How to come up with great melodies [closed]

Question

I got fl studio.

I know it from the ground up

but I still cant make good melodies

I have seen a lot to tutoirals

they all say to just write music

and I can't do that

I really need help.

Answer 1

Songwriting in general is a craft, it takes years to perfect. The good thing is you're trying, everyone has to start somewhere.

You can't think too logically about writing melodies, I think it comes spontaneously and inspirationally from playing an instrument. The best times seem to be when you're noodling around and something just pops out, you think to yourself 'Hey that sounds really good, what if I take it here...'

At least that is how it works for me. Keep on practising and learning the piano, try creating arpeggios around simple chord sequences, change it up, something will happen for sure :-)

I spent years playing bass guitar in a band, before I even started to think about writing music and writing lyrics etc. I also took a 'Modern Musician' online course with Berklee College through the Coursera website. That really opened my mind to writing my own music.

Also it might help you to use some composition software, since a DAW is really focused around the music production angle of the process.

There's a great new tool called Odesi that might be worth checking out:

http://odesi.mixedinkey.com/

Another idea I used at the beginning (and probably the most useful that helped me get through finishing my first song) was to take a famous simple song that I really liked. I mapped out the basic structure of the song (just chords and drums) in my favourite DAW. I then marked each section of the song with the parts that I needed to fill in (intro, verse, chorus, break, guitar solo). Then by myself, I filled-in each part of the song with my own ideas. It works really well (and it's something that famous artists like David Bowie used to create new song ideas). Since all the melodies and solo's you fill in yourself will be yours, it will become your own song!

Hope this helps, and good luck with it!

Answer 2

I have unusual advice for you. The magic is in the bath room!! 60% of my music starts from when I am taking shower and I have to rush out to put down those melodies in MIDI. The other 40% I came up with melodies in front of the DAW but soon struck with chorus or something, then again I can fill that up just by taking a bath.

I found piano and violin the ultimate duo for quickly jot down bathroom ideas for me since I cannot read or write sheet music. Piano sounds full by its own and works with both melodies and bass, while violin can emulate vocal or melodies idea where the sound is continuous or pitch shifting. Today I have about 7 "bath rooms" project with only 10s of violin and piano in it. From time to time I would come back and I even made a song from multiple of these combined.

Answer 3

Ok, I have one more answer, it is to fool around.

Many DAWs can ultimately achieve the same functionality, but what set them apart is how they provide inspiration/speed for you. Using FL Studio I can never finish a song, but when I use Ableton Live the "happy accident" happen so often that I love it. And in FL I cannot get it down fast enough that most of the accident disappears, so speed is the key here.

For example, FL has "pattern". If you modify the pattern then the one already placed on the timeline will update accordingly. This is a strong point of FL over Ableton for some users. Everything in Ableton's timeline is not linked to anything (but the clip itself individually store data that can extend over the end/start point), but because of this, often I mess around in the Ableton's timeline and often found new ideas from fragments of junks that I left in the timeline. In FL I would required to be "neat" because if I did the same as Ableton in FL I will end up with hundreds of patterns. Ableton is dirty, I copy and paste all I want, sometime I miss FL's system but that's how Ableton provide me ideas.

Usually it happens while you fumble on the MIDI keyboard, or attaching rhythm altering effects like delay, MIDI manipulating effects and so on. The important point is you have to do something in the DAW for this to work. I have heard many stories of classical musician walks in the park with notebook, inspiration strikes and he note down the melodies. This never works for me so I found the fooling around in the DAW more effective. Maybe this is the case for you or not the case for you, you have to try many ways. And maybe, many DAWs, many color skins, many workplace.

One of my best song started from collab in Starbucks with my friend because we think it would be cool if we find some place to start the music together and after that we can work separately. That place happen to be Starbucks because we thought it's cool and have power outlet. Even though it sounds overly cliche to work in coffee shop, we did come up with "that one bass line" for our DnB song in 3 hours of coffee shop. After that, the WHOLE song kind of spread out from that little bass line. Today, I still find that amazing. If we did not decide to go to Starbucks at that time the song might be vastly different from what I have now. This is one of the little thing that counts a lot.

Answer 4

You can put three notes down and turn it into a song, but generally, all you need is a little inspiration. A good song usually starts with a simple idea. This could be a rhythm, a melody, chords or even a simple drum beat, anything that triggers that spark of inspiration. In my experience the best ones evolve from a simple idea which will build and evolve into a full compliment of parts.

Try to interact with the song as much as possible. For example, for one of the songs I am currently working on, the spark of inspiration came while I was messing with a synth I had created. One sound struck me as a great sound for a bass line. So I used the click track and midi keyboard to get the bass line down. As I played it back, the drum pattern came naturally. So I played back the whole thing and it sounded great, so I held it there and searched for a sound for a melody part. It was actually quite hard to find the right sound to fit with the current song, and after feeling a bit dismayed, I ended up using a simple bright piano. As I played back the song, I messed around with notes on the keyboard, just playing to the rhythm and what felt right, and even though I am pretty useless at playing the piano, a few simple notes soon became a full melody. I then introduced chord changes and breaks. The melody is now my favorite part of that song, it complements the drums and bass line and pulls you along.

So to summarize, I think inspiration for a melody, the right sound and the right song can play a big role in creating a good melody.

Maybe you should just pick a sound that sounds good to you, write a simple melody and stick with it. Then build a track around it, come back after an hour and see how it sounds. Maybe you are just hearing the melody by itself so it sounds dull, repetitive or uninteresting. Creating parts around it, to compliment it should make you see it as more.