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God this whole section of music making bothers the shit out of me, making a "good melody/intro"
I feel like all of my melodies sound ameture when I've been producing for 3 years, something should have changed.
Either they sound boaring, repetitive, or just dumb.
I don't have a midi keyboard but I am getting one within the next month or 2.
I've tried everything. stabs and jabs in random places, switching up the meldoy to stop the repetitive sides but nothing works!
Does anyone have any advice or know of a good video that would help?
Please share! Thanks !

dubstep isnt known for it's beautiful melodies. listen to some classical for inspiration and ideas. melody was pretty much what it was all about until the 20th century.

I don't think there's anything unusual about your situation. Have you ever had any formal musical theory lessons? People spend a lifetime trying to perfect their understanding of melody/harmony and that's those are focusing on it solely! (composers e.t.c.)

I would advise getting some musical theory books and spending the time to go through them properly. There's a series of 3 books by Michael Hewitt that are specifically written for computer music producers that begin wit hthe very basics, and eventually move up to extremely complicated musical concepts. There's also an article every month in Computer Music Magazine by RachMiel where he breaks down various concepts and explains how to apply them in a computer music production context; I find them extremely helpful.

The point is, if all you've been doing for the past three years is 'playing by ear' and sort of fumbling out your own feel for melody and harmony, you won't get any better past a certain point. There are certain relationships with tone in equal temperament that simply aren't discoverable from the notes alone; and have taken hundreds of years to discover and map out. Things like leitmotif, consonance and dissonance, how the scale degrees relate (which is an extremely detailed subject alone), cadence, reposition, and that is before we even enter the far more complex world of harmony.

Knowing these things allows you a mental map which you can use to orient yourself towards a certain sound or feeling within your music, knowing things like F Lydian sounds exotic or Whole tone scales sound magical, really are the foundation upon which you can explore music in a structured manner, following certain guide lines wherein you can find which combinations of which things sound pleasing, to you. Though you cannot hope to get there if you don't even understand the nature of the landscape you are attempting to paint.

Until you have certain fundamentals under your belt, know a few scales by heart, can change key in a pleasing manner (and understand 'why' that works), understand how to build different scales from a key note by using a given scales tonal formula and have at least a rudimentary understanding of how different keys and scales relate to each other (circle of fifths for example); this is what you should be focusing on learning. The information is out there, Michael Hewitt's series is in my opinion by far the best option for you. I have done everything I've listed here so I'm speaking from experience, I once knew nothing about musical theory but now I know more than enough to play around in hours of enjoyment, just exploring how different concepts relate musically. It's one things knowing it theoretically, the fun begins when you can apply that practically and feel the joy of creating music with a true sense of feeling.

It's not something you can master over night, see it as something much bigger than something you can ever fully achieve, see it as more of an area of reality, an abstract space, that you journey in to from time to time attempting to catch a recipe for expressing something meaningful to you.

I hope this helped. Good luck

edit: Read some of my old posts: 1 2 3 4 Lastly This huge one

There's more, search my name and 'musical theory' or something.

are you writting dubstep?

Turnipish Thoughts wrote:I don't think there's anything unusual about your situation. Have you ever had any formal musical theory lessons? People spend a lifetime trying to perfect their understanding of melody/harmony and that's those are focusing on it solely! (composers e.t.c.)

I would advise getting some musical theory books and spending the time to go through them properly. There's a series of 3 books by Michael Hewitt that are specifically written for computer music producers that begin wit hthe very basics, and eventually move up to extremely complicated musical concepts. There's also an article every month in Computer Music Magazine by RachMiel where he breaks down various concepts and explains how to apply them in a computer music production context; I find them extremely helpful.

The point is, if all you've been doing for the past three years is 'playing by ear' and sort of fumbling out your own feel for melody and harmony, you won't get any better past a certain point. There are certain relationships with tone in equal temperament that simply aren't discoverable from the notes alone; and have taken hundreds of years to discover and map out. Things like leitmotif, consonance and dissonance, how the scale degrees relate (which is an extremely detailed subject alone), cadence, reposition, and that is before we even enter the far more complex world of harmony.

Knowing these things allows you a mental map which you can use to orient yourself towards a certain sound or feeling within your music, knowing things like F Lydian sounds exotic or Whole tone scales sound magical, really are the foundation upon which you can explore music in a structured manner, following certain guide lines wherein you can find which combinations of which things sound pleasing, to you. Though you cannot hope to get there if you don't even understand the nature of the landscape you are attempting to paint.

