Turn on a drum loop, or just hum any rhythm that pops into your head. Avoid harmonic progressions for now.
Return to the major scale, playing up and down
Change the length of the notes as suits your fancy. Combine it with the rhythm in your head. Start deleting, repeating notes.
Once you have a melody - any melody, regardless of how much you like/hate it - record a midi clip.
Put the midi clip aside and repeat.
You must complete this more than once per sitting, but don’t cast inspiration aside for the sake of procedure. Go with something until you run out of steam and then get back to generating new melodies. Don’t box yourself in with chords just yet, you can harmonize later.
Mutations:
a) change keys
b) change the mode of the scale
c) modulate from one key to another (and then back?)
d) play a melody over twice the distance (four octaves instead of two, two instead of one… you get the drill)
e) play a melody over half the distance (much harder to do, possibly more interesting)
f) double the length of the notes you play
g) halve the length of the notes you play
h) limit yourself to a minor 6th/perfect 5th/augmented chord/C#11b5. Play whatever range you want, but stick with it!
i) go back to older melodies and mutate them in any of the above ways
There you go! A no-nonsense method for generating melodies. You don’t need inspiration or any musical theory beyond what the videos in SonicAcademy or a number of other beginner material can teach you in an hour or so. You just have to DO IT.
Just typing that up has got me wanting to write some music, but my shift isn’t up for another 3 hours
Bonus tip:
Don’t have a rhythm in mind? Don’t have any loops? HATE DRUMS?
Close your eyes and put one finger down on your keyboard. Whichever note you land on is your note. Turn on a click track and play that note along with it. Do this until you have to play twice as fast. Do that until you have to play twice as slow (as the original tempo). Start playing that one note, and play the hell out of it. Don’t stop until you’re both spent and you have a rhythm.
Turn on a drum loop, or just hum any rhythm that pops into your head. Avoid harmonic progressions for now.
Return to the major scale, playing up and down
Change the length of the notes as suits your fancy. Combine it with the rhythm in your head. Start deleting, repeating notes.
Once you have a melody - any melody, regardless of how much you like/hate it - record a midi clip.
Put the midi clip aside and repeat.
You must complete this more than once per sitting, but don’t cast inspiration aside for the sake of procedure. Go with something until you run out of steam and then get back to generating new melodies. Don’t box yourself in with chords just yet, you can harmonize later.
Mutations:
a) change keys
b) change the mode of the scale
c) modulate from one key to another (and then back?)
d) play a melody over twice the distance (four octaves instead of two, two instead of one… you get the drill)
e) play a melody over half the distance (much harder to do, possibly more interesting)
f) double the length of the notes you play
g) halve the length of the notes you play
h) limit yourself to a minor 6th/perfect 5th/augmented chord/C#11b5. Play whatever range you want, but stick with it!
i) go back to older melodies and mutate them in any of the above ways
There you go! A no-nonsense method for generating melodies. You don’t need inspiration or any musical theory beyond what the videos in SonicAcademy or a number of other beginner material can teach you in an hour or so. You just have to DO IT.
Just typing that up has got me wanting to write some music, but my shift isn’t up for another 3 hours
Bonus tip:
Don’t have a rhythm in mind? Don’t have any loops? HATE DRUMS?
Close your eyes and put one finger down on your keyboard. Whichever note you land on is your note. Turn on a click track and play that note along with it. Do this until you have to play twice as fast. Do that until you have to play twice as slow (as the original tempo). Start playing that one note, and play the hell out of it. Don’t stop until you’re both spent and you have a rhythm.[/quote]
