M
moley
New member
No rules.
Just theory.
Just theory.
Jamal Bucket
New member
im just hoping for a lot of luck ....LUCK BABY thats where the magic is at!!
zer0sig
headpiece full of straw
2 approaches, in my book:
1-if you have the ear to be able to hear and repeat intervals (i started in this group very young, so i lucked out, but you, too can learn intervals!), just listend to melodies you love. repeat them. maybe do them in different keys. once you find what really strikes you, incorporate it into your own work (the notes, not the actual music, duh).
2- (everyone should do this, even if they lucked into automatically fall into group 1)-try to find things with melodies that are unusual, and try transposing them, changing the order around, etc. read about basic theory. intervals, basic chords, the rule of 5ths, yadda yadda yadda. even if you have a great ear for where music is going, knowing where it COULD go is a precursor to knowing WHY one would go there, and hence when YOU SHOULD go there in your own work.
i guess i should throw in some rules here:
1. work with what you learn from the above approaches.
2. work AGAINST what you learn from the above approaches.
3. rules do not a good song make. experience writing songs and an understanding of the relation between the melody and its effect on the listener does.
edited because i did not address the whole rule thing.
1-if you have the ear to be able to hear and repeat intervals (i started in this group very young, so i lucked out, but you, too can learn intervals!), just listend to melodies you love. repeat them. maybe do them in different keys. once you find what really strikes you, incorporate it into your own work (the notes, not the actual music, duh).
2- (everyone should do this, even if they lucked into automatically fall into group 1)-try to find things with melodies that are unusual, and try transposing them, changing the order around, etc. read about basic theory. intervals, basic chords, the rule of 5ths, yadda yadda yadda. even if you have a great ear for where music is going, knowing where it COULD go is a precursor to knowing WHY one would go there, and hence when YOU SHOULD go there in your own work.
i guess i should throw in some rules here:
1. work with what you learn from the above approaches.
2. work AGAINST what you learn from the above approaches.
3. rules do not a good song make. experience writing songs and an understanding of the relation between the melody and its effect on the listener does.
edited because i did not address the whole rule thing.
bdbdbuck
New member
zerOsig,
I think I know where you went there, but when you speak of intervallic expression and the like, you go right to Theory.
Still no rules..................I think it goes without saying that you draw upon your experiences, or am I agreeing with you and don't really know it?
bd
I think I know where you went there, but when you speak of intervallic expression and the like, you go right to Theory.
Still no rules..................I think it goes without saying that you draw upon your experiences, or am I agreeing with you and don't really know it?
bd
S
Shakuan
New member
Hmm.. I gotta say I don't know rules (if they exists), and I'm glad I don't. IMO, music is not meant to be created with rules or guidelines. It's a shame to create music following a guideline to make sure it's radio material.
zer0sig
headpiece full of straw
bdbdbuck said:
the rules as i intended them (will look back and see what i wrote-i probably posted this in some vague state of incoherence, like the kind i experience while just waking up). what i really meant to get at is that rules on paper pale in comparison to rules from the ear, be it a naturally gifted one, a well-trained one, or both.
some rules from the Standard School of Music Many People Listen To:
1. always base beats on powers of 2. 4/4 and its natural derivatives are the stuff of pop music. 3/4-derived fills are acceptable for effect these days, but stray long from 4/4 and your ship will sink.
2. always make harmonies harmonic thirds or 5ths, unless the harmony bends to become a 3rd or 5th. all vocals should either use blues notes or the key of the part in question (exception taken for end-of-breath and/or end-of-line up and down-notes-nearly every popular singer lately seems to have one of these, and they are extremely predictable, which makes them "signature" to A&R guys)
3. make all guitar leads based on the key played at the time or a blues/pentatonic scale related to said key, or, if you feel really saucy, try a quick run during a transition playing a 4th-off key! boy, will they be surprised when one note sounds different than the last run!
4. make words simple enough to be understood by any child of a 3rd-grade or higher education. repetition is your friend. you can never have too many ohs, ahs, yeahs, nos, or babys-these provide valuable fill-in for simply singing notes without enunciating, or, god forbid, writing more words! see this example from puff daddy's "i love you baby" off of "no way out":
Chorus: repeat 2X
I love you baby No you don't
You drive me crazy That's right
I'll never betray thee Uhh
I love you baby C'mon
note the use of contractions and obvious lack of actual action verbs. genius! plus the accented response-style bit on each line makes it sound like 8 lines were written, when it is unlikely that anyone had to actually think of 2 out of the whole bunch, and that someone can actually be hired from an unemployment agency, be gotten drunk, and surrounded by middle-school aged girls, and his dialogue simply recorded for later hits!
