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Song Writing - Melody, then chords?

H

Hippos Melas

Apr 9, 2009
337
7
Milwaukee, WI
#1
I definitely need some help on this one...

When you write songs, does the melody come first, then the chord changes? I'm sort of stuck because I have a piece I'm writing for bass (unintentionally in E...) that isn't turning out poorly at all, but all I have is the melody. I've got NO idea how to come up with a chordal melody to lay behind it. Any ideas and help would be awesome.
 
#3
When you're writing a song...it can be whatever you want it to be.

Sometimes melody is the first component i.e. lyrics, licks, but you can start a song in many different ways.

You can figure out what chords go well with the melody, by studying music (learning theory and other aspects) or by discovering.
It does help to learn about song structure i.e. progressions within different contexts... jazz, pop, funk, rock, latin, soul, etc.

My advice would be to somehow record the melody you've come up with or be able to hum/sing it out in the same key and try and lay down chords that sound good to you on top of the melody.

Hope that helps somewhat. Good luck.
 
#4
Melodies use chord tones - and the most 'melodic' chord tones are the 3rd and the 7th (or b7 in dom). The reason being that the bass tends to provide the roots and 5th and the other harmonies will include the 5ths most frequently and therefore blend into the harmonic foundation. It's the 3rds and 7ths that tend to stand out.

The melody instrument tends to play the upper voices of any given chord since the bass (or bass clef) are providing the roots - so your melody and harmony will tend to utilize 1st, 2nd and 3rd inversions of chords while staying away from root inversions. This is not a rule - but when you take into account what the other instruments are provideing by default, it helps explain why chords are formed as they are.

Super-simplistically, take your melody, pick a note on a strong beat and picture it as the 3rd of a the chord - then put your bass note down as it it were the root of that chord and see how that flies. So if your melody note on beat one of bar 9 is G#, an E in the bass would probably sound really good - but it depends on how you arrived at that G# that will tell you if the E chord your starting to describe makes sense.

How you arrive at notes in the context of a melody or chord progression has a lot to do with voice-leading. The melody would not be very melodic if it leaped all over the place as opposed to followed a very logical, close interval path from one note to the next. That works inside the chords as well and which inversion of what chord can be initially determined by finding out what the nearest path from one voice to the next is.

You say your song is 'unintentionally' in E. You could intentionally make it in E and go from them using some typical progressions based on I IV V and such... So your bass notes would simply frame out an E A B based progression - but you'd have to see how that plays against your melody.

I'd use a piano, however, and play the melody over and over - and experiment with dropping in bass notes with the left hand and building triads in the right.
 
#5
Hippos Melas said:
When you write songs, does the melody come first, then the chord changes?
Click to expand...

When I write songs, the idea comes first... then whatever it takes to manifest that idea musically follows.

The originating idea might be a musical component (melody, chord progression, motif, a tone color, an orchestral combination, a pitch collection, a rhythmic cell) or it might be a more abstract conceit (a shape/gesture, a word or phrase, an image, a structure, a relationship).

But without an idea of what I'm writing about, it's just a bunch of notes.
 
#6
Everyone operates slightly differently when we write - some think melody first, some think chord progression first, some start with lyrics, etc. At some point in the creative process you are going to have to apply theory and structure to get from what you started with to a complete song.

Like Tandrew said:

Tandrew said:
You can figure out what chords go well with the melody, by studying music (learning theory and other aspects) or by discovering.
It does help to learn about song structure i.e. progressions within different contexts... jazz, pop, funk, rock, latin, soul, etc.
Click to expand...

If you don't know enough theory to fit chords to melody, or vice versa, and to use (and perhaps modify) one or more of the standard style formats, you will need help from someone who understands these topics. And that's one good way to learn how to write songs - collaborate!
 
#7
figure out what key you are in...Really in E? (4 sharps) or in Eminor or E dorian...you get the idea. Spell out all of the notes that you are using and arrange them into a scale. That scale (www.jazzbooks.com ... free jazz) will tell you the key. ie. ww1/2www1/2 = major

for me the easiest way to remember the modes is to write the intervals of C to C (Major and Ionian) all white keys, D to D (dorian) all whites, E to E (phrygian) all whites, F to F (lydian) all whites, G to G (mixolydian) all whites, A to A (natural minor and Aeolian) all whites, B to B (locrian) all whites...

The Jazz Books reference is so that you can mostly line up your "scale" with anyone of the many that show up in the scale syllabus. :)

Once you know what key your piece is in ... you can start to harmonize. Blues = 1 4 5 1 type of things... (many variants on the blues progression)... and others.

If you are looking for jazz sometimes the easiest way to do it is to the melody notes a "blue" note (7, 9, 11, 13 and altered versions of them) and stack downwards. Sometimes you just figure out what is in the measure and use those for your "chord" ... passing tones exempted (if you like).

USE YOUR EARS...:) yes please use your ears as this is your song and YOU are in charge of the sound. :)

help?

Just My Thoghts
 
#8
I compose stuff by ear or in my head by imagining the sound. Sometimes I get the same problem... What chords are meant to go with this melody?!?! It helps to record the melody and play it back on repeat, and mess around with a guitar or keyboard. When I do this, often the issue resolves itself when I find that a melody only needs like two main chords behind it. And there I was thinking it would need something more complicated with like 6 or 8 chords or more... Definitely try recording the melody and looping it and then trying to play chords along with it...
 
#9
It can any way that sounds good. Even being a bit of a theory geek, I believe the most important rules of music theory, and the also the only two that have no exceptions at all are these two related ones.

A. If it sound good, it's right.
B. If it doesn't sound good, it ain't right.

Of course there's a lot of room to discuss WHO determines what "sounds good", but those two rules are the deciding factor in any discussion. OK, so how to get there?

