How to write beautiful melodies. Light method

Many novice Android smartphone users are discovering an amazing new world of things they can now do easily and simply. Everyone has their own favorite song. Many have more than one. And, if you really love a melody, then why not make it your own ringtone? Maybe over time you will get bored with it, but you will already know how to do it right on your Android mobile device using the Ringdroid application, which can be downloaded from the Google Play store.

There are many ways to make a ringtone, but not all of them are so simple and understandable as to offer them to novice users or those people who are of little interest in computer wisdom. There is a wonderful Ringdroid application that allows you not only to use any melody or song as a ringtone, but also to choose any part of it yourself. When the ringtone is ready, you can set it as your main ringtone or for a specific contact. Loe Favre, a reviewer for the Android resource, emphasizes that Ringdroid is easy to understand for novice users of the world's most popular mobile platform.

Getting to know Ringdroid for the first time

General information about Ringdroid ringtone editor
Ringdroid Ringtone Maker by Ringdroid Team can be downloaded from the Android Store.

It is categorized as Multimedia & Video and was updated on 23 August 2012. A compatible version is installed on your device. The supported Android version depends on the device. There are no age restrictions. The app has been downloaded from 10 million to 50 million times, which indicates its sufficient popularity.

Ringdroid supports MP3, WAV, AAC and AMR audio files. With the application, you can create not only ringtones, but also customized alarms and notification tones.

Preparing to create a ringtone
1. Download the song you want to make a ringtone from to your mobile device.

2. Open the application and select a song from the list provided. An example will be the well-known children's New Year's song "A Christmas tree was born in the forest." Everyone has different tastes, everyone prefers a certain genre. Many have favorite bands and artists. And only this song, familiar to everyone from childhood, is indisputably loved by representatives of different generations and connoisseurs of various musical styles. The choice of the example song is due to the fact that the quality of the composition should not distract from the main thing - familiarity with the application.

Ringtone creation

1. By tapping on a song in the list, you open its audiographic. There are two sliders on this graph that you can move around the song. With their help, you select the fragment of the melody that will become your ringtone.

2. When you have selected a fragment, you can save the ringtone by touching the icon with the image of a retro floppy disk, which is often marked with the "Save" button. In the save dialog box there is a list "Type", opening which you can select the type of signal. You can change the name of the file before saving. You decide whether the ringtone you create will be a ringtone or notification, music or an alarm. The saved ringtone is set as the default alarm.

It is difficult to find a person indifferent to music. Even Google from tunes and songs. But how appropriate are song snippets as phone ringtones? After all, everyone has different tastes, and the ringtone is heard by everyone on the street and in transport. Maybe music is something that is better to enjoy personally, instead of “delighting” all passers-by with their favorite compositions, who, perhaps, were not going to the concert at all?

How interested are you in the ability to change ringtones? Or are the standard melodies enough? Earlier, when this opportunity had just appeared in phones, many were carried away by the constant change of ringtones. Phone melodies have become almost the main hobby of the young generation. But only a few years have passed, and smartphones have acquired such opportunities, against the background of which the ability to change the ringtone has somewhat dimmed.

If you feel the urge to create music, but do not feel the desire or opportunity to acquire a bunch of musical instruments, you can do all this in the FL Studio program. It is one of the best workstations for making your own music, and is easy to learn and use.

FL Studio is an advanced music production, mixing, mastering and arrangement software. It is used by many composers and musicians in professional recording studios. With this workstation, real hits are created, and in this article we will show you how to create your own music in FL Studio.

After downloading the program, run the setup file and install it on your computer following the prompts of the "Wizard". After installing the workstation, the ASIO audio driver will also be installed on the PC, which is necessary for its correct operation.

Music Creation

Writing a drum part

Every composer has a different approach to writing music. Someone starts with the main melody, someone with drums and percussion, first creating a rhythmic pattern, which will then grow and fill with musical instruments. We'll start with the drums.

The creation of musical compositions in FL Studio occurs in stages, and the main workflow proceeds on patterns - fragments, which are then assembled into a full-fledged track, located in the playlist.

One-shot samples needed to create a drum part are contained in the FL Studio library, and you can select the appropriate ones through the program's convenient browser.

