Working Around A Melody

[jrmrmrc]

I'm inching my way into this songwriteing thing from somewhere below beginner status. Armed with the ability to read music, a fair-to-moderate grasp of guitar, and an almost-fair handle on piano.

In an effort to help me get my toes wet someone has asked me for help collaberating on thier song. She is writeing a vocal melody and will send it to me so I can hang the guitar bits up on it. If that goes well I might be writeing for some of the other instruments as well.

In theory I know the chord theories and arpeggios and scales and yes even the modes. But I'm nervous about putting these things to practice. I'm turning this knowlage around in my head an I'm not really sure which way to turn it so it will click neatly around a melody and voltron itself into an actual song.

Any adivce? Any at all please. I am really not sure where to start ... well I should figure out what key its in probably ... but beyond that I'm at a loss

-rc

[Just1L]

I'd say the best thing to do would be to wait until you get the vocal melody. Without hearing that there's really not a way I can think of to do music that will match it. Of course I'm no expert, but I don't see how it would be possible to do the music to match something you don't know about. After getting that, I'd listen, listen and listen more to what she sends. Considering your knowledge of music, I'm guessing something will pop up. Just my 2 cents.

[TapperMike]

My advice, throw everything you think you know out the window. Then walk outside and pick up only what you need when you need it.

There is the theory you know and the theory you don't. If you only know a little theory and believe you should obey what you know you'll limit your abilities. I actually advise against listening to too much because it starts to influence you too much. Then you start hearing similarites or are drawn from those similarites to the point of pulling a song you already know out of your collective unconcious.

If you can play the guitar a nice starting framework is to record a rhythm then play it back and try to fit a melody over the top of it. I'm not a studied keyboard player. I can't play chords with one hand and write melodies with the other. But the nice thing about developing block chords or chord/melody as guitarists call it is that it allows you to see how your melody fits over a given chord,

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[Ferry0123]

Once you've got the vocal melody, start playing your guitar and try to find chords to it. Don't let theories bother you too much until you're stuck. You could then look them up or listen to other songs that use the same kind of chords and you might be inspired to continue the song you're working on. It's a trial and error thing.

[McnaughtonPark]

This obvioulsy is important enough to you to write a question and post it for advice. Signs that you are connected to it. Thats good. Start with that connection, gow with the flow which will come, trust yourself, and explore. Have fun.

MP

[MarcG]

Don't make your rhythm too close to the melody, in key, complementry but separate.

Learn the lyrics, sing them to your self and if your like me you'll start to hear bits of music as you sing, then spend four months trying to match it on your instrument

[ComposerZeus]

I have very specific advice for you as a 20+ seasoned writer.

First off I want to say that this approach is very effective as I have split tested it to be the highest % of quality based on simple math as you'll see in this video.

I want to say first off most musicians scoff at this un-conventional method. (I can only assume they don't have the skills to execute this method because they haven't really practiced it) Generally speaking most musicians are very vague about how they approach music and usually only write a decent song by occasional accident. i will say that I started out just like them with the usual write the music first & piece songs together approach for many years and mastered it however, this video introduces an older approach used by seasoned writers which consistently produces far better results but feels awkward the first few times you try it just like anything else.

Cheers

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[Dolce]

I love the approach in this video -though applying the choices would mean so many great songs would never have been written if it was applied -and what about minor keys? Modes? Blues Scale? Pentatonics?

This is not to say you couldn't apply these ideas and make a great song -