Hi,

I have been producing trance music for sometime now, and I find myself being able to produce some fairly decent tracks with one exception. Everytime I try to compose a trance melody it sounds kind of POP rather than trance.

Is there any good rule of thumb in composing trance melodies in terms of what rythym, intervals, scales, etc I need to use? I know I need to use minor scales/chords etc. Just the melody always seems to come out as pop..

Any help would be appreciated

Thanks!

_N

There was a big thread on this not too long ago... look for it

try not to make the melody line too 'lyrical' if u know wot i mean..

start with a good chord progression and work from there.

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do not write in Major scale... do minor... other than that, it`s your head the music is coming from..

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quote:

Originally posted by Subtle do not write in Major scale... do minor... other than that, it`s your head the music is coming from..

Why not major scale? Isn't Seven Cities written in major? Any man others...

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Minor, Major, it doesn't matter just whatever sounds good to your ear.

Although minor tends to be the choice in trance music!
unless people can prove me wrong....

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quote:

do not write in Major scale... do minor...

what kind of advice is that?!

seriously it doesnt matter a jot what scale you base your leads on although it will change the overall movement and expression of the melody you are playing. but there is enough room in trance for such a wide range of expression that it seems ridiculous to limit that to minor scales. plenty of trance isnt played along minor scales. many use moded scales too. the opening pad in urban train for example (the original promo anyway) plays in lydian mode which is a slight variant on a c major scale and ive seen plenty of variety elsewhere.

ultimately i dont think it matters what theory you bring to the table although it may help you to understand what you are writing and help you to connect certain types of expression with musical movements and progressions. the energy that comes from the music i hear is not in the rigid, music theory painting by numbers bullshit that some people will tell you is a requirement before you can start writing songs - i find it comes from different places.

1) the subtle accidental qualities which make it not quite right. not quite perfect.

2) the energy that the musician puts into the song. this is so important and if i knew why this was the case id have a hundred and one stomping tunes under my belt. but the stuff that i write that i end up keeping is normally the stuff that i write when im having an ephinany or something. just a moment of total immersion when im completely fired up. if you really *feel* the music you are writing and its genuine it will come across in the song.

3) simplicity. there is beauty and elegance in simplicity. just listen to some of cosma's tunes to get an idea of this. the biggest problem i get is embellishing a melody. overcomplicating it before it needs complexity to work. and you cannot embellish something which isnt yet developed enough to warrant embellishment. its just pointless decoration. the foundations arent there. the feeling isnt there. you might as well start adding frills to your curtains before the curtain rail is up. the whole thing wont hold together. in the end it gets bogged down with fanciful fills for the sake of having fills and crazy arppegiated bits for the sake of having crazy arpeggiated bits and it sounds shit. because theres no reason for it except to make it look more complex than it really is. really alot of the most iconic melodies are very very simple and sometimes complexity comes about in music by layer upon layer of simple melody and counter melody and the end result is complex because it sounds like 1 sound when it is in fact many superimposed.

if you want your music to stop sounding like pop, forgot making music by numbers. forget prescriptive theory. go back to the roots of what makes this music 'trance.' this is what im beginning to do which is why i suppose i have ended up writing something that bears more resemblance to psy/goa. i seek to fulfill 2 things in my music. to have a constant hypnotic sound that you lose yourself in. to have a moment in that song (even if it just is literally a moment) where something 'happens' (doesnt matter what it is) that makes the whole song worth the journey. a bit vague i know but i dont feel that is something you can find in a book that lists 7 ascending and descending notes and patterns.

who was it (bach?) that said that music in purely theoretical terms is just mathematics? hes absolutely right. its maths with no soul.

maybe you just prefer pop???

but the trouth is just to sit on it until you get what you want

The issue that I am having is this. I found the perfect chrod progression. So having the chord progression I proceeded to discover the "perfect" melody, which I did using a piano. So hearing the piano melody with chords in the background sounded so great. Then I called my singer to sing that melody (so I removed the piano)

Anyway, when my singer sang the melody with the chords in the background it sounded nothing like the way it sounded when it was played with the piano... Sounded so different. Now I am thinking of scrapping it and rediscovering a new one which is more vocal friendly....

Thanks for all your input. Any more ideas would be appreciated..

-N

Hello folks!
Quite an interesting thread here, and I'd chip in my 2 pence.
Agreeing to Derivative here :

Trance music, as most people forget, is not about the "genre", or "type" of music, but it's a State of mind.

This type of music is called Trance for no other reason, that it's supposed to get you in that state of mind, Euphoria, if you may.

Hence, this genre of music, according to me has not gone completely mainstream, and I beleive that's a godo thing. Hell,Trance would be no fun, if every Tom, Dick and Harry bought music off the shelf, and prolifering it, as if it was a Britney Spears album. Also Trance is very much different than "house", and "techno", and it annoys me, when ignornat people, can't figure out the difference.

A session of Trance music, is a journey. It's not just beat-matching and train-wrecking, but there is more involved. Trance needs to have a drift in mood. Hence a "intro" is very important, as well as the encore.

One of the feature of Trance music, is that the music scale is not predictable. You can start with a G#, and the ears are accustomed to hear the next scale like a F-Minor, but instead you do something else. This off-scale tunes creates a difference. For e.g. Adagio in G by Tiesto is an example.

As a Trance DJ myself, and quite influenced by PVD and I learned a lot. You'd mostly use minor scales, mostly in E... (Free falling by NU NRG for e.g) and then take 2 notes highher and lower, instead of 1 note. Try it out with a Midi synth.

I'm on my way to produce my second album now, and have been inspired by Above & Beyond, and PVD. PM me, if you have any questions, and I'd glad to help.

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Pippins

Last edited by Pippins on Apr-27-2005 at 19:01