How to Compose a Melody

Co-authored by Timothy Linetsky

Last Updated: April 18, 2024

Melodies consist of a progression of tones in steps. They are the "singable" part of a piece of music, the main sound that shines past all the background parts and embellishments. No matter what type of song you're writing, you'll need a melody. With a solid foundation in the basics of music and a few exercises and tricks, you'll find it is easier than you think to write a melody.

Part 1

Part 1 of 3:

Building Your Knowledge

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1
Learn about music theory . If you want to write melodies well, it's a good idea to know at least the basics of how music works before you get too serious about composing. Of course, this isn't required. However, the more you understand about music, the easier it will be to understand when musical concepts are being explained.
- We will be using musical terms in this article because it is difficult to explain these ideas without them. Some will be explained but others are too complex to cover in a simple sentence. If you do not understand things like beats, measures, and time, you might want to do some reading first.
2
Choose your song form. The song form is sort of like a gender but for music. All music generally falls into a set shape, or form, which determines what parts sound like what other parts and when changes happen. You are probably most used to this concept in popular music, with the ideas of chorus and verse. Now, you don't have to follow these set forms, but it can help give you a road-map to work with when writing your melody.
- The most common song form is called AABA. This means that there are two "verses", a "chorus", and then another "verse". In other words, a section that sounds one way, then another that sounds the same, then something different, then a return to the theme of the first section.
- There are many different forms however, so do some research to find which one is best for you. You can consider AAAA, ABCD, AABACA, etc. Or you can break from this entirely, of course.
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3
Study genre considerations. Some genres of music have a certain style to them and if you want to achieve that "sound", you'll need to write your melody in a particular way. Read up on the genre of music you're trying to write for before writing, to find out if there are any unique features of that genre in terms of the structure, key, or progressions.
- For example, the chord progression for blues and jazz follow particular forms. Jazz makes heavy use of particular chords, so you'll want to look up jazz chords before writing songs like that.
No matter who is performing the piece of music you write, they're going to need a break at some point. Fingers will need a moment of rest and singers will need to breathe. You should understand how breaks are put into a song and then add in moments like this. Try to space them evenly and make them frequent enough that the song is not impossible to perform.
5
Break down your favorite songs. One thing you can do to help your melody writing skills is to start by breaking down some of your favorite songs. Gather a handful of songs with great melodies and then put on your listening ears. Usually when we listen to music, we get lost in it, right? But you're going to make a road-map from it...so focus!
- Write down how the notes change. How do they build? How does the key make you feel? How does the melody work with the lyrics? What's good about the melody? What doesn't work or what could be better? You can transfer these lessons to your own melodies.

Part 2

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Creating a Base

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If you're naturally a better lyricist, you might find that you're inclined to start from lyrics. However, this is tricky and is not recommended, especially if your musical training is very limited. When you start from lyrics, you need to base your melody on the natural rhythm of the words and that can be very difficult, especially for a beginner. However, if you want to, you can start with lyrics.
2
Play around! It seems kind of silly but many of the best melodies were born from someone just hitting random notes on a piano. If you have an instrument that you can mess around on, try this. Just play around, making patterns or just jumping around until you find something that sounds good.
- If you don't have an instrument, you can sing or use an online instrument. You can find many free pianos on websites and on apps available for your mobile device.
3
Transform a simple idea. You can take a really simple idea for a melody, just a progression of three or four notes, and transform that nugget of an idea into an entire melody. For example, take a small group of notes that you found using the playing around from the previous step. Think about where you feel the melody should go from there.
- People who are naturally musically-inclined will often just come up with little bits of music like this, like how an artist might get an idea for a painting. If this describes you, keep a digital voice recorder or a notebook (if you know any kind of music notation)
4
Start from chords. If you're used to making chords, you can find a melody by playing around with chords as well. This is common for people who play piano or guitar, since those instruments rely heavily on chords. Do the same sort of playing around that we talked about in Step 1, but with chords, until you find something that sounds good to you. ^{[1]
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- You can find websites that play chords for you if you don't have an instrument to work with or you don't know a lot of chords.
- Try humming along to the chords and mess around with ways to make it more complex. Since you can only make one sound at a time, you'll find you have a melody before you know it. Don't worry about lyrics right away: professional musicians almost always write a melody first and use nonsense sounds in place of words.
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Melissa McDermott
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Melissa McDermott is a Musician and accomplished Social Media Manager at coBranding Studio based in New York City. She has over seven years of experience teaching piano and music theory, she currently works as a Piano Instructor at O DiBella Music Inc. Additionally, she specializes in creating meaningful, informative, and quality social media content for health and wellness brands and musicians. Melissa received her B.A. in popular music studies from William Paterson University.

