In the previous lesson, we learned a way to create a bass line over a chord progression. We started with a very simple line and could develop better ideas. Today we will create a melody and add it to a beat.
A good melody will follow the current chord, but will also have passing notes and scale tones. It will have a good rhythm and can be build over motives. A motive (or motif) is a short musical idea that is developed throughout the song. A great example of a motif is on Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony:
So, this little one fragment was the musical motif used by Beethoven to compose the whole symphony.
Ok, we won’t compose a symphony, just a few bars. To do that, we will use the same chord progression from the previous lesson:
And we will use the beat/bass line also from the previous lesson:
In the first example there are only whole, half and quarter notes:
Here’s the melody in music notation:
Notice that in this first example, the melody in the last bar is just a G note over an F chord. If you think it doesn’t match, try to play an F9 chord instead.
Now let’s create a variation, adding 8th notes and ties:
Using music notation:
Notice that the idea is not to build a melody with lots of notes, but create variation and rhythm, resulting in a more interesting line.
Did you notice the motif used in the examples? It’s the descending motion from F to D. The descending 3rd interval is the concept.
In the second example, we developed the motif, creating a 3-note descending melody, starting from the 3rd of every chord (bars 1, 3 and 4).
Now we create some variation in the 3-note descending melody by changing the note values, as well as adding rests:
Using music notation:
So, with all those concepts in mind, you can build creative, beautiful and interesting melodies to your tracks.
Good productions!