Each instrument must be placed on a separate track of the pattern, but there can be an unlimited number of tracks. The length of the pattern is also unlimited, but 8 or 16 measures will be more than enough, since any fragment can be duplicated in the playlist.

Here's an example of what a drum part might look like in FL Studio:

Create a melody

The set of this workstation contains a large number of musical instruments. Most of them are various synthesizers, each with a large library of sounds and samples. These tools can also be accessed from the program browser. After choosing a suitable plug-in, you need to add it to the pattern.

The melody itself must be registered in the Piano Roll, which can be opened by right-clicking on the instrument track.

It is highly advisable to prescribe the part of each musical instrument, be it, for example, guitar, piano, kick drum or percussion, on a separate pattern. This will greatly simplify the process of mixing the composition and processing the instruments with effects.

Here's an example of what a melody written in FL Studio might look like:

How many musical instruments to use to create your composition is up to you and, of course, the genre you choose. At a minimum, there should be drums, a bass line, a main melody and some other additional element or sound for a change.

Working with a playlist

The music fragments you have created, distributed to individual FL Studio patterns, need to be placed in the playlist. Follow the same principle as with patterns, that is, one instrument, one track. Thus, by constantly adding new fragments or removing some parts, you will bring the composition together, making it varied, not monotonous.

Here's an example of what a patterned composition might look like in a playlist:

Sound processing with effects

Each sound or melody must be sent to a separate FL Studio mixer channel, where it can be processed with a variety of effects, including an EQ, compressor, filter, limiter, reverb, and more.

Thus, you will give individual fragments a high-quality, studio sound. In addition to processing the effects of each instrument separately, you must also make sure that each of them sounds in its own frequency range, does not get out of the general picture, but does not muffle / cut another instrument. If you have an ear (and you certainly do, since you decided to create music), there should be no problems. In any case, there are plenty of detailed text manuals, as well as video tutorials on working with FL Studio, on the Internet.

In addition, it is possible to add a general effect or effects that improve the sound quality of the composition as a whole to the master channel. These effects will apply to the entire composition as a whole. Here you need to be extremely careful and attentive so as not to negatively affect what you have done before with each sound / channel separately.

Automation

In addition to processing sounds and melodies with effects, the main task of which is to improve the sound quality and bring the overall musical picture into a single masterpiece, these very effects can be automated. What does it mean? Imagine that at some point in the composition, one of the instruments starts playing a little quieter, “leaves” to another channel (left or right) or starts playing with some effect, and then starts playing again in its “clean” form. So, instead of once again registering this instrument in a pattern, sending it to another channel, processing it with other effects, you can simply automate the regulator that is responsible for this effect and make the musical fragment behave like this in a specific section of the track, as needed.

To add an automation clip, right-click on the desired knob and select “Create Automation Clip” from the menu that appears.

The automation clip also appears in the playlist and stretches to the full length of the selected instrument relative to the track. By controlling the line, you will set the necessary parameters for the control knob, which will change its position during the playback of the track.

Here's an example of what automating the “fade out” of a piano part in FL Studio might look like:

Likewise, you can set automation for the entire track as well. This can be done in the mixer master channel.

An example of automating a smooth fading of the entire composition:

Exporting a finished musical composition

After creating your musical masterpiece, do not forget to save the project. To get a music track for further use or listening outside of FL Studio, it must be exported to the desired format.

This can be done through the "File" menu of the program.

Select the desired format, specify the quality and click on the "Start" button.

In addition to exporting the entire musical composition, FL Studio also allows you to export each track separately (you must first distribute all the instruments and sounds to the mixer channels). In this case, each musical instrument will be saved as a separate track (separate audio file). This is necessary in cases when you want to transfer your composition to someone for further work. This could be a producer or sound engineer who will mix, fine-tune or somehow alter the track. In this case, this person will have access to all the components of the composition. Using all these fragments, he will be able to create a song by simply adding vocals to the finished composition.

The first musical instruments - bone flutes - appeared about 35 thousand years ago, but mankind could have been making music long before them. Over time, the understanding of music became deeper and deeper. Although in order to create music, you do not need to thoroughly know the theory of scales, rhythm, melody, and harmony, nevertheless, some knowledge in this area will help you create better quality music.