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Voice leading reveals melody ideas within the harmony. Voice leading is when you write a melody that flows with the chord changes underneath it. This can uncover melodic patterns and themes that naturally come from those chords. By paying attention to how each chord tone moves to the next, you can write melodies that fit with the harmonies and also stand out, making your songs more complex and connected.
5
Borrow from an existing melody. Stealing someone's song sounds like a pretty bad idea, but like taking a transplant to grow your own garden bed, you can take the tiniest sliver from another song and transform it into something completely different. If you take only a progression of four or so notes and make enough changes, then your music is still perfectly original. Just remember that you're making it into something completely different.
- A good exercise is to borrow from a different genre of music. Say you want to write a folk song, for example. Try borrowing from rap. Want to write a country song? Borrow from classical.
6
Build on a motif. A motif is a set of notes that form a musical "idea". Many songs take a motif and then repeat that set of notes, with small changes, in order to create the melody. If you're struggling to come up with a melody, this is a great fallback option since you only need to start with a handful of notes. ^{[2]
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- One of the best examples of this is the allegro con brio from Beethoven's Symphony No. 5. He took just a basic motif and repeated it over and over again and created one of the most iconic pieces of music ever.

Part 3

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Making it Shine

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1
Form a bassline. With your melody in place, you'll want to write a bass part to go with it. Yes, you might not have a bass in your piece (you could be writing for a trumpet quartet for all we know). However, a bassline is for more than just a bass. The bassline refers to any background part for a low pitched instrument. This bassline acts as a sort of spine for the musical piece and provides .
- A bassline can be simple or it can be complex, can be fast or it can be slow. In some genres of music, the bassline follows a particular pattern, as in jump blues where it is almost always a scale of quarter notes. The only important part is that it fits with and supports the melody you have written.
2
Add chords if you haven't already. If you didn't start by working with chords, you might want to add some now. Chords will make your song sound more full and complex, although you can leave them out or use only very simple chords if you want a more melancholy, bare sound. ^{[3]
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- Start by establishing what key your melody was written in. Certain chords sound better with certain keys than others. For example, if your song starts with a C, then a C chord will be a natural place to start.
- When you switch between chords will really depend on your song, but try to time the changes to significant sounds or changes in the melody. Generally, chord changes will happen on the downbeat, at or towards the beginning of a measure. You can also use a chord change to lead into another chord. For example, in a 4/4 song, you might have one chord on the downbeat of one and then another on 4, before leading into the chord change at one in the next measure.
A melody will account for a large portion of a song but many songs also have sections which break from the melody or make use of a second melody. This might be a chorus or a bridge, or even another type of section altogether. Breaks from the melody like this can add a bit of "bang" or drama to your song, so if you're looking for that kind of feeling, consider this break from the melody.

Taylor Swift, Singer-Songwriter

Practice diligently to improve your skills. "I have to practice to be good at guitar. I have to write 100 songs before I write the first good one."
Play your melody for other people and get their opinions. You don't have to take all of their ideas but they might see (or rather, hear) things that you don't. If several people give you the same feedback, it might be necessary to make a change to your melody or the additions you made.

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What if I want to write a sorrowful song about the pain I've been through?

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Choose minor chord, as they convey a more solemn feel. Keep the tempo down and dynamics relatively soft. Sometimes simple melodies can be the most powerful, so don't try to make anything too complicated.

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How can I be a classical composer like Bach or Beethoven?

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Listen to their music, and identify what about them you want to emulate. Study music theory that is relevant to their time period. Then, try to write in their styles. It could be useful for you to play classical piano as that can expose you to more characteristics of classical music.

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I'm good at the lyrics but I don't know how to play any instrument. What should I do?

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Consider talking to a friend who knows how to play an instrument to work with you. Or, the best way is to learn any instrument yourself. Try to get an acoustic guitar and learn to play it (you can learn easily from free apps and tutorial videos online). That will help you a lot to compose your melody. As you are a beginner, try to start with the melody, not with the lyrics, because composing a melody matching the words could be difficult.

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Listen to melodies of other composers. Pick a favourite and try to figure out what makes it good.

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Learn about the intervals, what a phrase is, and what a theme is.

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How to Compose a Melody

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