How I do love a nice melody...

[tonyc2002]

Right then me old musical mofo's, I have a lovely arpegiated (sp) bass line and I'm trying to wrap a little hook/melody around it. Why is this so hard haha? The arp is just D and E looped if that helps. I do apolagise for my vaugeness (sp again) but I'm pretty clueless when it comes to notation and stuff :roflmao:

[massplanck]

**** notation.

Heres a simple way.
just find the notes that make up the D chord (major (happy) or minor(sad)) on the piano (if thats the first note your bassline starts) and play with them on all their octaves. Jam to your hearts content and then find a bit you like. Expant on this by introducing more notes in the D scale into the riff.

http://www.8notes.com/piano_chord_chart/Dm.asp

[stjohn]

play around with Modes too...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_mode

there are 7.. u can hear what they sound like by going up and down all the white notes only

C up to C is what the 1st mode (lydian) sounds like from C
D up to D is the 2nd sounds like from D
E to E - 3rd. from E
F to F ..from F
G to G.. from G
A - A..
B - B ..

each has its own character

use a pitch midi plugin to change the inputted notes... so u can play C- C (pr whatever) on the keyboard, and pitch it up to actually be the lydian mode from G or something.

lydian is pretty boring tho... i like the aeolian :) u can do some nice and melodic arpeggios if u get used to the modes!

sorry if i explained this totally arseways...

[tonyc2002]

Modes? Minor? Lydian? What are you people jibbering on about! :lol: I am PROPER CLUELESS when it comes to music theory. I'll post up some screenshots tommorow and hopefully you guys can help me visualise whats' what :wink:

Thanks for taking the time though peeps. Serious :biggrin:

[stjohn]

sorry.. i probly shouldnt have mentioned them :rolleyes:... but seriosuly.. at least try the below on ur keyboard.. and u will hear the what is possible.


u can hear what they sound like by going up and down all the white notes only

C up to C is what the 1st mode (lydian) sounds like from C
D up to D is the 2nd sounds like from D
E to E - 3rd. from E
F to F ..from F
G to G.. from G
A - A..
B - B ..

[tonyc2002]

sorry.. i probly shouldnt have mentioned them :rolleyes:... but seriosuly.. at least try the below on ur keyboard.. and u will hear the what is possible.

Ok thats cool. Things are starting to click into place now (finally :lol:) Just more experimentation and study I reckon. I can hear when things work, I'm not tone deaf (well atleast I think I'm not haha) but I guess sometimes its like trying to put together a huge puzzle with only a few pieces :confused:

[tonyc2002]

I found this today which is pretty helpful http://scgen.sourceforge.net/ :biggrin:

[massplanck]

Tony check this out. This is exactly what you what...

http://www.ravenspiral.com/rsg2mt/rsg2mt.pdf


With the abundance of free music software on the Internet, be it open source or just the sort you're not
made to pay for, there ought to be a free guide to composing music in this day and age too. So
congratulations, you've found one of them.
You have in your virtual possession the Ravenspiral Guide, a freely available online resource for those
who want to know a bit more about music theory. (Its former full name before version 0.4 was the
Raven's Spiral Guide to Music Theory.) My name's Simon, and i wrote it.
Now, i freely admit that music theory puts some people off terribly; it's all charts and scales and
practice and effort and a big load of arse which is mostly irrelevant to someone who wants to bang out
a few tunes. I'm quite a banger myself and would rather actually write music than read about writing it.
So my sympathies are very much in your corner if that's what you're like.
I'm not going to try to lie to you and say that this guide doesn't have any charts or scales, but that's
where the similarities between the Ravenspiral guide and Composing for the Modern Music Toff end.....

[tonyc2002]

Tony check this out. This is exactly what you what...

http://www.ravenspiral.com/rsg2mt/rsg2mt.pdf


With the abundance of free music software on the Internet, be it open source or just the sort you're not
made to pay for, there ought to be a free guide to composing music in this day and age too. So
congratulations, you've found one of them.
You have in your virtual possession the Ravenspiral Guide, a freely available online resource for those
who want to know a bit more about music theory. (Its former full name before version 0.4 was the
Raven's Spiral Guide to Music Theory.) My name's Simon, and i wrote it.
Now, i freely admit that music theory puts some people off terribly; it's all charts and scales and
practice and effort and a big load of arse which is mostly irrelevant to someone who wants to bang out
a few tunes. I'm quite a banger myself and would rather actually write music than read about writing it.
So my sympathies are very much in your corner if that's what you're like.
I'm not going to try to lie to you and say that this guide doesn't have any charts or scales, but that's
where the similarities between the Ravenspiral guide and Composing for the Modern Music Toff end.....

Thanks man, unfortunately its blocked at Uni (twats :lol:) so I'll check it when I get home.

[massplanck]

Its a funny read. But gets technical enough too. The perfect compromise. I reckon very one here should read it. Its excellent.