Steps

Part 1

1. Understand the difference between "pitch" and "note". These terms are used to describe the qualities of musical sounds. They are related but have some differences.

   • Pitch refers to how low or high a sound is, depending on its frequency. The higher the frequency, the higher the sound. The difference in frequency between sounds of different pitches is called an interval.
   • A note denotes a sound of a certain frequency. The standard frequency for the first octave A (A) is 440 Hz, although some orchestras use a different standard, such as 443 Hz, to achieve a brighter sound.
   • Most people can tell if a note is correct when another note is played along with it, or a series of notes from a composition they know. This is called "relative hearing". A small number of people have developed "perfect pitch", which allows you to determine the pitch without hearing another sound.

2. Understand the difference between "timbre" and "tone". These terms are commonly used in relation to musical instruments.

   • Timbre refers to a combination of standard pitch and overtones that appear when you play a note on a musical instrument. If you pick up the low E (E) string on an acoustic guitar, in fact, you will hear not only the low E (E) note, but additional overtones that are higher than the standard one. It is the combination of these sounds, also called harmonics, that makes each instrument sound unique.
   • Tone is a more abstract term. It denotes the effect that a combination of standard pitch and overtones has on a person's hearing. Adding higher harmonics to the timbre will give a brighter and clearer tone, while lower harmonics will give a softer tone.
   • A tone is also called the interval between two sounds of different pitches (whole tone). Half of this interval is called a semitone.

3. Learn the names of the notes. Notes can be named in several ways. In the West, two methods are most common.

   • Alphabetic names: Alphabetic names are assigned to the notes with a certain frequency. In English and Danish-speaking countries, these are the letters A through G. In German-speaking countries, the letter B stands for the note B-flat, or B-flat (the black piano key between the notes A and B), and the letter H is used for denoting the note B, or B (white key on a piano with a note B).
   • Solfeggio: In this system, notes have monosyllabic names according to their sequence in the scale. The system was developed in the 11th century by the monk Guido d "Arezzo, who used" ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si ", taken from the first words of each line of the hymn to John the Baptist. Over time," ut "was replaced by" before ", and some have abbreviated" salt "to" so "(in some parts of the world the solfeggio system is the main system of notation for notes).

4. Understand the notes in the scale. A gamma is a sequence of intervals when the highest sound in a gamut has a frequency twice that of the lowest. This range is called an octave. Some common scales are:

   • The chromatic scale has 12 semitone intervals. Playing an octave on the piano, starting from the "C" note of the first octave to the "C" note of the second octave, that is, successive pressing of all the white and black keys, denotes the chromatic scale. Other scales are more stripped down than this one.
   • The major scale has seven intervals: the first and second are whole tones; the third is a semitone; the fourth, fifth, and sixth - in whole tones; the seventh interval is a semitone. Playing an octave on the piano from the C note of the first octave to the C note of the second octave, using only white keys, is an example of a major scale.
   • The minor scale also has seven intervals. The most common form is the natural minor scale. The first interval is a whole tone, the second is a semitone, the third and fourth are whole tones, the fifth is a semitone, the sixth and seventh are whole tones. Playing an octave on the piano from an A in a minor octave to an A in a first octave, using only white keys, is an example of a natural minor scale.
   • The scale of the pentatonic scale has five intervals. The first interval is a whole tone, the second is three semitones, the third and fourth are one whole tone each, the fifth is three semitones. In the key of C (C), the pentatonic notes will be C (C), D (D), F (F), G (G), A (A), and again C (C). You can also play the pentatonic scale using only the black keys on the piano, between the first and third octaves. The pentatonic scale is used in African music, East Asian and Indian music, and folk music.
   • The very first note in the scale is called the tonic. Usually, songs are written in such a way that the root note is the last note in the song. A song written in the key of C almost always ends with a C note. Often it is indicated next to a note whether the key is major or minor; if not specified, the key is considered to be major.

5. Use sharp and flat to raise or lower notes. Sharps and flats raise or lower a note by one semitone. They are necessary to play in keys other than C major and A minor and to keep the correct intervals. Sharps and flats are indicated next to the notes on the musical notation, and are called alteration signs.

