Why do my melodies, or whatever, suck so bad?

[Efrafa11]

learn some music theory. Specifically learn about consonance and dissonance; the traditional roles scale degrees play in melody (EG the relationship between the tonic and the dominant/subdominant, why the mediant defines a mjor or minor feel depending on its relation to the tonic e.t.c.) Learn about cadence and repose and motifs and other bits of general traditional melodic structuring. This stuff can be transfered over into any scale or mode.

/thread really.

[topmo3]

there is no shortcut though.. listen to a lot of music, try to duplicate the melodies you hear (not just dubstep) on guitar / keyboard or whatever may be your instrument.. or if you don't have an instrument, sit down and draw midi events on a piano roll so that it sounds the same, so that you understand what is the chemistry behind those melodies. I'm sure most of them use a lot of the same notes.. it's been a long time since i've dealt with music theory terms but you can go far with a tritonus, 2nd., minor, the pentatonic scale, the minor scale and remember to try octaves, a lot of basslines have like two notes but they're on different octaves so it sounds cool .

[4rantare]

I am sure music theory can be all helpful and so but I disagree when people tell it is necessary "unless you're a savant". I just listen when I do my melodies and chord progressions (I basically don't know more music theory than what a scale is and how chords work) and I think it works fine. When comming up with new melodies/chord progressions just listen to what comes up in your head and then try putting it down into notes/MIDI or play it on keyboard.

Feeling and listening is key, not music theory. Music theory is more like a good shortcut.

[Alistairr]

man not the music theory argument again lol.

the thing with music theory is that it helps you understand the mechanics of melody/chord writing but that is all.

training (and tuning) your ear is, i believe, far more important.

who wants to spend hours reading a dusty old book on chordal progressions that would probably suit an orchestral score rather then some flimsy dubstep tune- i certainly dont.

practise makes perfect.

[Huts]

get one of those sheets that has every chord on it, have that open when you write your melodies

[4rantare]

man not the music theory argument again lol.

the thing with music theory is that it helps you understand the mechanics of melody/chord writing but that is all.

training (and tuning) your ear is, i believe, far more important.

who wants to spend hours reading a dusty old book on chordal progressions that would probably suit an orchestral score rather then some flimsy dubstep tune- i certainly dont.

practise makes perfect.

I don't believe tuning your ear (I comprehend "tuning" as getting a good hearing of "correct pitch"?) is as important as training your hear to pick out what you imagine or hear. music is alot about creativity and when following formulas (music theory) too much the creativity may suffer.

[NinjaEdit]

What makes the major scale "happy" is the major 3rd, and to a lesser extent, the major 6th.

Instead try using the minor 2nd, minor 3rd, diminished 5th, minor 6th.

I know all the music theory and still write random notes in the piano roll. Whatever sounds good.

Now to be rude, this thread demonstrates how much users of this forum understand music theory.

[DubMikey]

What makes the major scale "happy" is the major 3rd, and to a lesser extent, the major 6th.

Instead try using the minor 2nd, minor 3rd, diminished 5th, minor 6th.

I know all the music theory and still write random notes in the piano roll. Whatever sounds good.

Now to be rude, this thread demonstrates how much users of this forum understand music theory.

I'm sure you know EVERYTHING on the music theory subject, yeeeah.

[synthlf]

for me "raven spiral guide"(free great pdf on music theory) and a little bit of practice made my tunes a lot better!

[Today]

lol theory was analyzed and written after stuff sounded good. not the other way around. It's as much a waste of time as studying principles of architecture in order to learn to build something. It's not the same as learning to hammer a nail, but both are important.

It isn't "reading a dusty book" either. If you understand it, it becomes a part of your thought and listening process, as well as your practicing/playing process. You do some reading in between playing and listening to music. It makes you better

idc if people wanna ignore it. doesn't bother me. but don't write it off as a waste of time. eventually something will cause you to see how valuable it is to someone who can use it

[InternetSlaveMaster]

I'd suggest also learning an instrument if you haven't.

Learn how to play other people's songs. Really helps a lot.

Do you know any places I can find notes from other songs, that isn't written on sheet music?

You can try http://www.911tabs.com, it's basically a tab-search database.

I usually go for http://www.ultimateguitar.com though, but they're owned by 911tabs I think (and they'll show up in the 911tab database).

Best of luck!

[Killamike49]

Download midi for songs and load them into your daw. There's a program called tabit that i use quite heavily for this. I can take any tabit file (which thee are a fucking lot of) and export it as midi. I'm sure you can find some raw midi data for songs somewhere.

[joegrizzly]

This is a very useful website I use as a guideline when writing out melodys

http://www.pianoworld.com/fun/vpc/piano_chords.htm

Another thing I can say, if you dont already, is use a couple of different instruments combined together to write your melody (ex. first 2 notes with some type of string, next few notes on piano) just to keep it a bit more interesting, and less gay

[DubMikey]

This is a very useful website I use as a guideline when writing out melodys

http://www.pianoworld.com/fun/vpc/piano_chords.htm

Another thing I can say, if you dont already, is use a couple of different instruments combined together to write your melody (ex. first 2 notes with some type of string, next few notes on piano) just to keep it a bit more interesting, and less gay

That is actually not a bad idea.

[joegrizzly]

That is actually not a bad idea.

Yezzurrr

[jaydot]

Because you suck at writing melodies?

[_TraX_]

go out of time, if you have the same base note hitting every 4 bars or something it'll sound bollocks. Make it wonky, non-sensicle, that's my advice.
Having a good synth to cover up a lackluster melody always works too

[Huts]

write your melodies without any drums or BPM counters then fit your song around it. nothing is worse than having a cool idea for a melody that just won't fit your drums or is too fast/slow for the BPM you're already working at

[dopocc]

awesome thread

[Metropolis]

I need to get a keyboard and have been looking at getting a book of jazz standards. Practise leading tones and chromatic shit.