How do YOU come up with vocal melodies?

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I find this to be the hardest part of writing a song. What do you do? Wait until one magically comes to you? Try to work it out in notes? Listen to other songs for inspiration?

― Michael D, Monday, 25 July 2005 00:15 (twenty years ago)

i always have the guitar part first so i just la la la over that until something clicks well enough to keep.

― shine headlights on me (electricsound), Monday, 25 July 2005 00:20 (twenty years ago)

The fifth and the third are your best friends in the world; start out with them and play around a little with passing notes and melodies will jump out at you.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 25 July 2005 00:22 (twenty years ago)

Yes, "don't start with the root note" is a good piece of advise. Try not starting on "one," either.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Monday, 25 July 2005 00:24 (twenty years ago)

a lot of times i try to start w/ the melody and then find chords that fit; songwriting trick #9324857 is having the same melody line over differing but related chord patterns. just sing wierd shit to yourself in the shower, or sing your own bits over songs in the car and then retrofit them later! pure gold every time. often i self-consciously try to come up with lines that are trickier than the ones in the song already. oh oh and the james brown thing! just spit a few good words and leave a big empty space. rinse, repeat!

― geoff (gcannon), Monday, 25 July 2005 02:40 (twenty years ago)

Geoff also OTM; it's often easier to harmonize a melody line than it is to create a melody to fit a chord progression.

― The Ghost of Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 25 July 2005 02:43 (twenty years ago)

if i'm writing at the keyboard, i usually write both a melody line and a chord progression (or bass line) simultaneously.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 25 July 2005 03:43 (twenty years ago)

don't play major chords especially "c" and "f".
buy the beatles white album .

― retroman, Monday, 25 July 2005 07:25 (twenty years ago)

I don't come up with them. They just happen. In fact, sometimes they just won't leave me alone until I write a song to wrap around them.

― Rum, Sodomy and the LAN (kate), Monday, 25 July 2005 07:26 (twenty years ago)

i love vocal melodies. to be able to craft them must be tremendous

― rizzx (rizzx), Monday, 25 July 2005 07:35 (twenty years ago)

well, usually i play random chords/notes and hum along until a few notes click. then i keep playing these chords/few notes until a "mood" comes. then it's a more conscious part where i try to find the rest of the melody, the changes, the different parts of the song...
then when i have a general idea of the melody, chord changes, arrangements, etc. i try to think of it a different way and see if i can play some chords instead of others to make it more exciting/interesting, etc.
and then the lyrics.
and then have to convince my bandmates (and the rest of the world) that it's the best song ever (since the latest one...).
the later part is the most difficult usually...

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Monday, 25 July 2005 08:10 (twenty years ago)

When I first started trying to sing properly (i.e. after the punk band I was in split up!) I regularly used to consciously try to imagine how someone else (I can remember using Kirk Brandon, David Byrne, Edwyn Collins, Elvis Costello, Ian Curtis, Roddy Frame, Glenn Gregory, Mark King, Jim Morrison, Phil Oakey, Siouxsie and Dave Vanian in this context - usually someone different every time, frequently one person on the verse and another on the chorus) might approach creating a vocal line to go over whatever the band were playing.

Unfortunately it didn't seem to matter who I was actually trying to emulate, everyone just kept saying I sounded like Tony bastard Hadley.

Then one day I suddenly realised that I'd stopped trying to sing like other people and had developed (enough confidence in) my own ability.

Unfortunately everyone still kept saying I sounded like Tony bastard Hadley.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Monday, 25 July 2005 09:07 (twenty years ago)

Use different instruments when writing. If you switch things up between say, keyboards, guitar, and bass, you'll be less prone to repeat yourself.

Another trick I like to use is to record all of the backing tracks first and then come up with a vocal melody. This way I free my hands up and can focus on the counterpoint. If I write a melody while playing an instrument, I sometimes feel that I compromise this melody in order to make it easier to play.

― darin (darin), Monday, 25 July 2005 15:59 (twenty years ago)

I think the order that I go in is:

1. riff
2. verse chords
3. chorus chords
4. verse words
5. chorus words
6. chorus melody
7. verse melody
8. bridge chords
9. bassline
10. drum part

― The Mad Puffin (The Mad Puffin), Monday, 25 July 2005 16:30 (twenty years ago)

steal them from other people's songs

― sldf 324kh, Monday, 25 July 2005 17:26 (twenty years ago)

I regularly used to consciously try to imagine how someone else (I can remember using Kirk Brandon, David Byrne, Edwyn Collins, Elvis Costello, Ian Curtis, Roddy Frame, Glenn Gregory, Mark King, Jim Morrison, Phil Oakey, Siouxsie and Dave Vanian in this context - usually someone different every time, frequently one person on the verse and another on the chorus) might approach creating a vocal line to go over whatever the band were playing.

I used to do this loads with people whose vocal ranges were similar to mine (ie borderline nonexistant). It sort of felt like my own composed vocal lines were really feeble and aimless, but singing them as if you're someone else has this weird sort of legitimacy-conferring effect on them. Oakey was one of mine as well.

I think when I come up with vocal lines I just work out the cadence I want and then sing it in a flat drone, gradually adding little inflections here and there. I think the inflections arrive via the magically-just-coming-to-you method, to some extent. Actually, everything does.

― Michael Philip Philip Philip Avoidant (Ferg), Monday, 25 July 2005 17:40 (twenty years ago)

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