   • A hash (similar to a hashtag - #) next to a note raises it by one semitone. In the keys G-major and E-minor (G major and E minor), the F (F) note is raised one semitone and is the F-sharp note.
   • A flat sign (similar to the English capital letter "b") next to a note lowers it by one semitone. In the keys F-major and D-minor (F major and D minor), the B (B) note is lowered one semitone and is the B-flat note.
   • For convenience, the notes to be lowered or raised in a particular key are indicated at the beginning of each line of the musical notation. In this case, alteration signs should only be used for notes outside the major or minor key in which the song is written. Such alteration marks will only be applied to individual notes within a measure.
   • A bekar sign (looks like a vertical parallelogram with lines going up and down from its two vertices), located next to a note, means that this note should not be raised or lowered in this section of the song. Bekar is never indicated at the beginning of a musical notation along with other alteration signs, but it can be used to cancel sharps and flats within a measure.

   Part 2

   Beats and rhythm

   1. Understand the difference between beat, beat, and tempo. These terms are also related.

      • Beat (beat) is a term that characterizes the pulsation of music. A beat can be either a sounding note or a piece of silence called a pause. In addition, several notes can sound during one beat, and vice versa - one note or rest can last several beats.
      • Rhythm is a series of beats and pulsations. The rhythm is determined by the location of the notes and rests in the song.
      • Tempo is how fast or slow the song is played. The faster the tempo, the more beats sound per minute. The song “The Blue Danube Waltz” has a slow pace, while “The Stars and Stripes Forever” has a fast one.

   2. A set of beats in measures. A bar is a collection of beats. Each measure has an equal number of beats. The number of beats in each measure of the song is indicated at the beginning of the staff of the staff when denoting a beat, which looks like a fraction without a bar separating the numerator and denominator.

      • The top number indicates the number of beats per measure. Usually this number is 2, 3, or 4, but it can be 6 or higher.
      • The bottom number indicates which note is played in one whole beat. If the bottom number is 4, a quarter note is taken in one beat (looks like a filled oval with a vertical line). If the bottom number is 2, a half note is received in one beat (looks like an open oval with a vertical line). If the bottom number is 8, an eighth note is received in one beat (looks like a quarter note with a flag).

   3. Find a strong beat. Rhythm is determined by which beats (beats) in a measure are strong (accented) and weak (unaccented).

      • In most songs, the first beat (beat) is the downbeat, or accented beat. The remaining beats (beats) are unaccented, although in a measure with four beats, the third beat may also be accented, but its accent will be weaker than the first beat.
      • Sometimes in music, weak beats are accentuated instead of strong ones. This is called syncopying; in this case, the emphasis is said to be on the weak beat.

   Part 3

   Melody, harmony, and chords

   1. Identify the song by the melody. A melody is a sequence of notes of different heights, sounding in a certain rhythm, which a person perceives as an integral composition.

      • The melody consists of phrases arranged in measures. These phrases can be repeated throughout the melody, such as in the Christmas song “Deck the Halls,” in which the first and second lines have the same sequence of notes in measures.
      • Most often, songs use the following structure: one melody accompanies the verse, and another melody associated with it accompanies the chorus.

   2. Add harmony to the melody. Harmony is the play of notes outside the current melody in order to make the sound brighter and more contrasting. As noted above, many stringed instruments can produce different tones when picked up; overtones sounding together with the main tone are one of the forms of harmony. Harmony can be achieved by playing various musical phrases and chords.

      • Harmony that enhances the sound of a melody is called consonant. The overtones that sound along with the fundamental when picking up the strings on the guitar is an example of consonant harmony.
      • Harmony that contrasts with the melody is called dissonant. Dissonant harmony can be achieved by playing contrasting melodies, such as in the case of the song “Row Row Row Your Boat,” when different groups of people start singing the above phrase at different times.
      • In many songs, dissonance is used to express vague feelings, and further progress towards consonant harmony. As in the example of “Row Row Row Your Boat”, once each group finishes singing a verse, the song becomes calmer until the last group sings “Life is but a dream”.

