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I stripped my setup WAY down - MC-50mkII, TX81Z, RY30, effects, controller - so that I can just kind of focus on music for a while and not DSP wankery. But now I'm discovering that I'm capable of a much different kind of wankery. What I mean is I'll listen back to a melody I'll made and I'll be like "man, I am just going up and down the major scale. How boring."
To redeem myself I listened to the bassline of "Carribean Nights" and figured out that it was basically 3 notes/chords and the first was expanded into an arpeggio that goes up to the 5th, minor 7th, 8th, ghosts the 9th, and then goes back down. If that doesn't make sense it's because I learned theory from conversations in bars with my classically trained friends. Anyway, the point of that was that expanding individual notes into chords or arpeggios seems effective, at least from listening to that one song.
Another thing I've been doing is varying the timing a bit and not quantizing. I'm not a good keyboardist at all but I guess my sloppy timing sounds better to my own ears than quantizing does, now that I'm a little older and wiser I guess. But that feels kinda like turd poliishing.
How about you? How do you repair or prevent melodic wankery?
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edited: Aug 11 2006
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flies
two techniques i use are reduction and re-arranging.
remove notes to create a sparser, more "pick and choose" melody. write the melody, copy it, and then remove everything you possibly can from the copy but still try to maintain the overall feel.
a large source of cheesiness comes from rhythm as well as notes and chord changes. simply by moving the notes about and creating syncopation you can breathe life and space into your melodies.
these two techniques work very well in tandem.
this is not going to make you mozart, but it works well enough for me.
08/11/06
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jogn
You could also try chopping up the melodies or sticking different portions of it into a sample. Map them over the keyboard. Then wank all over those samples. It's more of an accidental discovery kind of technique. You could say it de wanks by making the wanking unpredictable.
08/11/06
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em978
you need to be wankering them up... imo
08/11/06
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Spark
Here is my theory wank ramble
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A cheeze proof, accident prone method for writing melodies is to put you hands on the keyboard, find all of you favorite notes or the ones that fit together and leave each finger on a single note, now. Wiggle your fingers around until you hit a "wrong" note, use that one as the hook.
So you'll have 6 notes in your melody, which means you should be able to extrapolate another note.
Whatever arrangement of notes you come up with is probably part of a scale. You can use this scale to help create a cadence for your melody, you can use the cadence to sustain tensions in your melody, you can prolong the "ending" of your melody thereby hanging the listener on the edge... wickedly dangling them... then at the last possible moment, resolving the phrase, and modulating into something relieving. That's classical music right there.
Now, go up and down the scale and get a feel for it's character. Come up with a phrase that best describes (to you) the feeling you get from it. Once you have the notes.. the phrase should come quickly and naturally. Don't force it.
This is a very rudimentary explaination, without going into specifics, but these are some things you can toy with without having to learn key signatures, modes, or any theory at all.
For modulations, try changing the proportions of 2 notes, flat/sharp the thirds , flat/sharp the fifths and sevenths. These good places to mess around with because it changes the chord structures, also transpose the melody/scale a few degrees (keep it in your root note the same for interesting effects).
In music there is a thing called modes, now, regular modes sound cheezy as fuck because they've been used and used and used a million times, which means they work.. but.. who cares about that? we want to make badass shit! The IDEA of modes is an interesting one. It allows you to "twist" your phrases, into new ones and build/relieve tensions.
A mode is another scale built ontop of an existing one, but starting on another degree of the scale.
* First note (1): tonic
* Second note (2): Supertonic
* Third note (3): Mediant
* Fourth note (4): Sub-Dominant
* Fifth note (5): dominant
* Sixth note (6): Sub-Mediant
* Seventh note (7): Leading/Subtonic
c d e f g a b c - c major (ionian? mode)
d e f g a b c d - d dorian - second degree or super tonic of c - major
e f g a b c d e - e phyrgian - third degree of mediant of c-major
f g a b c d e f - f lydian - forth degree or sub-dominant of c-major
and so on. Do this for your scale, also, transpose the scale down to your root, to hear the effect.
Chords are easy,
These numbers refer to the degree of the scale you're using,
I'm sure I've made some mistakes.
1-3-5, major chord
1-3-5-7 major seventh chord
1-3-5-7b dominant 7th
1-3b-5 minor chord
1-3-5# augmented
1-3b-5b - diminished
1-b3-5b-7b - diminished 7th
There are also Inverted, open and closed voicings for these.
So, an inverted voicing is where the 1, or 3, is transposed up an octave. Obviously if you transpose all three, you've just transposed the chord
Closed voicing is how those chords are written above, all the notes are CLOSE together
Open voicing is where you transpose the notes of the chords so that they are apart from each other, ie, transpose the root down, and the the 3, and the 5th stay the same, but you raise the 7th by an octave, would be an example of an open voicing.
I'm not really explaining truly (try wikipedia for specifics), but hopefully you can get the idea and you can forget the specifics and just play around with it (thats what you do after learning it anyways).
