Music and Melody Tutorial
I've been browsing through this forum for quite a while and I've seen a lot of people asking about melodies and how to make them. I figured I'd share my knowledge and put together a little tutorial on how to get started making some simple leads. I spent a couple hours creating, writing, rendering, and capturing images so forgive me if there's an error. The tutorial is quite long so don't expect to finish it in one sitting. The sequencer and host program is Fruityloops, but the principles still apply. With that in mind...lets get going!
*The samples are made with the V-station*
PART I: MUSIC ESSENTIALS
Ok, before we get into the actual construction of the melody we need to first understand some musical theory. I know that not everyone here has had 12 years of piano and music theory like me, so I'll start from the basics. Let's run down some essentials to music.
Essential One: The Note
Every single note on the piano, on the guitar, or any instrument out there has a pitch to it. In musical terms we characterize the degrees of pitch by letter names (C-D-E-F-G-A-B). In between these pitches, there are also additional tonalities. So, we designate the half tonalities between these pitches with flats (b) and sharps (#). Flats lower the pitch by a semitone. Sharps raise the pitch by a semitone. A semitone is the smallest jump possible between two notes. Lets look at a keyboard to get an idea.
The note on the piano roll is at C right now. The white note above C would be D and the white note above that will be E and so forth following the C-D-E-F-G-A-B pattern. When you get to B the next note above that will be C and the pattern goes on.
Now, back to the keyboard. If I move that note to the black note right above. It becomes C#. If I move it down to the nearest white note it becomes Cb. You should realize that Cb is also B. In music there can be different names for the same note (Enharmonic). Even though this isn't important, if anyone gets stuck with wait that's B...no.. Cb, that should relax you a bit.
Here is a sample of what C followed by C# followed by Cb sounds like.
-----> Sample <-----
Back to semitones. Remember, one semitone is the smallest jump possible (lets say C to C# for example). We also call one semitone a half-step. Two semitones form a whole step. Twelve semitones is considered an octave and that will return you back to the same note in a pattern. That is 12 semitones above C will bring you to C again. :-) That should do it for notes.
Essential Two: Key
So now that we know notes, we can get into keys. Keys are like a set of guidelines that make sure the music makes sense. It tells you what notes you can use so you can maintain a consistency in the harmonies of your song.
There are two types of keys: major and minor. In general a major key sounds happy and energetic and a minor key more epic and emotional. Depending on the feel you are looking for, you may want to consider these.
Keys utilizies flats and sharps to shift sounds up and down so that they may stay within harmony. Different keys require different numbers of sharps or flats. For each key, these guidelines then become known as key signature. Here is a table of key signatures.
The table above shows the corresponding sharps and flats to every key. Notice that every major key has the same key signature as another minor key. We call this the relative minor. To figure this out, you only need to go 3 semitones down from a major key. For example, the relative minor of C major is A minor. Or, you can memorize the table.
The most important part of this section is to STAY IN THE KEY. I've seen too many people jump in and out of keys causing a musically unsound and rambling song.
That should just about cover keys. Let's move on.
Essential Three: Scales
Scales are a series of notes that go from some root note (lets say D) to the root note again an octave up or down. It's important to take note of the key here because it will tell you what notes you need to raise and what notes to lower so the scale sounds right. Although there are many types of scales, I'll highlight the two simplest: major and minor
Major Scales
Let's look at a D Major scale.
Starting from D, a scale should go through every note of the pattern (D-E-F#-G-A-B-C# in this case) until it ends up back at the root note, D. Keys are important because it tells you need to raise F and C a semitone to get the right tonality.
-----> What This Sounds Like <-----
Now let's look at a D Minor scale
The scale still starts from D, but the pattern now follows D-E-F-G-A-Bb-C-D. The difference between a major and minor key is that a minor key lowers the 3rd, 6th, and 7th notes of the scale. I've highlighted the notes in blue.
-----> What This Sounds Like <-----
*Take note of the number of semitones between each note of a major scale and a minor scale. They are the same for ANY key.*
Also, here we can more specifically define Staying in the Key. Staying in the key means using only the notes that are present in the scale. A D major key should use only D major scale notes.
Alright, enough of scales.
Essential Four: Chords
The last essential before we move on into the making of melodies. Chords are simply multiple notes played at the same time. While chords can be made by combining any variety of notes, it's useful to stay in key so that the chords sound nice. At this point, you probably don't know when you can play out of key and still make a great melody...so I'll leave that for you to explore on your own after you understand this stuff. Here is an image of chords.
The same chord can have different inversions i.e. different bottom notes. The first chord in the picture is D minor. Because D is on the bottom, it's in root position. However, if I move D an octave up (next chord), it becomes 1st inversion. It's still the same chord but with a different bottom note. If I move the bottom note up again, it becomes 2nd inversion. Still same chord. *Inversions are very useful in making melodies so take note of this*
Chords don't have to be so obvious. You can always thrown in more notes and get more interesting combined sounds. Try four notes or alternations of three or two and so forth.