   3. Group notes into chords. A chord is made up of three or more notes that sound simultaneously or not simultaneously.

      • The most commonly used chords are triads (three notes), in which each successive note is two notes apart from the previous one. In a C major chord, the notes of the chord will be C (tonic), E (major third), G (fifth). In a C minor chord, the E note will be replaced by the E flat (minor third) note.
      • Another commonly used chord is the seventh chord, which adds a fourth note to the triad, the seventh from the root. In the seventh chord in C major, the note B is added to the C-E-G triad, resulting in a C-E-G-B sequence. Septa chords are more dissonant than triads.
      • You can use a different chord for each note in a song; thus, the so-called "hairdressing" harmony is created. Most often, however, notes from a given chord are played in chords, for example, playing a C major chord to play out the E notes.
      • Many songs have three chords, the root of which is the first, fourth, and fifth notes of the scale. In this case, the Roman numerals I, IV, and V are used. In the key of C major, these chords will be C major, F major, and G major. Often, a major or minor V chord is replaced with a seventh chord; thus, in the key of C major, the V chord would be the seventh in G major.
      • Chords I, IV, and V are key-related. The F major chord is the IV chord in the key of C major, and the C major chord is in turn the V chord in the F major key. Also, a G major chord is a V in the key of C major, and a C major chord is an IV chord in the key of G major. These relationships apply to other chords as well, and are depicted in a diagram called the fifth circle.

   Part 4

   Types of musical instruments

   1. Percussion instruments. This type of instrument is considered to be one of the oldest. Most are designed to create and maintain rhythm, although some can play melody or create harmony.

      • Percussion instruments that create sound due to the vibration of their structure are called idiphones. This includes instruments that produce sound from striking themselves against themselves, such as cymbals and castanets, as well as those that create sound from striking other objects, such as steel drums, triangles, and xylophones.
      • Coated percussion instruments that vibrate upon impact are called membranophones. This includes drums such as timpani, tom-toms, and bongos, as well as instruments to which a string or stick is attached that vibrates upon contact, such as a kuika.

   2. Woodwind instruments. Wind instruments create sound due to the vibration that occurs when they are blown. Most have pitch-bend holes so they can play melodies and harmonies. Woodwind instruments are divided into two types: flutes, which create sound by vibrating the entire instrument, and reed tubes, which contain vibrating material. In turn, they are divided into two subtypes.

      • Open flutes create sound by dividing the air flow against the edge of the instrument. Concert flutes and flutes are of this type.
      • Closed flutes channel air through a channel inside the instrument to separate it and create vibration. Organ pipes belong to this type.
      • In single-reed instruments, this reed is housed in a mouthpiece. When blown into it, the cane makes the air inside the instrument vibrate and create sound. The clarinet and saxophone are examples of single-reed instruments. (Although the body of the saxophone is made of copper, it is considered a woodwind instrument because it uses a cane to create sound.)
      • Double cane instruments use two reed canes tightly connected to each other at one end. On instruments such as the oboe and bassoon, this double reed should be between the musician's lips, while on bagpipes and krumhorns, this double reed is under the cover.

   3. Brass instruments. Unlike woodwind instruments, which only direct the flow of air, brass instruments vibrate with the movements of the musician's lips to create sound. Such instruments are called copper because most of them are made of copper; but besides this, they are also divided into subspecies, depending on their ability to change the sound due to the change in the distance that the air must travel before exiting. This can be achieved in one of two ways.

      • Trombones use a curtain to change the distance the air must travel before exiting. When the curtain is extended, the distance increases, lowering the tone, and when it is moved in, the distance decreases, raising the tone.
      • Other brass instruments, such as trumpet and tuba, use a set of valves to expand or reduce the airflow inside the instrument. These valves can be pressed individually or together to achieve the sound you want.
      • Woodwinds and brass instruments are often referred to simply as wind instruments because they have to be blown into to create music.