And while we're wanking...
Fuck this stupid "wank" hater bullshit. Stop worrying about that crap. Everything is wank. People who complain about that shit, are bruised ego-ists, haters, "experts". Fuck em.
Do your thing. Love it.
08/11/06
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astroboy
use fewer notes.
i mean: really!
do it!
edited: Aug 11 2006
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astroid
change your methods until you find something that works.
for instance, maybe write some nice chord changes, an 8 bar loop, and then find the perfect melody to fit. make sure you can sing the melody, that you want to sing the melody.
or, do what ariel does, and write the whole melody in your head before sitting down to an instrument. that's a tall order for me, but i can do it piecemeal sometimes, if i go for a walk. the rythym of footfalls can lend itsself to melody. when i do that, i make sure i understand the harmonic underpinning of my melody, too.
the thing that's been best for me, in study, is to study harmonic movement.
like, fredo's the turn, for instance. it's basically the minor tonic chord, and then a dance between the bVI (almost interchangable with the iv in this context) and the V. listen to how his melody plays with those chords, how it flirts with the fourth before establishing the tonality by hitting the root notes. you could maybe write something which is shaped basically like that-change a pattern a little, go down instead of up, that kinda thing.
in practice, i trust in my ability to write a soaring pop chorus melody. do you always want that? probably not. if you analyze what makes different songwriters great, and what makes the bulk of pop so similar, you'll see that a lot of people can plunk out a soaring melody. it's not hard, you make sure that your chords stay in the same key area while changing function (so like: a- F C G is always in a- or C major) and then you structure your melody like a little logical argument. statement, counterstatement, and then sum it up. now, writing a great jazz/pop line like stevie wonder or a funk/pop line like michael jackson, that is way more subtle, and you'll be found out for ripping them off long before you're successful at it.
analyze every song you love. be able to play the chords on something and sing along with something else. do it with aphex!
08/12/06
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license
you guys are great 
08/12/06
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astroboy
keep in mind that the notes are only 50% of a melody.
what's probably even more important is the rhythm, the timing of the played notes.
hugh!
08/12/06
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theflame
maybe just make a loop with one note and only add notes to the loop when you REALLY have to
08/12/06
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11t1
astroid said: "go for a walk. the rythym of footfalls can lend itsself to melody"
i've written some of my best stuff that way. then when it comes time to listen back on the ipod, everything comes full circle.
my advice for making a melody interesting is to try avoiding 1. as a scale tone, 1 - or root - is likely already covered by the bass. Try emphasizing another note to add interest. rhythmically, beat 1 will likely be covered by drums & bass & a whole lot more, so bring in the start of a melodic line somewhere else, earlier or later. by doing so, the fewer notes you end up playing will be worth more in the long run.
08/12/06
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disturb
11t1 suggestions seems to make much sense to me...
Recent blogs: dubstep = poo
08/12/06
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Squeal
This has worked for me:
1 Place notes randomly in a loop with your mouse
2 Listen to it until a melody starts to appear
3 Delete notes, move notes, and/or create new notes to back up or play off the found melody
4 I guess from that point I usually elaborate on the loop in a more controlled way
I find that this usually ends up giving me melodies that I like without that contrived feel. Eventually you get a tonic and scale and all that, but the rhythms are bizarre and the melody structure isn't so well defined.
08/12/06
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deltasleep
hell, in FLstudio I can generate a random melody in any key, chord, or mode that I want...maybe I should play with that more.
If you want good advice on trying to work out the rhythm of the notes you play, you need to really spend some time listening and attempting to arrange some good samba/cha cha/bossa nova standards. One note samba, green eyes cha cha, malaguena, granada, question mark, girl from ipanema, etc. Melodically they are relatively simple- sometimes just a couple notes that alternate.
The real action happens in how the songs are arranged(thats a good way for a song to become a standard- fun to arrange.) So do yourself a favor- get some mp3s or records if they're still in print, of great arrangers and band leaders like Enoch Light, Martin Denny, Juan Garcia Esquivel, Morton Gould, Stanley Black, etc. Those guys took standards and pop songs and made them into something amazing- you'll enjoy the recordings! Listen to a few differing versions of the same song. Then go out and find yourself a midi file of the song, import the track playing the melody, and work your way around arranging it.
That initial spark of melody is the hardest part for so many.(me) I get the feeling that there are tons of us out there who have so much trouble with that part who should be playing the role of arranger now instead of beating ourselves over the head with an mc50. I can have a cover that I love done in a few hours. But when I have to write the melody, things take forever. Once I get that done though, I can wail on the arranging.
If it weren't for the practice of arranging new versions of older songs, most of my favorite musicians would never have seen the light of day!
link
08/12/06
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zfigz
Esquivel is sweeeeeeet...
I wanna score some Enoch Light though...i hear it's good stuff...
08/12/06
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LordByron
get drunk! i mean STINKING drunk... it won't really help but it's fun.
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