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

[JBE]

do you use keyboard?
drawing to piano roll newer work

This is false. Every melody I've ever made has been done with a piano roll. It works just fine.

[fv2k]

Way too often piano-roll work sounds way too stoppy/starty and robotic [not in a good way]

[wormcode]

Just turn off grid snap when you program with the mouse and piano roll, or shift things back a few ms.

[Electric_Head]

Even with snap turned on, there are many ways to make the piano roll sound very organic.

[dogmancar]

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?

guitar tableture is pretty easy to figure out.

[Attila]

Honestly sheet music is just as easy to read.

[Killamike49]

Honestly sheet music is just as easy to read.

I disagree, because of key signatures i know a lot of people who refuse to read it. Once you check the tuning on a guitar tab, the notes are there, and stay the same. I'm not saying reading music is hard, but guitar tab is baby-talk easy, haha.

[fauxfish]

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?

If you don't mind making a purchase: guitar pro.
When I first started learning guitar I used it. And then I used it again when starting to learn piano.

I'd definitely recommend learning an instrument to help write melodies.

The other thing that should always be remembered is that music theory is not a hard set of rules that you must follow. Rather music theory describes what you have done.

I've written songs without knowing really what key I'm working in - just really dissonant pieces. And then had others say 'oh man that's a nice change to a sus2 add maj7!' And I'm like 'oh so that's what I did...'

[Attila]

Honestly sheet music is just as easy to read.

I disagree, because of key signatures i know a lot of people who refuse to read it. Once you check the tuning on a guitar tab, the notes are there, and stay the same. I'm not saying reading music is hard, but guitar tab is baby-talk easy, haha.

I agree in that sense if you're just playing guitar, but it sounds like he'll have to translate it to piano after anyway so it's just adding an extra step. Idk, even if all you know are the notes on a staff I find sheet music is way easier for production purposes. Unless of course he has a gp file then he can just drag the midi over haha.

[dogmancar]

Honestly sheet music is just as easy to read.

I guess you're right here. I guess I suggested guitar tabs just because in my experience they are much easier to get a hold of online.