(special note: teenaged girls love to drive people crazy, be driven crazy, be crazy loved up, or do anything with the word crazy in it. We Promise (TM))
5. make sure that the least intelligent people you know agree with the most intelligent people you know as to what it means. in fact, have as little meaning and sentiment as possible in the lyrics. for another example of brilliance, examine NSYNC's "i just wanna be with you" off their debut self-titled album (bonus points to them: statistical analysis reveals that out of 13 songs, 38.4% have "you" in the title (research has revealed that many people when approached will respond to the pronoun "you" as though it is their very own name!), derivatives of "i" (i, we, my, etc) show up 53.8% of the time (not counting unspoken "i"s as in "crazy for you", as i represents the subject singing the song. with just one letter! genius!), and crazy is used in 15.4% of the titles, with many more uses in various song lyrics!):
Na na na na na
Na na na na na
(We'll be together say it)
Na na na na na na na na na
I just wanna be with you
Girl that's all I want to do
I just wanna be, be with you
Girl that's all I want to do
8 lines, 45 words, a total of 17 distinct words! (contractions being counted as single words)-less than a 40% ratio!
(omitted for brevity, including use of the word "crazy")
next time on "Ridiculously Easy Work-For-Hire Songwriting", we will encroach upon such tricks as inversion of the title as a lyric and even adding/changing single words in the title to come up with even more lines.
bdbdbuck
New member
Man, I was really gettin into the lesson until........
You quoted Puff Daddy and N-Stink!
You gotta come up with something better than that! Besides, do they even write their own stuff? Or is it the guy behind the curtain, you know......the one with the pocket protector!
bd
You quoted Puff Daddy and N-Stink!
You gotta come up with something better than that! Besides, do they even write their own stuff? Or is it the guy behind the curtain, you know......the one with the pocket protector!
bd
Buffalo Bob
New member
I love you baby, uh.
You make me crazy, duh
I don't mean maybe, puh
na-na na- na-na
na na nahhhhh.......................
Kill my landlord
Kill my landlord.
Guitar Solo -
Baby baby baby
Crazy crazy czazy
uh, uh, uh
duh, duh, doh!
na-na na- na-na
na na nahhhhh.......................
Kill my landlord
Kill my landlord.
Slow Fade
I think I've got it! Thanks, guys!
You make me crazy, duh
I don't mean maybe, puh
na-na na- na-na
na na nahhhhh.......................
Kill my landlord
Kill my landlord.
Guitar Solo -
Baby baby baby
Crazy crazy czazy
uh, uh, uh
duh, duh, doh!
na-na na- na-na
na na nahhhhh.......................
Kill my landlord
Kill my landlord.
Slow Fade
I think I've got it! Thanks, guys!
dafduc
New member
C - I - L - L my landlord!
Buffalo Bob
New member
C - I - L - L !!!!!!!!
G
glynb
Balladeer
zeroSig's post
zer0sig's post above is just SOOO cynical...
...and so true.
[SIGH]
zer0sig's post above is just SOOO cynical...
...and so true.
[SIGH]
B
busted_nads
New member
Back to the point
I don't think that any 'rules' exists for good melody writing. The only reason that any music sounds good to us is because of the associations that have been made in our brains from all previous experiences in our lives. When we hear something we have heard before, the association is made faster. If we associate better with certain types of music, we must have a connection at a lower level which links the sequences and groups of notes to previous experiences that have meaning for us.
Most guidlines that I know of that exist, exist for western music which is comprised of the 12 basic notes with A being 440 Hz. Eastern music contains many extra notes, that are only obtainable through pitch bending in western music, as standard, yet eastern music can sound pleasing to the ear.
I think what I'm trying to say (although I have been known to misunderstand myself) is that a good melody depends on the audience and the writer. No one melody will be pleasing to eveybody because it was based on any number of rules.
Live in peace children of the frog goddess named 'Mookie'
I don't think that any 'rules' exists for good melody writing. The only reason that any music sounds good to us is because of the associations that have been made in our brains from all previous experiences in our lives. When we hear something we have heard before, the association is made faster. If we associate better with certain types of music, we must have a connection at a lower level which links the sequences and groups of notes to previous experiences that have meaning for us.
Most guidlines that I know of that exist, exist for western music which is comprised of the 12 basic notes with A being 440 Hz. Eastern music contains many extra notes, that are only obtainable through pitch bending in western music, as standard, yet eastern music can sound pleasing to the ear.
I think what I'm trying to say (although I have been known to misunderstand myself) is that a good melody depends on the audience and the writer. No one melody will be pleasing to eveybody because it was based on any number of rules.
Live in peace children of the frog goddess named 'Mookie'
M
mikeh
New member
I beleive Miles Davis had a god rule - or is it theory.
I parapharse - " It ain't the note that's right or wrong, it's the note that follows it"
I parapharse - " It ain't the note that's right or wrong, it's the note that follows it"
D
DCMaguire
New member
bd -
"Jason Bloom.....what kind of music does he write?"
