Relationship Between Melody And Rhythm?

[SkyCanyon]

I'm building a song on my computer by recording tracks and then mixing down. This first tune has a distinctive rhythm pattern, and I'm noticing now that I put all the pieces together that my melody sounds detached from the rhythm. I have a few ideas about how to fix this, but I'd like to hear any tips that someone would like to offer? (Several heads are better than ... )

 

 

[SkyCanyon]

Something tells me you hit the nail on the head regarding the way/sequence this was put together. This is the first time I've written and mixed tracks at the same time. Something was bound to go off course. I'll go tidy up!

 

 

(Hey aren't you the guy who wrote Pentatonic Playground? I've had that in my iTunes for quite a while.)

[SkyCanyon]

In this case, the melody is the one tied to the lyrics. It's the primary melody as Tom said, unless I add a lead guitar or other instrument to take over and do a different melody for a while. So far, this is only vocal, keyboard, bass and drum. So I'm dealing with the primary melody / rhythm (drum) on a very elemental basis.

 

I've been listening to the radio with this topic in mind and found a good example of a tight relationship between primary melody and rhythm: Ben E. King's "Stand By Me"   Now I'm trying to find an example of a loose relationship.

[SkyCanyon]

And here it is, in my opinion. Alison Goldfrapp's beautiful voice carries the primary melody soaring above a slow throbbing rhythmic theme:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S85nT1n5fzg

[MikeRobinson]

On YouTube you will find lots of truly-crappy videos which all attempt more-or-less to cover a remarkable musical experience:  The Eagles playing Hotel California live.  Six or seven guitarists, all playing "melodies" at the same time on separate guitars, all of which melodies blend beautifully together to make ... instantly recognizable ... Hotel California.

 

If you were so-inclined to actually chart out all these various melodies, played as they are at slightly-different rhythms to create a very complex musical texture, you would observe that the various independent notes, taken together, form chords.  They form the basic chords of the song, with plenty of highlight notes (9ths, 11ths, 13ths), and they do so in such a way that they're constantly "trading places," contributing first one note and then another over time to what would be, in a much simpler arrangement of the same tune, "simply one sustained (yawn...) chord."

 

The effect of any one of those chords is often that of "arpeggiation," which simply means that, instead of all the necessary notes arriving at exactly the same instant, they arrive in quick succession, such that your ear is able to recognize them together.  (Even though the performance appears "spontaneous," it is scrupulously designed.)

 

All of the instruments – or at least, most of them – consistently hit the most important "beats" of the overall song so that you never lose track of the song that is being played, even as the constantly-changing blend of melodies dances around it.  ("In a DARK DES-ert HIGH-way (BINK! BONK!) ...")  Most of the guitars always hit (and emphasize) these notes, even as they pursue their own musical lines.  This is how the "melody(ies)" manage to reinforce the "rhythm" of the song and of the arrangement.

 

So, if you actually "charted out" all of this action, you'd find that the different musical lines are always forming chords, but that there's a constant variety in how-and-where those chords are formed.  You'd also see that, as they do so, most (but not always all) of them are coinciding on the major rhythmic beats.  None of them are commanding your attention at the expense of any of the rest of them, so you find your ear "wandering, delightfully(!)" amongst and between them.  "Melody" and "Rhythm," therefore, are happening at the same time.

[MikeRobinson]

I've seen one where there are seven guys all sitting on barstools in a row, all playing acoustics.

[rainsrocks]

No expert here but... I read the comments so far on this post and I thought I'd chime in.  Hobo and tunesmith are both right in a sense I think, but if you are trying to wrap your head around what a melody is, the simple way to think of it is it's the part of the song that you'd whistle.  Everything else is part of the arrangement (the way a performer has decided to arrange the song).  We all know how the melody to amazing grace goes.  It may not even be your favorite part of a recording or what makes it work, but that's what the melody is.

[SkyCanyon]

Thank you for elaborating the importance of a strong melodic idea. Perhaps what gave me trouble at first was that our European music tradition has a well-developed sense of melody and chords, whereas I've been listening quite a lot to African or African-derived rhythm.  I was trying to do both at the same time. I have to *start* somewhere, so I need to decide which part of the song will be the focus, and allow the other parts to support that.

[MikeRobinson]

Also – the African and Indian (as in "India") musical traditions place a very different emphasis on "melody."

[Brad Barnett]

If your melody isn't flowing with your rhythm then you should probably tweak your melody to be more in line with the rhythm being played.  Something as simple as slightly moving a note in the melody to hit at the same time as a snare or kick could do the trick.  Keep tweaking the song until it sounds exactly how you want it.  The more work you put into it the better it will sound!

[Rudi]

Keep tweaking the song until it sounds exactly how you want it. The more work you put into it the better it will sound!

 

 

That don't work for everybody. It might not even work for most people.