Tag Info

There isn't one definitive answer to this question besides "Try to be Paul McCartney." That said, here are some guidelines that I hope prove helpful: Mix It Up Don't just use chord tones (meaning, notes that are in the chord you're playing at the moment) and don't just use non-chord tones. Non-chord tones will give your melody a sense of momentum and ...

There are some very simple ways to transform the mood of a song by slight alterations in the melody, harmony or both. A transposition of the melody to the relative minor (ex. from C major to A minor) or to the parallel minor (ex. from C major to C minor) are both very simple ways to retain the melodic material, while drastically changing the sound. ...

The art of Counterpoint, as studied by composers for centuries, gives exact details on how to correctly ornament any melody. The lists of ornaments cited as point 4 in the question is only a subset of the possibilities given to us by counterpoint. There are five main species of counterpoint. The treatise by Johann Joseph Fux is today the most common source ...

Addressing the Easy to Sing aspect: For Four Non-Blondes' What's Up?, I think the fact that the melody in the refrain is a simple arpeggio of a major chord is what maks it easy to sing. If you can find (or, a cappella, choose) the A at the top, the F# and D follow naturally to anyone with sufficient familiary with the Western tradition of music. What's Up? ...

There are other transformations besides the shift to relative minor, but it begins to depend on what kind of melody you're dealing with. If the melody covers only a short range of the scale, you can alter any notes it doesn't touch. Like if the melody only ranges over 1-2-3-4-5 of the scale, you can shift it to 4-5-6-7-8 of the ascending melodic minor ...

It surely can be done and it's largely used in, for example, games to signal mood changes to the listener while still conveying the original "idea" of the song. Take as an example the soundtrack to Final Fantasy VI (Final Fantasy III in the USA). The main theme for Terra - one of the protagonists - is a strong yet melancholic song with emphasis on the ...

Ornamentation is the process of adding little "points of interest" to accentuate the drama of the melody. Passing Tones add a moment of slower "pace" to a melody. Instead of flying, jumping, or teleporting to the destination, this poor schmo has to take each step one at a time. Grace Notes add a bit of "trajectory" to melody. There's an older style slow ...

You have a great number of options. Some of them: Change the tempo (duh) Change rhythmic figures, add pauses, change note duration. Change time signature; classic examples are bringing a 4/4 piece in 3/4 or even 5/4. Work on the harmony: change voicings, add or remove notes. A seventh where there wasn't one (or vice versa) makes a big difference, and gives ...

I advice you to focus on relative pitch. You're a bassist, so you catch the bass line easily in songs, I don't doubt about that. There may be methods, but I'm just gonna give you some tricks. Once you feel the bass you feel what is called in classical music the fundamental tone. (I'm french maybe that's not the correct word in english). When you play ...

As you have observed, parallel 5ths are not particularly musical. In fact, in the first semester of Theory I, everyone learns the important rule of harmonizing a melody and bassline: "NO PARALLEL 5ths!" In fact, I give you not one, not two, but three different memes (that I did not make) that detail this. (This page has some much more useful images.) You ...

I'd approach this as an application of counterpoint, where it's not always desirable to have the intermediate voices be a 5th above the bass. In strict counterpoint, you would typically construct parallel voices with a separation of a 3rd or a 6th up from the bass, this may fill out the harmony better than a 5th. This is in addition to the the answer ...

Focus on the main downbeats of your melody. The rest you might have to turn into transition-focused points of your melody. To Reiterate: Yea, ok, A4, that's fine, but you will need to give something up, so focus on the important notes of your melody. Downbeats Longer-held notes (those with more duration) Hope this catches the point of your question.

This can be acheived by tempo and style moderations. In the animated movie "Pinchcliffe Grand Prix" (original norwegian title: "Flåklypa Grand Prix") has example of this. The Theodore theme is occuring two times in different styles with same melody, but with different feels to it. First occurence is when Theodore plays it in a very melancolic way: ...

I think the closest thing you're going to get to an answer is 'meter', as is more usually applied to hymns. This essentially describes the pattern of syllables in each verse by using numbers to represent them. For example, Common Meter refers to a pattern of 8,6,8,6 : Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, ...

I think the biggest problem with this question is the assumption that a melody is tied to a key. A melody may be transposed to any key. Three Blind Mice in C major begins E,D,C. Three Blind Mice in D major begins F♯,E,D. And so on. Melodies are tied to modes, which are the set of intervals between the notes in the melody, relative to the root note. It's ...

Ear Training You are asking for a method of studying ear training. This is a well-recognized musical discipline taught in all music schools. See my post here: http://music.stackexchange.com/a/6167/1044 Over the years there have been many computer software programs designed to help you develop ear training skills. I have no experience with the current ...

In my experience as a musician and using Kodaly, it's less about the intervals themselves as it is about the notes of the scales used. For instance, a minor third down is represented as "sol mi" and a perfect fourth up is "sol do". You can see how these are the notes of the tonic triad. Therefore, in ranking the complexity of an interval, I believe it would ...