Err simple question. How do you write music?

[Michael Willis]

Bigcat, I don't really have any specific advice, but I want to encourage you to keep going! I think you're doing the right thing; making your music, sharing it with other people, getting feedback, and trying again. That's the way to make progress: by doing it!

[kneedeep]

Big question. Here goes...

First, it makes sense to be able to play an instrument. Listen a lot to the kind of music you like and want to create. Try to learn playing that music on your instrument.

Second, after you can play some instrument good enough to play bad copies of the music you like (even if it's just "Knocking on Heaven's Door"), try to improvise.


Melody

Improvising is coming up with a melody or an accompaniment yourself, possibly while a CD is playing in the background, being able to play along in some improvised fashion. You need to know basic minor and major scales and the pentatonic scale is also useful because it's simpler. Then, basically you just pick notes from the appropriate scale that might sound good and string them together. Start small, with melodies made out of 3 or 4 notes. Children's songs are good examples for simple melodies.

Then try a call-and-response pattern. A few notes are the call, a few other notes the response. Use simple intervals, use ascending or descending strings of notes. Then go from two-part call and response to four-part melodies - use a call, some variation, another variation, and then response. Just an example.

Repetition (and repeating some snippet in a barely-varied form such as two steps lower) is really common too.

There is really no hard and fast way to teach this. I guess I built up a repertoire of snippets by practising famous guitar solos. But you might as well absorb famous movie soundtracks or classical pieces and start modifying them. If melodies don't occasionally pop into your head, it's gonna be difficult.


If you can improvise on an instrument, eg guitar, you have the skills necessary to come up with melodies. An example is a jazz musician playing a saxophone solo, or a guitar player doing a rock or blues solo, "out of the blue", without ever having written it down. These people are basically composing on the go, live.

I am familiar with people who started out in classical music who have a really hard time improvising. They can play music from written scores in realtime, they're that good at reading music, but they have never improvised a note in their lives because they were taught to play what's written in the score and that's all they ever needed to do. There tends to be a lot more improvisation in rock and jazz music, that's why I mention those.



Chords


It's totally possible to come up with a nice sounding chord progression instead, but IMHO playing a little melody over existing music is easier at first.

What was said earlier about typical chord progressions is correct. There is a roughly finite number of popular chord changes in Western music. You tend to learn those if you play pop music or jazz music in a band, for instance. At some point, you'll be able to identify them by ear, even. This of course takes a few years of practice. Film scores, for instance, often use more exotic chord changes.

Chord changes use Roman numerals to indicate which note of the scale they're built upon. This is to be independent of any one scale. I is the major chord built on the first note of the scale, so C major in a C major scale. V is the dominant (G major), VI is A minor, and so forth. Note II and VI will be minor chords if you're in a major key.

Pop music: I-IV-V (C-F-G), I-V, I-VI-IV-V, I-VII-V, I-II-V etc


You can take these chord changes from any classic rock or pop record. They're everywhere.
They're even in pop music on the radio today. There are even wikipedia articles about them: here, here, here.

Jazz music: e.g. II-V-I

You can take jazz chords from the typical jazz standards (the Real Book).

Film scores: Anything goes. You can find chord progressions from movies all over the internet, such as in this example link. Again it helps if you have a guitar (or keyboard) at home and can play those for yourself and hum along the melody.


Structure

Now in pop songwriting, you usually have some kind of verse-chorus structure to a piece of music. The former will typically use one chord change, the latter another. Possibly there will be a bridge using still another chord structure. Then repeat verse and chorus a couple times. It's pretty simple.

In film, it's less obvious. You will usually have themes (melodies) using some chord change that go through a number of variations. For instance in the Lord of the Rings soundtrack, there are Hobbit themes and Ring themes and all that, and they will reappear in slightly different guises (variations) a dozen times. Variations will change the chord structure, the melody, the instrumentation, the tempo, etc.

