Finding a Melody

written by Maggie Olivo and Katy Strand

To being writing your melody, you will need some inspiration. You can begin with words, with explorations on instruments, or you can start with the sounds around you. It is always a good idea to create several melodies and then choose your favorite, instead of creating just one melody. Sometimes they will sound similar, and sometimes they will sound very different. Sometimes you will find that your first melody is your favorite, and sometimes you will favor your last. The important thing is you should learn from every melody that you create!

Getting Started

Keep Your Ideas! Whenever possible record all of your ideas and keep these as your idea bank. When you find your very best idea, record it separately.

Melodies are combinations of rhythm (fast and slow sounds) and pitch (high and low sounds). Many people begin to create their melodies from either the rhythm or the pitches.

Melodies are made from phrases! Any time you find a part of a melody or rhythm that you like, you can make the melody longer and more interesting by repeating that section. Each section becomes a musical "phrase" just like a paragraph is made up of sentences! You can also add a new phrase to the end that moves in a different direction or with a different rhythm. Many great melodies have one musical idea that is repeated once or twice, and then changed for an ending, such as "Mary Had a Little Lamb". Another "trick" to create a great melody is to repeat your favorite section a little higher or lower than the first, so each part of the melody sounds the same but is higher or lower. Think of the tune "Are you Sleeping?".

Below you will find some ideas that will help you to find your melodies. Many composers gather ideas from listening to nature, making up songs from words, or picking out notes on a keyboard. See if you can do the same!

Ideas from nature

Insects

• Listen to a bee or a cricket
• Can you sing back its song?
• Record yourself. If you like one part of the song best, you may want to repeat that section to make a longer melody.

Windshield Wipers

• Start from Rhythm: Listen to the speed and patterns of the wipers. Clap back the pattern
• Start from Pitch: Find the highs and lows in the pattern. Sing it back.
• Record yourself singing the melody to the rhythm that you clapped.

Sounds all over

• Start from Rhythm: Go outside and find a place to sit quietly. Close your eyes and listen for all the sounds around you – people walking, talking, animals, traffic, or even a sprinkler! Listen for fast and slow patterns of sound. Keep your eyes closed and tap these patterns on your knee as you listen.
• Start from Pitch: Find the highs and lows in the pattern. Sing it back.

What is outside my Window?

• Start from Rhythm: Look at any window in your house or at school. Do you see spots on your window? Do you see spots on the ground outside, or do you see clouds passing by? Imagine any of these things as fast and slow sounds, and hum the speed of the sounds you see. Once you have found a rhythm that you like, add high and low sounds to the notes of different speeds.
• Start from Pitch: Get a piece of paper and a pencil ready! Look out your window, and make an outline of the buildings, trees, or whatever you see. What is the shape of the things in your window against the sky? When you have finished your outline, look at the paper and hum the high and low sounds as you drew high and low on the outline. If there is a section of your outline that sounds best, copy that and move the next section over (or erase, and change the rest of the outline to fit!)

Bird Calls

• Start with both Rhythm and Pitch: Sit outside and listen to the birdcalls.
• Whistle or sing back your favorite birdcall.
• Is your bird asking you a question or giving you an answer?
• If your bird is asking you a question, whistle or sing back an answer.
• If your bird is speaking a statement, whistle or sing back a question.
• Whistle or sing both the question and answer.

Ideas from words

Recitative

Many times in operas, musicals, and even cartoons, characters make melodies up based upon everyday sentences.

• Turn your recorder on from the very beginning!
• Turn speech into song (in opera, we call this kind of singing recitative): Sit with a friend and/or family member and talk about something that you love. As you do this, keep these three musical ideas in mind:
• Rhythm: As you speak, consider holding important words longer. These are usually the nouns or verbs inside of your sentences. As the conversation gets more exciting, you may speed up your speech. Statements or sighs may be spoken at a slower speed or tempo.
• Dynamics: How will exclamations be different from statements or questions? Will they be louder or softer?
• Melody: Use your "singing voice" when having this conversation. How is your singing voice different from your speaking voice?
• Listen to the recording of your conversation. Can you sing back parts of your recitative? Are there parts of the recording that you really like?
• Sing back your favorite parts
• Sing back your favorite parts without words. This can be done using a vowel sound to replace the words.
• Record your new melody as you sing it without words!

What are you doing tonight?

• Start from Rhythm: Make up a sentence that answers this question.
• Speak it as you keep a steady beat
• Speak it as you "clap the way the words go" or the rhythm
• Add emotion and character to the sentence, and listen to yourself say the sentence in many different ways
• Say the sentence as though you can't wait to do this!
• Say it as though you are asking someone permission to do this!
• Say it as though this thing scares you!
• What other ways can you say this sentence?
• Add the Pitch: Trace the high and low sounds that you speak with your hand and arm as you speak in these different ways.

• Now, take away the words and replace their sounds with a "hum". Continue to show the shape of your melody with your arm.
• Record yourself "humming" your sentences.
• Which sentence was your favorite? This can be your new melody!

Ideas from keyboards

5 favorite notes (starting from Melody):

• Start from Pitch: Choose five of your favorite notes on the keyboard. Write these notes down on a piece of paper.
• Create four melodies that use only those five notes (Make sure that you are able to repeat each melody, and record all four!)
• Choose your favorite one of the four. Remember that you can use this idea to create a longer melody by repeating the idea and then adding a different idea for an ending!

Mapping out a melody with your Steps (starting from Rhythm)

• Stand up exactly where you are right now. This is your point "A".

• Look around the room. Where is it that you want to go to? This is your point "B".
• Using steps and skips, figure out a pattern that will get you from point "A" to point "B".
• For example: You may decide to "step, step, skip; step, step, skip" from point "A" to point "B".
• Write down the made up pattern. Practice moving from point "A" to point "B".
• Let's make it more interesting! While keeping your pattern, add forward and backward motions.
• For example: "step, backstep, skip, skip"
• Practice going from point "A" to point "B" with forward and backward motions added to your steps and skips. Speak the actions at the same time.
• Write down the new pattern. Can you go back to "A" using the same pattern?

Adding keyboard

• Pick your favorite note on the keyboard. Start from this note and follow your pattern.
• Remember, steps are neighboring notes. Forward steps are note neighbors to the right, and backward steps are note neighbors to our left!
• Skips refer to when we skip a neighbor note. For example: a forward skip starting from E would take us to G or G# and a backward skip would take us to C or C#.
• What note do you end on? Try the process again. If you are able to end on the same note three times in a row, you have probably performed your pattern correctly!
• Practice going from your first note to your “destination” note while speaking the actions from your pattern. As you become more comfortable with the pattern, you should begin to "settle" into a rhythm of your own.
• For more of a challenge: Go from your destination point back to your starting point. If you do the opposite directions as your pattern from "point A to point B" then you should arrive back to your starting note!

Now that you have tried out a whole lot of different ideas, we hope that you have found a way to compose that works best for you. We also hope that you continue to create music, whether it starts from nature, singing, instruments, or any other way that you have discovered on your own! Happy music making!