Melody Practice Advent Calendar

Hi! I'm new here, this my first post on the forum. So here goes.

I really liked the first theme, and it did not remind me of the Hedwig's theme at all. It just has similar rhythm, but the feel is totally different. The only thing that I think would improve it, is to keep the same rhythm for the second part of the melody, from bar 9. And maybe even repeat the bar twice. Then finish with exact repetition of bars 5 through 8. That way the melody becomes more self similar, and much easier to remember. A nice AABA form.

As for the second melody, it suffers from the same problem, but it seems worse here since the melody is simpler. When I got to bar 9, it was really jarring. The rhythm, harmony, the length of a phrase and the repetition pattern has changed, so it really was a second subject. And I wasn't over the first melody yet. But then the new rhythm and harmony is stated only once, so it seems like the intent is for it too be a variation. What I'd do is repeat bar 9-12 wrapping up the melody to the tonic on the second go. Then it's a nice simple AB form. Or you can repeat the first melody twice in the beginning, state you second subject (with a repetition) and then wrap up with the first melody. Then it's an AABA, which I would go for personally.

But then again, what do I know? Take all of that with a grain of salt, since I'm still learning myself.

As a side comment, the structuring of melodies is what I'm struggling with the most. And as Mike says, all composers do, even JW himself. I think you could only master it with a good intuition, and for that you need to write fast. If you're writing slow, you get too familiar with your melody, and your intuition starts to deceive you. The theoretical knowledge is also helpful, but more for training rather than for writing. And by the way, I got a lot of useful knowledge on the subject in the Structure masterclass.

 

Thank you!

I actually was reading the melody at a slower tempo, and that way the second part noticeably loses momentum. That's probably why it seemed a bit jarring to me. With your tempo it's much better, strangely. If some other part were counting the tempo in the background, it would work even better, I suppose.

The main reason for it being jarring is that it's changing the repetition pattern so suddenly. Then again, that would work great, if I was on the border of being bored with the first melody and you jolted a surprise there in this way.

Listened to the third melody, and the fact that it has odd number of parts is noticeable And again I think that would work as a variation, but on the first listen it's a bit jarring, since I'm still trying to figure out the patterns of the melody.

So I'm noticing a trend here, and that is in all your melodies you're trying to insert some interest with sudden moves. But maybe the melodies are too short for that? Maybe the moves would work, if the listener was a bit more familiar with the melody already. Or maybe other parts could support some of the moves, e.g. if a background part stays the same, the melody can be a bit surprising.

I also wonder if you considered writing melodies with at least one note of harmony? I know, that the convention is that the best melodies stand on their own, but I'm not sure that's completely true. My favorite melodies have at least some parts that do not work without their harmony. E.g. in Raiders March, the high F note, that is played over C# major chord. Or the whole second part of Romeo and Juliet main theme by Tchaikovsky. Or most of The Beatles and Nirvana melodies

That is actually a very interesting subject to me. I think the average listener hears the same note harmonized in two different ways as two completely different notes. And that's the reason I was struggling with transcriptions for the longest time myself. Only recently did I learn to recognize notes independent of the harmony. Now I hear the note itself and its harmonic color separately (not completely and maybe that's a good thing). But still, I think that is a very important observation. It means, that when we remember a melody we actually remember its harmony too. Not as separate notes, but embedded in the notes of the melody itself. And that in turn means that harmony is much more important, than one might think.

What do you think? I maybe got a little bit offtopic and should create a separate thread for the discussion

 

Diggin the thread.

Took your melody # 2 flipped it upside down, played backwards, few note adjustments (not many) and Voilà.

 

Great idea! These threads are often a great catalyst for improvement.

 

You're doing great for your first posts here . Great points about harmony being "embedded" into the melodies we hear. I think Mike talks about that in early Composition videos. Thanks for sharing the insight!

 

I liked the new melodies! You seem to be swaying too hard in the other direction, though, making exact repetitions And I think it's actually better this way, but it now needs more interest, as you said.

The (minor) problem with the first piece was that it changed rhythm and lost momentum in the B section. If it had an arrangement, and the rhythm was in another voice, the change itself would be perfectly fine. In the second piece, however, you changed almost everything in the B section, making it disconnected. You should keep at least some aspects the same to make it coherent. Especially the rhythm, I think, since it's a solo line, and there's nothing else to keep the pace. And with the last pieces you're changing nothing making it boring

As I see it, there are a few things one can change in a melody: rhythm, harmony, direction, size of the intervals, range, pattern of repetition and so on. If you have multiple voices, there's also orchestration aspects: colors, counterpoint, textures, intensity etc. To make a piece coherent, you need to keep some of the aspects the same between the parts, otherwise it's just a different piece. But to keep the interest you also have to constantly change some aspects, maybe slowly, maybe suddenly. As Mike said: some familiar, some unexpected. Hold the listener by hand, guide them by keeping familiar aspects, but also keep them surprised and wondering what's next, by constantly changing things around.

To be more specific in the last piece I would just embellish the melody a bit when repeating, but keep it recognizable.

Also, if you like Chopin, take a look at his Nocturnes. My favourite is op. 9 N1 and it's actually very simple in terms of structure, yet very effective. Notice that when the main melody is played it's always repeated twice. Chopin keeps the first playthrough clean each time (though he adds some minor variations). The repetition is heavily embellished, but even then he keeps the beginning and the end of the melody the same, so that it stays familiar. The overall structure is very interesting as well, especially, how he arrives at a major key with a little bit of dissonance at the end, but that's a whole other discussion

 

Thank you!

Let me elaborate. The note C over C major chord sounds completely differently from the note C over Ab major chord. It's still the same pitch, but I believe that it's interpreted like a completely different note by our ear, especially if it's untrained. That's what I meant by harmony being embedded in the notes. And I argue that when we remember a melody, we actually remember these colored notes, not the pure ones.

Now, you can embed a harmony in a note by simply playing a chord by other voices. You also can spread the chord in time, making it a melodic outline. But then you can imply the chord in the melody itself, and that's what Mike says is the better way. And I agree. I also wanted to add, that it's probably better because it's much easier to remember the harmonic color that way. In the end, the less energy it takes to remember a melody, the more enjoyable it is, especially if it also contains some important emotional information.

And by the way, same goes for rhythm and texture