In classic, it's still less obvious. Anything goes, although there are usually still "variations on a theme", they can be very advanced and less recognizable. There is no way around doing a lot of listening.


Melody-chord relation

Now a melody usually uses notes from the chord progression. And the other way around. That's because they both tend to use the same scale. Chord progressions might often suggest a melody line already. I mean there are only 7 notes to a scale and a chord cadence will use a lot of them. Pick from the same notes for your melody.  Anything you can hum along to a chord progression that doesn't sound dissonant is good.  

Best way is to check out e.g. well known film themes, play the chord progression on your instrument, and see how the composer wove the melody through those cords and which notes he's hitting. Then try to do it similarly. It's a craft that can be learned. It's not rocket science.


Advanced stuff

There is more to learn; the circle of quints/quarts is helpful for coming up with chord changes. Parallel scales are useful to let you drop from major to minor and back. Dissonance is helpful to create tension. Knowing the actual range of instruments in the orchestra. Picking the right instrument for a theme. Dynamics. Staccato. Basso continuo. Obstinato rhythms. Syncopation. Counterpoint. Turnaround. Crab. All things you can do with music. Stuff you can google little by little.


I'm running out of stuff to post. Ask if you want to know more. Hope this helps somehow.

[bigcat1969]

Just a note to so thanks for all the advice and encouragement.

[Samulis]

If you run out of ideas, you can always go old fashioned and grab some scissors and a glue stick-
https://s3.amazonaws.com/SamulisRandom/F...ossner.pdf

[Mattias Westlund]

There's some really good, informative and in-depth responses in this thread but for the most part I think there's A LOT of overthinking going on here, given the simplicity of the original questions.

How do you write music?

And...

How do you write good melodies and chords?

Well that's easy.

1. Play a root note in the low register. Any note will do, but C (major) and A (minor) are easy on keys.

2. Try humming a melody -- anything -- over said root note. Keep it simple. Doesn't have to be Mary Had a Little Lamb simple, but try keeping it hummable.

3. Once you have decided on a memorable melody, start experimenting with moving the bass note around. See where it gets you.

4. Expand upon the root notes with different chord changes. Screw I-IV-etc and the whole formulaic thing, just listen if it sounds good to you and with the melody you have.

5. Done.

[Nayrb]

(02-17-2017, 05:59 PM)Mattias Westlund Wrote: There's some really good, informative and in-depth responses in this thread but for the most part I think there's A LOT of overthinking going on here, given the simplicity of the original questions.

How do you write music?

And...

How do you write good melodies and chords?

Well that's easy.

1. Play a root note in the low register. Any note will do, but C (major) and A (minor) are easy on keys.

2. Try humming a melody -- anything -- over said root note. Keep it simple. Doesn't have to be Mary Had a Little Lamb simple, but try keeping it hummable.

3. Once you have decided on a memorable melody, start experimenting with moving the bass note around. See where it gets you.

4. Expand upon the root notes with different chord changes. Screw I-IV-etc and the whole formulaic thing, just listen if it sounds good to you and with the melody you have.

5. Done.

Some of the best advice I ever got was to come up with a melody first and the chords after that. This was years ago and I still find it extremely useful. My knowledge of chord theory is still pretty limited (I couldn't do the formulaic thing if you asked me to) but back when I was given this advice I was having trouble because I was using very stilted chord progressions (on the guitar, specifically; on the keyboard I was all about the inversions, but it didn't seem to translate back then, for some reason) and my melodies were very limited because of that. Inverting that approach also helped me expand other things as well, such as my rhythmic sense, and allowed me to start writing more interesting, linear parts overall.

[Mattias Westlund]

(02-19-2017, 03:58 AM)Nayrb Wrote: Some of the best advice I ever got was to come up with a melody first and the chords after that. This was years ago and I still find it extremely useful. My knowledge of chord theory is still pretty limited (I couldn't do the formulaic thing if you asked me to) but back when I was given this advice I was having trouble because I was using very stilted chord progressions (on the guitar, specifically; on the keyboard I was all about the inversions, but it didn't seem to translate back then, for some reason) and my melodies were very limited because of that. Inverting that approach also helped me expand other things as well, such as my rhythmic sense, and allowed me to start writing more interesting, linear parts overall.

