Music Lessons, Lessons on melodies

Hey everyone! So today, I’m going to share with you all some lessons on how to create melodies. 

Let’s get into it. 

The first step is to know that music is a balance between change and repetition

So you should know that music is a balance. 

It’s kind of a dance between change and repetition. 

The reason for this is because for some reason in our brains, it’s much easier to digest something that’s being repeated over and over again than it is to digest something that is done once and forgotten afterwards. 

However, too much repetition can be bad for your songs too. 

It can sound too dull playing the same thing over and over again, so it’s good to vary it up in your song on the way that you repeat the processes. 

So say for example if you have a one note hook. 

You could actually have a very interesting one note melody or hook if you just put some good rhythm into the melody. 

So for those of you that might not understand rhythm, just know that rhythm in an easy way to understand it is when you play the notes. 

So say for example if you have a one note melody, alternating when you play the note will actually make it sound very interesting. 

But there are other ways that you could make the hook sound more interesting. 

You could also use more notes to describe your emotions. 

So instead of just singing Do – do – do. You could sing, Do- Re- Mi. 

And then since music should be repetitive to make it sound good, you then repeat that phrase over and over again and alternate those notes with different notes to add flavor. 

So here is an example of a song that I made one time.

It went like, Do – Re – Mi, Do- Re- Mi, Do – Re- Mi, Mi- Fa- Sol, Mi- Fa- Sol.

So you see how I repeated the phrase for a majority of the musical phrase and then changed it up at the end. 

It’s similar to how you’re supposed to change up in a song. 

But in a real song, you can choose which parts you want to repeat and which parts you want to change. 

Like if you wanted to you could have done Do- Re- Mi Sol, Mi, do

You see how that works? 

It changes but then you could repeat those two phrases to sound like it answers to each other. 

Note Selection

So what happens is that I was watching this T.V. Show called Songland.

And in that show there was a world famous singer-songwriter and producer and his name was Ryan Tedder. 

And what happens is that he gave me some very sound advice on how to create melodies through that show and what he said was, “Make every melody like a hook and save your strongest hooks for your choruses.” 

And ever since then, it has honestly just transformed my choruses and my verses. 

It sounds like it has direction and impact in my songs. 

By the way if you don’t know who Ryan Tedder is, he is a pop singer who writes for the band OneRepublic, which is one of the bands that I used to listen to a lot. 

So basically, every melody you write like a hook, and save your strongest hooks for your choruses.

Because I know how to write hooks, it’s just that i didn’t know how to glue them together to make a song, but now with that advice, I know how to form the song. 

How to write hooks?

So there are a few different types of hooks that you could make. 

There is the lyrical hook, there is the melodic hook, and there is the rhythmic hook. 

Basically the rhythmic hook is an instrumental piece that plays an instrumental over and over again. 

But it can also include a melody or voice. 

I just say rhythmic because that’s the easy way to understand the rhythmic hook. 

A melodic hook is a melody that plays like a hook. And can hit you really hard. 

A hook in general is a musical phrase that captivates the audience. 

And a lyrical hook is a lyric that captivates the audience. 

If you’re really good at songwriting, you will come up with hooks that fuse melodic hooks and lyrical hooks together. 

And here is the way that you create hooks. 

So a hook can be either one note, two note, or three notes long, no more than three and some people say that three note hooks are the sweet spot. 

Of course there are exceptions to that rule, but most of the time if you make a song that has more than a three note hook, the melody doesn’t sound hooky, that’s for most of the time, but of course there are exceptions to that rule. 

So don’t limit yourself to just three notes but know that some professionals in the music industry say that the three note hook is the sweet spot in music. 

\ But the one note and two note hook is a very powerful tool that you could use too. 

And what happens is that you could fuse the one note and three note hook together to really create some thing unique. 

So say for example you could create a song that goes like Do- Do- Do- Do- Do- Do- Re- Mi. So you see how that Do was repeated like a one note hook, but then it changes up at the end to Do- Re- Mi.

That Do – Re- Mi is a three note hook at the end. But you use a one note hook to really introduce the three note hook. 

So like that, there are many ways that you could use these hooks to create a song that is unique and original.

Not to mention rhythm, when you introduce different rhythms to the song, it will become something different. 

And then when you introduce repetition to the song, then what you would do is repeat the musical phrase over again so basically you would repeat that whole Do thing again. 

But how do you make the chorus?

The Chorus is probably the most important part of the song

If you can make great choruses, then you know how to make great songs

So what happens is that the chorus is the part of the song that hits the hardest. 

And there are a couple of theories that you can go about on how to make the chorus. 

The first theory is that if you have fast verses, then you need to slow down the chorus. 

So say for example if you have 8th note and 16th note patterns in the verses, then in the choruses, you would need to make them whole notes and half notes. 

But of course you could make different variations of those choruses. If you include dotted half notes, and ties, and just different ways that you would play longer notes, it can really sound really good. 

Another theory is that if you have slow verses, then you speed it up in the choruses. 

Personally to me though. I find that if you have slow verses, then to speed it up slightly in the choruses and use like half notes and quarter notes and dotted quarter notes in the choruses. 

There are some songs that use that. 

And another theory that a lot of pop music follows is that you start off low in the verses and in the choruses you go really high. 

So say for example if you’re singing Do- Re- Mi- in the choruses, then you could raise that same melody an octave higher and that would make for a really good chorus. 

But it’s not just an octave that you have to jump to. It’s actually a Fifth or above. 

So say for example if you’re at C then go to either a G above the C you’re playing or higher, so basically G, A, B or the Next C higher than that. 

Hey guys! Here is another blog post about music theory for Christian musicians. Hope you like it

Broadcast

So that’s basically how I make melodies, it’s a process in learning how to create melodies but if you work hard at it long enough, then you will create great melodies yourself.

Thank you all for listening in on this blog post. If you want to go to heaven, then believe in Jesus and you will go to heaven. (John 3:16) Remember to pray, read your bible, go to church, and love God above all else. Like, comment, share, subscribe, and I will see you all next time.

Thank you all for listening in on this blog post. 

German Gonzalez, signing out!