The Lost Art of Developing A Beautiful Melody Part 1

Welcome Curious Composers!

Nothing is more satisfying than writing a beautiful melody.

Nothing! Not sipping on a fresh cup of coffee. Not a perfectly baked batch of chocolate chip cookies melting on your taste buds. Not even the experience of your first kiss!

Fine, maybe I’m exaggerating a little. Now that I think about it, a fresh cup of coffee really does hit the spot when I wake up at noon after a long night of composing music.

My point is, melody writing is my all-time favorite part of the composition process.

Define Beautiful Melody

A beautiful melody is pleasing and enjoyable to listen to. It evokes pleasant emotions that are relatable to the listener, or it can stir up unpleasant emotions and somehow make them enjoyable experiences.

Heartbreak, grief, sadness, and nostalgia are all emotions that inspire beautiful melodies. While these feelings are difficult to endure in reality, they become captivating when translated into music.Perhaps this is why music is so cherished in society. It transforms these challenging emotions into inspiring sounds that help us process whatever we’re going through.

What I perceive as beautiful may not be beautiful to you. However, we will find common ground. After all, we’re all human with a shared love for music.

Here is a composition with a beautiful melody that will melt your heart.

Share your favorite melodies in the comments!!!

Decide on the Emotion

Listeners remember melodies by the emotions those melodies evoke. If Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings doesn’t stir something in you, perhaps you have a heart of stone. Just saying!

Decide on the feeling you want to capture with your melody.

Bottom line: If your melody does not stir up emotions in you, then don’t expect it to stir up emotions in others. If your melody doesn’t evoke relatable emotions in others, they will tune out while listening. Curious Composers this is the 21st Century. You don’t have time to waste. When in doubt make your audience feel something.

It All Starts with an Idea

We can’t develop a melody without having an idea to develop. Imagine if I told you to grow a tree without a seed. Not possible! The same is true for composing music. We need a short musical idea that recurs throughout our composition. We composers call this a motif.

Keep your motif short and simple. The simpler the idea, the easier it is to develop.

Anyone can create a musical idea. Start humming or improvising on your instrument.

I guarantee it won’t take long before you stumble upon music that has potential. Hum or sing for 15-20 minutes. If you are brave, record it on your phone and listen to it. Most of your recording may sound like an out-of-tune screeching cockroach. However, I guarantee there will be at least a small section where you feel something pleasant—a musical idea, perhaps!

A Motif!

Yes, it can be painful listening to yourself. As one of my Berklee professors said, “Record yourself, grab a glass of hard liquor, and listen. You’ll learn a lot about yourself.” LOL!

Anybody could have come up with the main Motif to Beethoven’s fifth symphony.

Beethoven 5th Symphony Motif

However, to turn that motif into the symphony that it became requires a high amount of skill, craft, blood, sweat, and tears. 

So be ready to bleed, cry, sweat, work, and put in the time. Hopefully at the end of the day you’ll still have your hearing unlike poor Beethoven.

FINDING THE MOTIF

I start my compositions by improvising at the piano. It normally doesn’t  take longer than 15 min before I stubble upon something worth developing. 

It helps to choose your key signature first. I chose G Minor.

G Minor:  G  A  Bb  C   D   Eb   F   G

Improvising At the Piano to Find Music Idea

Here is the idea that struck an emotional chord with my heart during my improvisation session at the piano.

I’m going for the Hauntingly Romantic vibe for my beautiful melody.   

What about you?

NOTICE:

• Motif is short, simple and singable. 
• I’ve chosen the key of G Minor to help with those haunting qualities. 
• G Minor:  G  A  Bb  C   D   Eb   F   G
• I wrote the idea in Lead Sheet Form. Melodic line with chords written above. I find this to be the best way to sketch out ideas. Or if your writing Jazz a lead sheet might be the only thing you need.

I recommend having the harmony in mind when composing your melodies. This is something I did not consider when I first started writing music. And it hindered my composition development.

Knowing the harmony will naturally give your melody structure that your audience will understand. You’ll thank yourself later if you decide to arrange the piece for multiple instruments.

Awesome!  We have our idea.  Now we are ready to develop. 

Have no fear, I promise I’m not releasing the Boogie Man! Let me explain melodic development in a non-technical way.

Melodic development is simply repeating what you’ve already written with small variations.

The same but different!