For every songwriter, there're as many paths. You have a melody. You could analyze it and see what notes lay together and try to work out chords from that. You could just sing or play the melody and listen for where it sounds to you like chords should change. Or you could come up with a harmony part (an upper part or a bass line, whether it's above or below the melody isn't important) that sounds good to you, then use the two parts together to come up with a chord progression.

If your melody centers 'round G# and B for a few bars, and you come up with a bass line working around E and B for that same area, you're in E chord world. But if the bass part sounds better to you with C# and G# going on, you're in a C#min area.

I think the important part is to let your musical voice lead you rather than your theory knowledge.

John
 
#10
JTE said:
...If your melody centers 'round G# and B for a few bars, and you come up with a bass line working around E and B for that same area, you're in E chord world. But if the bass part sounds better to you with C# and G# going on, you're in a C#min area.
Click to expand...

I was going to say these very same things (E maj. vs. C# min. et al.)

To add to the OP's info bucket - I believe in most cases the melody is probably the most important thing when it comes to composing a song people in general (non-musicians) will take to readily.

I used to think I didn't have the ability to craft a good melody and always thought that I came up with good 'grooves' but had to force-fit a melody in order to complete a song. When I thought that way, I thought the answer to "What's most important; chords, groove or melody in writing a song?" - was "it depends..." - Now I think the answer is that ultimately you have to have a good melody when your done. Whether you start with one or not isn't really the point - but when you're done, you better have one. If your song is going to include more instrumentation, what they play needs to fully support the melody.

So if you've got one already - you're practically done! LOL

I'd recommend recording the melody and listening to it a lot. Sing along with it in unison - then start singing harmonies that sound good to you. When you find yourself naturally gravitating to a harmonic pattern, hit the piano and add those harmonies to your melody. Slowly, the rest will reveal itself to you.
 
#12
When you write songs, does the melody come first, then the chord changes?
Click to expand...

The truthful, but uninformative, answer is it varies /there are no rules no rules , yaddah yaddah...

But I'll second tZer's point: Ultimately, a good melody is the goal. When I start with a melody, it generally is stronger and more ear pleasing than if I start with a groove or set of chords and try to fit a melody into it.


I've got NO idea how to come up with a chordal melody...
Click to expand...

Harmonizing a melody requires some basic theory...and the farther outside the major scale your melody is, the more theory you'll probably have to draw on.

Simplify your chord choices.
First: What key is the melody in?

You say it's E, so I'll assume you know what your talking about and it's a melody in E major.

the diatonic chords of E major are : E, F#min, G#min, A, B7, C#min, and D#dim.
I helps if you know how to build chords from scales.
if your melody really is E major, then you can harmonize with these 7 chords alone ( yes there are more possibilities, but KISS at first)

With this ammo, you can just grab the nearest guitar or piano and start singing and experimenting to see what fits.
Keep in mind that the chord should almost always contain the melody note, either as its root, 3rd, 5th, or 7th (higher chord tones are also possible, but KISS)

Some times choosing between 7 chords is too much, and you can narrow it down to the absolute minimum: I, IV, and V (E, A and B7 in this case.)
With only three choices you can quickly get close to what will work.
then you can substitute related chords to see which might fit better:

I is related to iii
IV to ii and vi
V to vii(dim)

If your melody is minor or some other mode, this approach will have to be mapped onto that mode. If it changes keys or is even more complicated, well, time to it the books.
 
#13
^^^^^
A good chorus melody is priority nr. 1.
Not always do melody notes have to be harmonized exactly. A good progression of harmonic functions/chords is more important than a perfectly harmonized melody. And for a good progression, a sort of compulsive, scale-like bass line is a big plus.

My advice is to write down the harmonies in a super simple way, whole notes and half notes, without any ornaments whatsoever. Only after you get melody and harmony right, based on a good, but extremely simple bass line, you can start arrangng your song, insert riffs etc.. But even better is to show the simple version to your band, have them come up with ideas etc.
 
#14
First off, thanks for all of your help and I appreciate all of your quick responses.

I am actually fairly good at music theory and have taken two classes on it in high school and one in college. I know the different types of major/minor scales and variants and such so I can keep pace if you all want to talk music theory.

Are there common patterns that classical music typically follows? I regret never paying attention to any classical pieces I've performed before but off the top of my head I don't feel that there's any stand out patterns like the blues pattern. I'm guessing I should delve a bit more into basic chord patterns before I try and pick out chord that compliment the melody. I feel like I'm shooting in the dark when it comes to picking chords even though I can build them without a problem.
 
#15
Is the piece you're composing classical? There are some differences in how you approach jazz and classical that would definitely make the suggestions regarding chord progressions challenging in the context of a classical piece.

My personal 'go to' place for classical tends to be Mozart for the left hand/bass part. It's referred to as 'Alberti bass' and provides the 'chordal' voicing in the form of an 'alternating arpeggio' in the left hand.

If that's the case, I'd write out the melody, determine the key, and try to identify the roots in the left hand on the strong beats of the measures (1 and maybe 3) that sound best under the melody. Then from that root, outline the triad that fits and experiment with either playing it as a chord, bouncing from root to the 3rd + 5th, or try the Alberti bass.
 
#16
Music theory is great if you want to write predictable songs. Get a melody in your head and write chords that sound good behind it. Come up with a neat chord progression or great riff, write melodies that fit it. It's that simple.
 
#19
+1 theory != predictability.
Basic theory may seem limiting, but it is undeniably useful in the majority of playing situations. Further exploration of theory lets you find stranger options that would still "work".

Another advantage of music theory is the speed with which you can zero in on an appropriate harmony. You can quickly exclude those choices that you know won't produce the desired result.

A the end of the day, tho, it only matters if it sounds good to the intended audience.
 

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