You would be surprised how many of my compositions started out as basic duophonic things with just bass notes and a melody on top.

I very rarely think about chords initially, as chords and harmony are very amorphous things to me. Chords will change constantly throughout a composition, often going in unexpected places and moving between keys. So I never really think about chords except for the basic stuff -- like is this going to be in a major or minor key, or do I want a particular modulation here or there? -- as this is usually a waste of time. I like to keep new ideas as chord progression-free as possible. If I decide on a chord progression early on, this will stick in my head and prevent me from being truly creative with chords and modulations. There's nothing I love more than having a thematic melody show up with a totally different chord progression underneath it, making it sound both familiar and completely new at the same time.

[Nayrb]

(02-19-2017, 07:27 PM)Mattias Westlund Wrote:

(02-19-2017, 03:58 AM)Nayrb Wrote: Some of the best advice I ever got was to come up with a melody first and the chords after that. This was years ago and I still find it extremely useful. My knowledge of chord theory is still pretty limited (I couldn't do the formulaic thing if you asked me to) but back when I was given this advice I was having trouble because I was using very stilted chord progressions (on the guitar, specifically; on the keyboard I was all about the inversions, but it didn't seem to translate back then, for some reason) and my melodies were very limited because of that. Inverting that approach also helped me expand other things as well, such as my rhythmic sense, and allowed me to start writing more interesting, linear parts overall.

You would be surprised how many of my compositions started out as basic duophonic things with just bass notes and a melody on top.

I very rarely think about chords initially, as chords and harmony are very amorphous things to me. Chords will change constantly throughout a composition, often going in unexpected places and moving between keys. So I never really think about chords except for the basic stuff -- like is this going to be in a major or minor key, or do I want a particular modulation here or there? -- as this is usually a waste of time. I like to keep new ideas as chord progression-free as possible. If I decide on a chord progression early on, this will stick in my head and prevent me from being truly creative with chords and modulations. There's nothing I love more than having a thematic melody show up with a totally different chord progression underneath it, making it sound both familiar and completely new at the same time.

I'd like to have a better understanding of chords and harmony, and hopefully with practice I'll achieve that. But at least having that melody and strong bass foundation (which I suppose is technically a chord progression, right?) allows me to experiment with all sorts of other things because I'm able to focus on what is memorable in the track and augment it, thus helping me with my tendency to over-arrange at times.

[bigcat1969]

Kinda interesting...
https://imgur.com/a/aWIhR

[stephaniesu]

(02-15-2017, 11:30 AM)kneedeep Wrote: Big question. Here goes...

First, it makes sense to be able to play an instrument. Listen a lot to the kind of music you like and want to create. Try to learn playing that music on your instrument.

Second, after you can play some instrument good enough to play bad copies of the music you like (even if it's just "Knocking on Heaven's Door"), try to improvise.


Melody

Improvising is coming up with a melody or an accompaniment yourself, possibly while a CD is playing in the background, being able to play along in some improvised fashion. You need to know basic minor and major scales and the pentatonic scale is also useful because it's simpler. Then, basically you just pick notes from the appropriate scale that might sound good and string them together. Start small, with melodies made out of 3 or 4 notes. Children's songs are good examples for simple melodies.

Then try a call-and-response pattern. A few notes are the call, a few other notes the response. Use simple intervals, use ascending or descending strings of notes. Then go from two-part call and response to four-part melodies - use a call, some variation, another variation, and then response. Just an example.

Repetition (and repeating some snippet in a barely-varied form such as two steps lower) is really common too.