The next part we need to understand is the chord progression. Chords played in a melodic sequence form chord progressions. Here's an image.
-----> What This Sounds Like <-----
The concept behind a chord progression is to move along the different harmonies of a key by means of chords. For example, if we take the key to be D minor, we could construct chords along the scale of D minor. To get an idea of what I'm talking about, look at this picture.
I took a D minor scale and drew simple 3 note chords along each note. To reference the different chords, we normally use Roman numerals like I, IV, vii and so forth. But for the ease of this tutorial, I decided to use actual numbers. Notice that the D minor chord is the 1st chord. The chord on E becomes the 2nd and the chord on F becomes the 3rd. It goes on until it returns back to D, the 1 chord..
Now that we have that down, here's the key part. Depending on how you combine the chords that can be formed along the D minor scale, you can get different and unique chord progressions. For example, I can take the chords in the pattern 1-4-5-1 or 1-2-5-6 and so forth. Remember that you can use different inversions of chords and move them up and down octaves so the harmonies sound more together. Play around with this technique. I'm sure you'll find something you like.
I went through the essentials in brief, but if you need more detailed information about music theory, visit Derivative's Tutorial.
-----> Derivative's Tutorial <-----
Ok, enough of essentials.
PART II: MELODY CONSTRUCTION
I'm sure we've all had those times when we can't grind out a melody. Sometimes patterns might not sound right or harmonic. For others, musical blockades can start from not even knowing where to place a note. So, I'm hoping that this section will kind of help you pick a direction in choosing/creating your melodies. Let's get going.
Most of the melodies made in trance come from broken chords and scales. Broken chords happen when you take the notes of a chord and you separate them into a pattern. Very good melodies and patterns come from combining broken chords and scales. Doing so often helps the melody to "flow" much better since the notes aren't blocked together rigidly. A good strategy to start mixing chords and scales is to start from simple chords. Let's look at a picture.
I basically wrote a D minor chord in root position and 1st inversion. Now I'm going to break these chords up and write it into a pattern.
The blue notes are the original chord notes that I broke up and repeated. The pattern is pretty generic but it helps you see how this is done. The orange notes act as a mini bassline so the melody has a lower harmony. The green notes are part of the D minor scale and function as transitional notes. They allow the melody to move in and out of the notes of the chords. If you look to the far right, the pink notes show 5 notes of the D minor scale. So, you see it's like broken chords and scales.
-----> What This Sounds Like <-----
From here you can repeat this pattern and change the orange notes within D minor *STAY IN KEY* and get a nice lead going.
-----> What This Sounds Like <-----
Pretty good. But, after some time that pattern can get annoying and boring. So lets take melody construction one step further.
Instead of utilizing just one chord, we can construct a more unique melody from a chord progression. This way the melody has more room for innovation and creativity not only because there are more notes to play with, but also because there are plenty of chord progressions to try. Plus, its more interesting than just a 2 bar pattern. Let's look at the previous chord progression we had previously in the tutorial.
Lets do this a step at a time because this can get complicated. The melody is in the key of D Minor, so it should make sense that the first chord you see is a simple D Minor chord plus a lower harmony at D.
Now we start with the different chords. Once again I'm going to stay in the key and use only the notes that are present in the D minor scale (on the right). Let's take the lower harmony down to Bb and construct a chord on it. I'm going to write a chord starting on Bb but using only the notes available in D minor. So far ok? Next, I'm going to do the same procedure and change the lower harmony to F. Follow up with a shift to C and we are set for 8 bars.
This part may be very confusing. You may ask, "Well, how do you know to shift to Bb and then F and C?" I could have chosen a variety of shifts because there are many chord progressions out there. For example, isntead of shifting to Bb, I could have gone to C instead, then to F and G. Be creative and try more complicated patterns. Don't limit yourself to just 8 bars. If you feel there is more room for the melody to develop, write a 16 bar pattern or more. This is an aspect of writing melodies I can't really teach because it depends more on your creativity and willingness to explore to put it all together. Nonetheless, the most important thing is to stay in the key. Follow that rule and your harmonies should be fine.
I'm gonna take these chords apart very much in the same way as the 2 bar pattern by utilizing inversions and scale notes. Here's a picture of what I did. Chords are in blue, melody foots in orange, transitional notes in green and the scale in pink.
-----> What This Sounds Like <-----
This sounds a bit more cool than the repeating 2 bar pattern I started with.
If you need an FLP to work with, below I've provided the link for an Fl studio 6 file. It only includes the melodies, i.e. no chords or progressions or scales. I tried my best to replicate the sound with the 3xOsc so bear with me.
-----> Download FLP File <-----
This is about as much as I can share with you on constructing melodies. I do want you to realize that I only want this to serve as a starting point for melodies. This isn't the only way to make them. There are many alternatives. Play around with the patterns, the rhythm, and the chords. Melodies don't all have to sound the same. Good Luck with music composing!
Wow...there went like 5-6 hours...lol!
___________________
Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself
Last edited by azndragon0613 on Jul-27-2007 at 02:47
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