   4. Stringed instruments. The strings on string instruments can be sounded in three different ways: by plucking (guitar), by striking (dulcimer or hammers on a piano), or by bowing (violin or cello). String instruments can be used for both rhythmic and melodic accompaniment and can be divided into three categories:

      • The lute is a stringed instrument with a resonating body, such as the violin, guitar, and banjo. The strings are the same length (except for the lower string on a five-string banjo) and vary in thickness. Thicker strings produce a low pitch, while thinner strings produce a high pitch. The strings are pressed in special places called frets, which shortens their length and allows them to reach different heights.
      • The harp is a stringed instrument, the strings of which are placed in a special frame. The strings of the harp are in an upright position and have different lengths, and the lower end of each string is connected to the resonating body (deck) of the instrument.
      • Zither is a stringed instrument with a flat body of irregular shape. The strings on the zither can be tugged or hooked, and can be struck directly or indirectly, just like on a dulcimer or piano.
   • The scales of natural major and minor are linked in such a way that the minor scale of the key is two notes lower than the major scale with the same notes, raised or lowered. Thus, the keys in C major and A minor, which do not have sharps or flats, have the same set of notes.
   • Certain instruments, or groups of instruments, are associated with certain styles of music. For example, string quartets consisting of two violins, viola and cello, are usually played in a genre of classical music called chamber music. Jazz bands usually have a rhythm section, consisting of drums, keys, sometimes double bass and tuba, and a brass section, consisting of trumpets, trombones, clarinets, and saxophones. Sometimes it is interesting to play songs on instruments other than those for which the piece was written. An example of this is “Strange Al” Jankovic, who plays famous polka-style rock songs on the accordion.

I'll tell you about how easy and simple it is to choose beautiful melodies for your tracks. How are harmonious leads, sequences, riffs created? There are some secrets and tricks that greatly facilitate the process of selecting melodies for new compositions. They always work, and that's what I'm talking about in the video.

What are the types of ringtones? Most often, there are several types of melodic transmission in electronic music and they have their own names. We will consider some of them today.

Sequences. Sequence.

Sequences are a small melody that repeats itself. A looped melodic segment that repeats to different chords. Most often, sequences can be played in different steps, but they can also repeat a melody, playing each cycle of repetitions from one step.

Leads. Lead.

Leads are a category of timbres. Lead is a solo melodic element, derived from the word "leader". Usually monophonic, plays the main theme of the piece. Most often, this is the brightest and most memorable part of the melody. You can imagine the lead as the leading part of all harmony. Leads are in the lead against the background of other melodic elements of the track, composition. It can also be presented as a business card of the entire composition, track. Tracks and famous compositions are easily guessed from it.

Riff. Riff.

A very incendiary part of the track, composition. Most often, riffs are used in electric guitars. Riffs differ from leads in brighter, richer sound. The riffs are a very intense piece of melody that is hard to miss in the track. Riffs are often even brighter in sound than leads.

Pad. Pad.

In another way, it is called "lining" for music. This is the background melodic accompaniment of a track, composition, song. As such, the pad is not a direct melody, however, it is directly involved in creating the harmony for the track, and therefore its sound greatly affects the effect of the perception of leads, sequences and riffs. It is a harmonic element, polyphonic. Gives volume to the composition. More often than not, a chord progression is prescribed in the pads, which sets the basic harmony.

As you can imagine, all these elements, which set harmony for your tracks, should build with each other as accurately as possible, "not screw up", and even cause a pleasant perception from the given harmony. And what to do if, say, you have no musical education, and you want to combine these elements of music as effectively as possible? You can use proven algorithms and schemes that greatly facilitate the process of selecting melodies for your tracks, without creating a lot of unnecessary falseness and disharmony in them.

Now, check out the cheat sheet below for creating harmonious melodies. By the way, you can download it by clicking on the picture. Below I give an explanation of how to use it.

Click on the picture and the download of the cheat sheet in JPG format will begin.

If you take 7 steps - 7 notes of which your music consists (do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si) - then there will always be more stable and less stable steps in them. Stable are those notes that you always want to listen to in a melody, using them in a melody always sounds nice and harmonious. And unstable ones - they do not cause very pleasant sensations in us, and we want to hear them least of all. In short, the ratio of stable notes to unstable ones is different. If we create a melody only from unstable steps, then it will be such a mess that it will not seem enough to you! But if you create a melody only from stable steps, then it will be a very harmonious sound, which is well listened to, however, perhaps this melody will not be enough "pepper". That is why it makes sense to use all the notes-steps, but in different proportions, something more and something less.

