction a lyric that is somewhat abstract and poetic around the common theme of love. The result is more often than not one of my more forgettable songs.
If I sing the notes to the familiar lyric ‘Yesterday” by the Beatles, it is easily identified. And yet they're just two notes, but it is the rhythm with which they're played that makes those few notes identifiable. And so one way that I move into more memorable writing is by starting my melodies with a short one or two measure motif. It's amazing how just a few notes can come together to create a memorable phrase.
We have several tools to choose from when it comes to melodic rhythm. When we write, we are defining the length of the note, the length of the melodic phrase, and where to begin and end that melodic phrase. We can use short notes or long notes, we can start on the downbeat or before the downbeat or after the downbeat, and we can write a very long or a very short melodic phrase. The key to a strong melody is in the motif. The motif is strong when it can be remembered, and to be remembered, it must be definable and repeated.
One great way to steep in the essence of melodic writing outside our own style is to listen to music that is outside of the genre we typically write within. Listening to Earth Wind and Fire for a week will help us to bring more groove and rhythmic-oriented writing to our sometimes lethargic styles. Listening to some punk or heavy rock, and I might just see my melodic rhythms become more punctuated in certain sections of my song.
If you find that your melodies aren’t very memorable, that doesn't mean that they don't contain strong melodic motifs. It just might mean that you are not using enough repetition of one or two melodic motifs. Look for the strongest melodic motif in any melody you typically write. Then, try to involve more repetition of that single motif.
To really write better melodies, sometimes we have to put our lyric brain aside. Spend a week or two just writing melody. Put your instruments aside if you find it limits you. Write the melodies in your head if you find your vocal proficiency limits you. At any given time we songwriters juggle a lot of balls with melody, harmony, rhythm, and lyric. Setting a few of those balls down to focus on one can be the key to strengthening the whole song.
Stay creative,
