Writing under a melody. Help

[halarryus]

Hello everyone!
I'm having troubles writing bass and guitar parts under a melody. The most I can do is put chords under a melody, but when I try to put any kind of riffs under it, it sounds weird. I try it with metal, rock, jazz, but I'm having the hardest time with it. I know little about scales (enough the find the key of the song and the chords under it) ,but I don't know anything about chord progressions or stuff like that. Any advice would be helpful and very much appreciated.

[JimmyM]

lessons from a good teacher who is versed in jazz concepts. i don't care if you like playing jazz or not...if you want to expand what you can do on bass, studying jazz is by far the best and easiest way to make it happen.

[MalcolmAmos]

Originally Posted by halarryus

Hello everyone!
I'm having troubles writing bass and guitar parts under a melody. The most I can do is put chords under a melody, but when I try to put any kind of riffs under it, it sounds weird. I try it with metal, rock, jazz, but I'm having the hardest time with it. I know little about scales (enough the find the key of the song and the chords under it) ,but I don't know anything about chord progressions or stuff like that. Any advice would be helpful and very much appreciated.

Writing things that go under the melody. Think of it this way; What are we wanting to do? The answer to that is we want to harmonize the melody - make the melody and what we are doing - under the melody - sound good together. We do that by having some of the melody notes in what we do. It's the old "like notes story" that weaves itself through out music. The chords tones (riffs) we put under the melody should have some to the melody notes in them . Yep theory gets into it.

Now if someone has already written the song. They have the melody notes and the chords that harmonize that melody already figured out for you so --- if you follow the chords, most of this has already been done for you.

What you have been doing with your bass lines, using roots, fives, eights and the correct 3 is an example of that. Why? Well most chords will have a root, a five, the eight is just a root in another octave and the three is generic to every major chord. So you have a bunch of "like notes" in play when using R-3-5-8. Course you need to know what chord the melody is relying upon for the harmonization and then you use notes from that chord. So.. follow the chords. If you make your "riffs" from notes of the chord - that is in play at this specific moment in the song - I bet it will sound like you want.

Spend some time with how to harmonize a melody. Google can find several things for you to look at. I found the following helpful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrDh0OFDCAk

This string goes into the process of writing a melody and then harmonizing what you wrote for the melody. Kind of a chicken or egg thing. http://www.ibreathemusic.com/forums/...081#post144081 Go to post # 1 and see what is said on this string.

Now all of that talks of what to do -- what you end up doing -- picking what works best for THIS song is the important part. But, you gotta understand the "what" so you can get the correct notes under the melody - first.

Good luck.

[Russell L]

Learn theory. Then, you'll know.

[halarryus]

Thanks man, but when I try using the notes of the chord, it sounds boring or uninteresting. How can I make it sound more interesting.

And Russell, no offense but that was a waste of comment space. I came on the forum for advise, it I could learn theory then I wouldn't be asking.

[MalcolmAmos]

Originally Posted by halarryus

..... but when I try using the notes of the chord, it sounds boring or uninteresting. How can I make it sound more interesting.

Well the stuff we do - right at first - is boring. But 90% of what a bass does is provide accompaniment, basic chord tone bass lines. R-3-5-8 will groove every major chord in the progression and R-b3-5-8 will groove every minor chord in the progression except the diminished chord. Boring, yes, but, what is our job? To lay down the beat and take that beat into a groove and then call attention to the next chord change. And yes there are many ways to spice that up - just be sure the spice harmonizes the melody - melody and chord tones should share like notes.

We can spice up our chord tones with chromatic runs (passing notes) to the next chord - that alerts the other guys that a chord change is coming and lets us have some of the exciting stuff to do. Chromatic runs - I to IV. From the I go to it's 2 then the 3 and land on the tonic IV. Run from IV to V. You are on IV go to it's 3 then 5 and then down a string to the tonic V. Run from the V to the I. You are on the V drop down to the E string and walk back to the tonic I. I had to draw it out on paper to "see" the runs. Once you see them they are always there waiting. Good chromatic ending. You are on the V and going to the I tonic to end - sound the V go to the IV then the bIV then skip a fret sound that note and end back on the E string tonic I.

There are many ways to chromatically walk to the next chord change. Work up some you like. I think that will help with some excitement and still accomplish our main function of taking chord tones into grooves and alerting the guys that a chord change is coming.

In Ed's book "Building Walking Bass Lines" he gives us hundreds of bass lines we can use, if we try to use all of them it becomes overwhelming, however, check it out and gather some favorite things you could incorporate into your bass lines. It's a journey best taken one step at a time.

Few things excite me more than having a beat turn into a groove, course I'm 76 and can only take so much excitement. LOL

Good luck.

[Luff]

When you put a note from a melody on top of other notes you get a chord. Depending on how exotic you want it to sound, you can chose different notes underneath, making the melody note different chord extensions. An E note can be a fifth of an A minor chord, the major third of a C chord, the root/octave of an E chord, the sharpened fourth of a Bbmai7#4 chord etc. You just got to identify with what kind of sound you are going for and what kinds of chord progressions you enjoy. Two good ways of doing that is studying music you enjoy and experimentation. Make sure you know enough theory to understand what is happening.