So let's figure out which notes and pitches are stable and which are not. If you look at the cheat sheet picture above, you will find the three most stable steps - these are 1, 3, 5 (they are marked in green). If you make a melody in the key of C major (C maj), then these will be the notes "C", "E", "G". However, in other keys it will be different notes. For example, in the key "G-major" (G-maj) these will be the notes "G", "B", "D", since for this key the first step will be the note "G". And in the key "F # minor" (F # min) the first step will be the note "F #", and accordingly, the stable notes here will be "F #", "A", "C #". And according to this principle with all other tonalities. Hopefully sorted out with this.

Go ahead. We found 3 of the most stable pitch-notes, they should be the most in the melody. These are the ones that you need to most often prescribe in your leads, riffs, sequences. However, on three notes you will not go far, the melody will sound boring. Therefore, for these three notes we will call two more less stable note levels - these are 2 and 6. In the key of "C major" - these will be the notes "D" and "A" (marked in green on the cheat sheet). We have 5 notes in our arsenal. By the way, with these 5 notes you will go very far. Even if you write a melody using only these steps, then your melody will already sound beautiful, harmonious and build with chords by default.

We still have 2 notes-steps that are unstable - these are 4 ("fa") and 7 ("si") (marked in red). They can also be used in a melody, but not enough so as not to spoil our melody.

Ideally, the ratio of all note grades in the melody you are writing should be as follows: more than 50% of all notes in the melody should be stable steps, and according to the residual principle, all other notes are steps. Only then will your melody build beautifully, not screw up, and evoke pleasant emotions.

Now I will tell you about a very easy way to create a harmonious and quite beautiful melody in 5-10 minutes. Try using the pentatonic scale. The fact is that the "pentatonic scale" consists precisely of those note-steps that are the most stable. The pentatonic scale itself literally means "five tones." This means that you need to play not 7 notes, as we are used to, but only five. And these notes will be steps 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 - the most stable and most harmonious steps.

The pentatonic scale is actively used in modern electronic music. Although she came to us from antiquity. The pentatonic scale can always be heard in Chinese, Japanese, and also Tatar, Bashkir and Chuvash music. Some folk songs and melodies of these peoples still use the pentatonic scale as the main mode for creating musical works.

Now try the following. Create a chord progression from this cheat sheet. After that, put a lead melody on it according to the following scheme: write (play) any white keys on your instrument in a random order (i.e., randomly), but do not use 4 and 7 steps. Those. do not write the notes "f" and "si" in the melody. Scatter all other notes as you like. If the chord progression consists of 4 chords, then repeat your melody in the last two chords. You should get the following, on the first two chords your recorded melody plays, and on the last two chords it repeats one-to-one. And listen to what happened. The melody will build with your chords as it is written in pentatonic scale. In it, you can start the melody from any note of the fret (from any of the five steps), and end on any of the five notes.

How to create a beautiful melody

Melodies are composed of a sequence of notes. A melody is a part of a piece of music that we can sing, the main sound that stands out from the main background. No matter what song you write, you will need a melody. With a basic knowledge of music and a few exercises and techniques, you will find that writing a melody is easier than you might think.

Steps

Part 1

Read some of the music theory. If you want to write well melodies, it is important to know at least the basics of how music is written before you try to create something of your own. Of course, this is not necessary. However, the more you understand music, the easier it will be to understand the explanations of musical concepts.

• In this article, we will use musical terms because it is difficult to convey these ideas without them. Some can be explained, but others are too difficult to explain briefly. If you don't understand what beat, beat and timing are, you should still read about it first.

1. Choose your song shape. The form of the song is a kind of gender division, but for the music. All music usually follows some form that determines which parts and elements are appropriate and when it is time to change them. You are probably most used to this concept in popular music with lead and chorus ideas. Here, you don't have to follow these forms, but it can help you define a roadmap to work with when composing a melody.

   • The most common form of the song is called AABA. This means that there are two "chorus", "chorus", and then another "chorus". In other words, a section that sounds somehow, followed by another that sounds the same, then something else, and finally, return to the topic of the first section.
   • However, there are many different forms, so consider which is best for you. You can consider AAAA, ABCD, AABACA, etc. Or, of course, you can do something completely different.

