Wakeon wrote:Hey friends,
I've got some difficulties with the creation of my new song.
Indeed i have four chords but i don't know how to place a melody (which sounds good) on it ?
Should I set same notes I used for each chord or should i use notes of the first chord during the first chord, notes of the second chord during the second etc...
Can you explain me please :)?
Thanks a lot!
This is my basic method for moving an idea forward with no specific current idea:
Try notes
Find the notes, optionally those in the scale — and play the loop of only one chord or maybe two. Pick out 3 notes (of the scale= by ear that feel good and play only these in various ways while recording. Listen to these notes and let these mini-melodies speak to you. As you're recording this don't hesitate to deviate from any figure you find with
only these three notes (just pick a number).
Listen to the recording
After recording listen back and see which sections you like and copy these to new clips. Simplest way is to duplicate the recording and crop the clip around the parts you like. Alternatively learn to play thee little phrases at will and do that while re-recording. Play around as much as you want, but limit yourself more or less to the notes you selected. If you deviate return to these. Use that basic rule of thumb as long as it works for you.
Go one step further
Do all of this while playing back. After you got one little melody, lengthen the chord track and play both the first and the second chord, Set the melody track and one of the promising clips to the same length in overdub mode and let the clip play the notes you got from the recording, this clip being silent when the second chord plays, or play these yourself, whatever feels best for you.
Move the phrases
Now start playing the same figure either in the same position or move the same figure to another position in the scale, keeping the relative intervals (within the scale most likely, so will shift in places for the actual heard notes).
Experiment
Experiment with changing the order of the notes, the rhythm and so on, but keep it simple and try to play what feels good and relevant and limit yourself a bit. Keep it as simple as you want it.
Make room for variation
When you got something, double the clip length and delete the second part playing at the same time as the second chord (i e keep the first you just did).
Now the clip is playing 4 different sections, three with notes: your first section phrase, the second section phrase, the third section repeats the first and then an empty fourth section.
Use this basic set up to make a number of variations for the first 2 chords. When you got something you like, duplicate and delete the repetitions you want to make variations of. Then use overdub to record new variations in the places where you have no notes (as you deleted them). All the time use the same basic figure and deviate as you see fit.
Keep going
Keep going like this and lengthen the chord track so it plays one more chord in the progression every time you lengthen playback and keep "filling in" your melody.
Use undo
If you want to delete what you just recorded while still recording just do
undo and record again. You must keep overdub on in order to keep the old notes, OK?
Ignore "mistakes"
Alternatively learn your simple figure and play all basic phrases that you come up with varying each one as you go. Don't worry about mistakes. There are none. Just keep going. When you get the hang of it you can stop thinking about what you do and let the music flow…
Listen, save and delete
In the end you will have a lot of clips with many ideas. Take a short break. after saving, and then come back and listen trough and delete what you don't like, keep the rest for the next session. Don't worry about deleting, you will have other even better ideas. Creativity is limitless. Don't stop the flow, just roll with it.
?