Same notes, same harmony, different rhythm.

Same rhythm, same harmony, different notes.

Any little change you make can make a huge difference!

Melodic Development Techniques

Let’s go back to my tree analogy. You can’t grow a tree without the seed. The seed is our Motif. However, that’s not all you need to grow your tree. You also need dirt, sunlight, and water to nourish the seed while it ever so slowly grows into a tree.

What do we add to this motif to nourish it into a full melody? 

We are going to use two easy and effective melodic development techniques to get this beautiful melody rolling. 

Sequence

A sequence is a restatement of a melodic motif at a higher or lower pitch. Sequencing is an easy and effective way to develop your melodies because it allows you to restate your motif over a multitude of different harmonies. 

Sequence of First Measure of Motif

Notice in the example above I created three sequences from the first measure of my motif. 

Notice how the sequence allows you to use different harmonies over the same melodic shape. 

You may experiment and sequence your motif anyway you want with any harmony you wish. 

I know what you’re thinking! The above example doesn’t make me feel squat. It’s too repetitive and it’s too technical to be the beautiful melody we crave.

I agree!

Let’s try to sequence the entire motif instead of just the first measure. We’re going to play the motif and only sequence it once, creating the first 4 bar phrase of our melody. 

We’re getting somewhere. However, I’m still not yearning to hear more. I still feel nothing!

Why? 

It’s too predictable. I’m ready to tune out. We need our audience to perk up their ears in ahh at our melodic finesse. 

We lose the feeling at measure 4. That’s when you start detecting the pattern and the predictability creeps in.

How Do We Fix A Predictable Melody?

If the melody is too predictable then the solution is more variation. 

A crazy simple idea. Let’s just repeat measure 3.

Ohhhh! What are your thoughts? 

Much better. Notice how it feels unresolved. Leaves you with the feeling that there is more to come. It sounds as if the phrase ends with a question instead of a statement. We give our audience a reason to keep listening.

Let’s add more variation to that last measure. Those last two measures are composed of only quarter notes. 

BORING!

Remember you are a composer living in the 21st century. The audience is unforgiving and there is a record high of short attention spans. Your job as the composer is to not bore your audience with boring melodies.

We need to spice up our melody with some Rhythmic Variation!

If your melody were a plate of spaghetti, rhythmic variation would be the sprinkle of pepper that makes your meal more satisfying.

A great place to start is by adding rhythmic variation to the parts of your melody where you start to feel bored or uninspired. For us, that’s at measure 4.

The first note of measure 4 is an F#. We’ll try playing that F# half a beat earlier, then half a beat later, so it lands on the offbeat. We composers call this Syncopation.

Rhythmic Variations of Melodic Idea

First let’s anticipate that F# in measure 4 by moving it to the off beat of beat four in measure 3. Stop stressing, that sounds way more complicated than it actually is.  I’ll prove it to you

Variation One (Anticipate Beat 1 Measure 4)

Now let’s try moving the F# over the opposite direction to the off beat of beat one.

Variation 2 (Delay Beat 1 Measure 4)

Which variation do you like better? I know the difference is subtle, but that’s what we are aiming for.

To my ear, Variation 2 is better.

Variation 1 sounds a little rushed. We’re going for a hauntingly romantic vibe, and rushing a melody in the wrong place kills the romance—just like bringing up your ex on a first date or going in for the first kiss too soon. Don’t rush your melody.

Variation 2 is more subtle and creates a nicer vibe that fits the hauntingly romantic mood better.

Remember I mentioned Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony? He did the exact same thing with his motif. That beloved motif starts a half beat into the measure.

If it’s good enough for Beethoven! Then by God, it’s good enough for us. 

We have reached the Conclusion on Part 1 of “The Lost Art of Developing a Beautiful Melody.”

Stay Curious because Part 2 is Coming Soon!

While you anxiously wait for the next exciting installment of the Curious Composer Blog, check out past articles to help get your creative juices flowing.

• The Lost Art of Developing A Beautiful Melody Part 1
• AMAZING TECHNOLOGY FOR THE NEW 21ST CENTURY COMPOSER
• CREATING A COMPOSITION ROAD MAP
• CONQUER YOUR FEAR OF THE BLANK PAGE
• FOUR SECRETS TO CREATING INSPIRATION

HAPPY COMPOSING EVERYONE!!!