Pop and country, mostly. He has had cuts by Brittaney Spears, Backstreet Boys, and a bunch of country artists. He is a staff writer for Zomba Music. Yea, the title of the book is lame, but if you write in country or pop, it's a pretty good refresher course.
"All I gotta do is follow those guidelines and I can write a hit song?"
No, follow those guidelines and you will learn what most writers in that genre are doing. You still have to have something to say, and you have to know how to say it.
"Where can I get my hands on that book?"
Published by Billboard books.
"All this time I've been naming the song after it's done, when I should have been naming them first and putting the name in the chorus."
When asked, hit pop and country writers generally say that they almost always start with the title.
"I'll just go back and rename some of my songs from the chorus and maybe someone will pick em up then! Wow! Thanks!"
If you want to sell them to someone in the country or pop genres, that would be a good start. Then, make sure they are outstanding songs (to go with what I am sure are already outstanding titles).
DCM
"Jason Bloom.....what kind of music does he write?"
Pop and country, mostly. He has had cuts by Brittaney Spears, Backstreet Boys, and a bunch of country artists. He is a staff writer for Zomba Music. Yea, the title of the book is lame, but if you write in country or pop, it's a pretty good refresher course.
"All I gotta do is follow those guidelines and I can write a hit song?"
No, follow those guidelines and you will learn what most writers in that genre are doing. You still have to have something to say, and you have to know how to say it.
"Where can I get my hands on that book?"
Published by Billboard books.
"All this time I've been naming the song after it's done, when I should have been naming them first and putting the name in the chorus."
When asked, hit pop and country writers generally say that they almost always start with the title.
"I'll just go back and rename some of my songs from the chorus and maybe someone will pick em up then! Wow! Thanks!"
If you want to sell them to someone in the country or pop genres, that would be a good start. Then, make sure they are outstanding songs (to go with what I am sure are already outstanding titles).
DCM
bdbdbuck
New member
What rules was Ray Stevens following when he wrote that tune about "Clyde the Camel"? Or Jim Stafford when he wrote "Wildwood weed"? I guess nobody really "picked them up", since they cut their own records....the world may never know!
bd
bd
Q
quattro_xxph
New member
mikeh said:
Thats definitely theory.
On good melody writing, I just want to say that knowledge of theory is not necesarilly a "rule", but damn it really helps if you know some. Its like knowing the difference between green and red if you're a painter.
bdbdbuck
New member
I don't mean to really nitpick that but....most people know the difference between green and red, but quite a few don't paint. They can appreciate the pleasing nature of a freshly painted room without knowing how it was done. Like listening to a song and liking it without knowing how it was written. But I must agree, knowing at least some theory is indeed helpful when writing a song.
bd
bd
scottboyher
New member
Music should never be created using any rules.. There are no rules on the Musical Frontier!
Aaron Cheney
Favorite Chord: C 6/9
The minute you pick up a guitar and hit an "E", you're following rules. The minute you go from one chord to another you're following rules.
The thing about art is that you don't have to follow any rules at all. Take Escher, for example, who totally bent the rules of perspective to create an immediately recognizable style. The thing is, he followed enough other rules to make his drawings understandable and appealing. (The rules of light, i.e.) You could just scribble on note-book paper and call it art if you wanted to, but who would appreciate it?
Sure you can write a song that followed absolutely no rules, with no key, no time signature, no nothing. Utter sonic chaos. It would be art, but it would sound like crap. No one would care. You have to follow enough rules that your work is accessable and enjoyable.
As far as melody goes, there are lots of stylistic rules that are generally followed, and often broken to good effect if enough other rules are followed. For example, classical music melodies often incorporate large interval jumps, whereas pop music melodies usually flow more because they follow the scale.
Aaron
http://www.voodoovibe.com
The thing about art is that you don't have to follow any rules at all. Take Escher, for example, who totally bent the rules of perspective to create an immediately recognizable style. The thing is, he followed enough other rules to make his drawings understandable and appealing. (The rules of light, i.e.) You could just scribble on note-book paper and call it art if you wanted to, but who would appreciate it?
Sure you can write a song that followed absolutely no rules, with no key, no time signature, no nothing. Utter sonic chaos. It would be art, but it would sound like crap. No one would care. You have to follow enough rules that your work is accessable and enjoyable.
As far as melody goes, there are lots of stylistic rules that are generally followed, and often broken to good effect if enough other rules are followed. For example, classical music melodies often incorporate large interval jumps, whereas pop music melodies usually flow more because they follow the scale.
Aaron
http://www.voodoovibe.com
bdbdbuck
New member
Aaron Cheney said:
Don't tell me you never heard that on the radio.....the thought that it might be art is questionable. I couldn't agree more with your post though.
bd