2. Explore song genres. Some genres of music have a certain style and if you want it to sound exactly the way it is, then you will have to record your melody in a certain way. Read ahead of time about the genre of music you are trying to compose, see if there are any unique features of that genre in terms of structure, key, or progressions.

   • For example, chord progressions for blues and jazz correspond to specific shapes. Jazz uses certain chords heavily, so you need to look for jazz chords before writing songs in this genre.

3. Think about a musician. Regardless of who is performing the piece of music you are writing, they will need a break at some point. The fingers will need rest and the singers will need to catch their breath. You need to figure out how to break the song and add breaks like this. Try to space them evenly at intervals and make them frequent enough to be able to perform the song.

   Parse your favorite songs. The first thing you can do to get your melody recording skills is to start by taking apart some of your favorite songs. Collect a range of songs with great melodies Usually when we listen to music we get immersed in it, right? But you need to make a roadmap out of it ... focus!

   • Write down how the notes change. How are they built? How does the tone make you feel? How does the melody work with the lyrics? What good is a melody? What's not working or what could be better? You can transfer these lessons to your own tunes.

   Part 2

   Creation of the base

   1. Try not to start with the lyrics. If, of course, you are the best lyricist, you may be inclined to start with poetry. However, this is fraught and not recommended, especially if your musical education is very limited. When you start out with lyrics, you have to base your melody on the natural rhythm of the words, and this can be very difficult, especially for a beginner. However, if you want, you can still start with the lyrics.

   2. Play! This may sound kind of silly, but many of the best tunes come from someone who just played random notes on the piano. If you have a tool you can mess around with, try this. Just play around doing variations or just jumping around until you find something that sounds good.

      • If you don't have an instrument, you can sing or use the instrument on the Internet. You can find many free piano websites and apps available for your mobile device.

   3. Convert a simple idea. You can take a really simple idea for a melody, just a sequence of three or four notes, and transform that seed of idea into a whole melody. For example, take a small group of notes that you found by playing according to the previous step. Think about how you think the melody should develop.

      • People who are naturally musical often come up with small pieces of music, as an artist takes an idea for drawing. If that sounds like you, keep a digital voice recorder or laptop nearby (if you know any kind of music recording).

   4. Start with chords. If you are used to making chords, you can also find melody by playing chords. This is typical for people who play the piano or guitar, as these instruments rely heavily on chords. Do the same as we talked about in Step 1, but with chords, until you find something that sounds good to you.

      • You can find websites that play chords for you if you don't have an instrument or don't know a lot of chords.
      • Try to work with chords and find ways to make them more complex. You will find that since you can only extract one sound at a time, you will have a melody even before you hear it. Don't worry about the lyrics, professional musicians almost always write the melody first and hum the nonsense instead of the words.

   5. Borrow from an existing ringtone. Stealing someone's song is a bad idea, but like taking a seedling to grow your own garden, you can take the tiniest sliver from another song and transform it into something completely different. If you take only a sequence of about four notes and make enough changes, then your music becomes completely original. Just remember that you are transforming it into something completely different.

      • A good piece should borrow from various genres of music. Say that you want to record a folk song, for example. Try to borrow from rap. Want to record a country song? Borrow from the classics.

   6. Build on motive. A motive is a series of notes that form a musical "idea". Many songs take a tune and then repeat this set of notes with slight variations to create a melody. If you are struggling to come up with a melody, this is a great help, as you can start with the given set of notes.

      • One of the best examples of this is the Allegro from Beethoven's Symphony # 5. He just took the main tune and repeated it many times and created one of the greatest pieces of music of all time.

   Part 3

   Shine

   Add chords if you don't already have them. If you didn't start with chords, you can add a few now. The chords will make your song sound fuller and more complex, although you can do without them or use only very simple chords if you want more melancholy by exposing the sound.

   • Start by establishing what tone your melody is written in. Certain chords sound better with some tones than others. For example, if your song starts with a C (before), then a C (before) chord would be appropriate to start.
   • When to change chords will really depend on your song, but try to determine when to change sounds or melody. Usually, chord changes occur at the first beat, at the beginning of a measure. You can also use chord change to introduce another chord. For example, in a 4/4 song, you might have one chord on the first beat and then another on the 4th beat before introducing the next chord on the next measure.