There is really no hard and fast way to teach this. I guess I built up a repertoire of snippets by practising famous guitar solos. But you might as well absorb famous movie soundtracks or classical pieces and start modifying them. If melodies don't occasionally pop into your head, it's gonna be difficult.


If you can improvise on an instrument, eg guitar, you have the skills necessary to come up with melodies. An example is a jazz musician playing a saxophone solo, or a guitar player doing a rock or blues solo, "out of the blue", without ever having written it down. These people are basically composing on the go, live.

I am familiar with people who started out in classical music who have a really hard time improvising. They can play music from written scores in realtime, they're that good at reading music, but they have never improvised a note in their lives because they were taught to play what's written in the score and that's all they ever needed to do. There tends to be a lot more improvisation in rock and jazz music, that's why I mention those.



Chords


It's totally possible to come up with a nice sounding chord progression instead, but IMHO playing a little melody over existing music is easier at first.

What was said earlier about typical chord progressions is correct. There is a roughly finite number of popular chord changes in Western music. You tend to learn those if you play pop music or jazz music in a band, for instance. At some point, you'll be able to identify them by ear, even. This of course takes a few years of practice. Film scores, for instance, often use more exotic chord changes.

Chord changes use Roman numerals to indicate which note of the scale they're built upon. This is to be independent of any one scale. I is the major chord built on the first note of the scale, so C major in a C major scale. V is the dominant (G major), VI is A minor, and so forth. Note II and VI will be minor chords if you're in a major key.

Pop music: I-IV-V (C-F-G), I-V, I-VI-IV-V, I-VII-V, I-II-V etc


You can take these chord changes from any classic rock or pop record. They're everywhere.
They're even in pop music on the radio today. There are even wikipedia articles about them: here, here, here.

Jazz music: e.g. II-V-I

You can take jazz chords from the typical jazz standards (the Real Book).

Film scores: Anything goes. You can find chord progressions from movies all over the internet, such as in this example link. Again it helps if you have a guitar (or keyboard) at home and can play those for yourself and hum along the melody.


Structure

Now in pop songwriting, you usually have some kind of verse-chorus structure to a piece of music. The former will typically use one chord change, the latter another. Possibly there will be a bridge using still another chord structure. Then repeat verse and chorus a couple times. It's pretty simple.

In film, it's less obvious. You will usually have themes (melodies) using some chord change that go through a number of variations. For instance in the Lord of the Rings soundtrack, there are Hobbit themes and Ring themes and all that, and they will reappear in slightly different guises (variations) a dozen times. Variations will change the chord structure, the melody, the instrumentation, the tempo, etc.

In classic, it's still less obvious. Anything goes, although there are usually still "variations on a theme", they can be very advanced and less recognizable. There is no way around doing a lot of listening.


Melody-chord relation

Now a melody usually uses notes from the chord progression. And the other way around. That's because they both tend to use the same scale. Chord progressions might often suggest a melody line already. I mean there are only 7 notes to a scale and a chord cadence will use a lot of them. Pick from the same notes for your melody.  Anything you can hum along to a chord progression that doesn't sound dissonant is good.  

Best way is to check out e.g. well known film themes, play the chord progression on your instrument, and see how the composer wove the melody through those cords and which notes he's hitting. Then try to do it similarly. It's a craft that can be learned. It's not rocket science.


Advanced stuff

There is more to learn; the circle of quints/quarts is helpful for coming up with chord changes. Parallel scales are useful to let you drop from major to minor and back. Dissonance is helpful to create tension. Knowing the actual range of instruments in the orchestra. Picking the right instrument for a theme. Dynamics. Staccato. Basso continuo. Obstinato rhythms. Syncopation. Counterpoint. Turnaround. Crab. All things you can do with music. Stuff you can google little by little.


I'm running out of stuff to post. Ask if you want to know more. Hope this helps somehow.

This is great stuff! very well done, thumbs up!
I believe chord progression is very important when it comes to composing a song or with properly delivering one's feeling thru a song