Until you have certain fundamentals under your belt, know a few scales by heart, can change key in a pleasing manner (and understand 'why' that works), understand how to build different scales from a key note by using a given scales tonal formula and have at least a rudimentary understanding of how different keys and scales relate to each other (circle of fifths for example); this is what you should be focusing on learning. The information is out there, Michael Hewitt's series is in my opinion by far the best option for you. I have done everything I've listed here so I'm speaking from experience, I once knew nothing about musical theory but now I know more than enough to play around in hours of enjoyment, just exploring how different concepts relate musically. It's one things knowing it theoretically, the fun begins when you can apply that practically and feel the joy of creating music with a true sense of feeling.

It's not something you can master over night, see it as something much bigger than something you can ever fully achieve, see it as more of an area of reality, an abstract space, that you journey in to from time to time attempting to catch a recipe for expressing something meaningful to you.

I hope this helped. Good luck

edit: Read some of my old posts: 1 2 3 4 Lastly This huge one

There's more, search my name and 'musical theory' or something.

Some very good information here, props.

I would start with learning scales. What i do is get a feel for a certain scale and stick to it for a period of time, using it in multiple productions just to get comfortable. When you have the scale down it gets a lot easier to improvise.

I would have a chord progression playing in the background while you improvise, just so you have some guidelines to follow ( i find it a lot harder to improvise and write a melody without chords and a beat playing)

While improvising find 4/8 bar melody that you are fond of. Then record and quantize (i would make certain sections on beat, but leave some slightly off. Otherwise it wont have a swing to it, and it will get stagnant quick)

From there build off the melody, or simplify. If your playing with melodic intros i am going to assume your making bro/house/complextro... A lot of times you get a 8 bar melody that plays twice.. Then after the first 16 bars it will simplify to 4 bars for 2 times, then 2 bars for 2 times and soo on.

You can do it the opposite way as well.

Make a melody, then place that at 16 bars. Duplicate to bar one and start pulling out some notes until you think there is enough space. Again depends on your style but its good practice regardless.

http://tones.wolfram.com/generate/

Select dance and click on it until you get right melody. Yeah.

constrobuz wrote:dubstep isnt known for it's beautiful melodies. listen to some classical for inspiration and ideas. melody was pretty much what it was all about until the 20th century.

theres plenty dubstep producers who make beautiful melodys how about phaeleh? burial? owsey? everything solitude records is putting out

you need more chillstep in your life

JTMMusicuk wrote:

constrobuz wrote:dubstep isnt known for it's beautiful melodies. listen to some classical for inspiration and ideas. melody was pretty much what it was all about until the 20th century.

theres plenty dubstep producers who make beautiful melodys how about phaeleh? burial? owsey? everything solitude records is putting out

you need more chillstep in your life

Well burial samples his melodies


+1 for more chillstep

Blackmill has awsm melodies and general musicality in all his tracks, not "pure" dubstep but still good stuff, check him out.

Want melodies? Go to Chiptune, House, and Nu-Disco producers for that.
I still produce Chiptune. Melodies are the main focus of our tracks. Repetitive melodies that you wouldn't get bored of and lots of glitchy resampled shit. What the fucks a limiter, bro? ;P

ehbrums1 wrote:

I.. I love you. But we can't keep doing this.
I'm not your girl anymore. •_•

All suggestions aside, piano lessons I'd think would be the most helpful. That's what I'm doing pretty soon, I just can't get melodies right, not like you need some super advanced knowledge of writing melodies for a lot of electronic music, but having a basic idea of what rules (I know there are no "rules" in music) to adhere/respect when writing.

mromgwtf wrote:http://tones.wolfram.com/generate/

Select dance and click on it until you get right melody. Yeah.

lol i love this

op just sample something...its a lot easier

Compositon theory is what really helps , but it is really boring so just start analysing everything you listen to, the song structure, each part and its reason for being like that considering the whole formula/structure. For the intro you will realize two thinga:
1 - there are really very few formulas.
2 - usually the intro is something identical or a variation of something that is later in the song, so skipping the intro if you don't have an intro idea is a great idea.

4 random notes. That is all. They don't need to be in Key or work together well at all.
Just 4 random notes. Go for it.

BYTEME wrote:4 random notes. That is all. They don't need to be in Key or work together well at all.
Just 4 random notes. Go for it.

This is bullshit, honestly.

mthrfnk wrote:

BYTEME wrote:4 random notes. That is all. They don't need to be in Key or work together well at all.
Just 4 random notes. Go for it.

This is bullshit, honestly.

Elaborate this bullshit please.

BYTEME wrote:

mthrfnk wrote:

BYTEME wrote:4 random notes. That is all. They don't need to be in Key or work together well at all.
Just 4 random notes. Go for it.

This is bullshit, honestly.

Elaborate this bullshit please.

4 random notes not in key don't make melodies.

Melody: "A sequence of single notes that is musically satisfying."

I dislike when people just blast random notes in sequences, that end up sounding horrible, it never sounds musically satisfying to me.

Hence; bullshit.