Writing Melodies: 15 Things You Should Know When Making Up Hooks

Summary

Highlights

• Discover the foundational concepts of what makes a catchy melody. 🎶
• Learn how everyday sounds can inspire musical ideas. 🚆
• Master the art of using repetition and motifs for memorable tunes. 🔁
• Understand the balance between new ideas and repetition in songwriting. ⚖️
• Experiment with chord sequences to uncover hidden melodies. 🎹

Key Takeaways

• Even simple motifs can evolve into complex compositions. 🎵
• Capture melody ideas wherever you are; inspiration can strike anytime. 📱
• Leverage repetition to create memorable hooks. 🔄
• Don’t be afraid to start with a ‘bad idea’; it might evolve into something great. 💡
• Explore different rhythms and instruments to inspire creativity. 🥁

Overview

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Setting Terms The chapter introduces the concept of writing music and presents a collection of 15 tips from various musicians across different genres such as pop, film, and electronic music. The chapter emphasizes that there are no set rules to composing music, and it features insights from multiple musicians on their creative processes. It also touches on the definition of a melody, describing it in the context of the video as similar to the verse of a song.
• 01:00 - 03:00: Myth of Difficulty in Writing Tunes The chapter 'Myth of Difficulty in Writing Tunes' discusses the concept of musical motifs, which are small, memorable sequences of notes that can be as short as two to four notes. The speaker differentiates between a 'theme' and a 'motif,' emphasizing the latter as a fundamental element in tune creation. The chapter aims to demystify tune writing, suggesting that motifs can be straightforward to create, as they are melodies that can often be sung in a single breath and commonly span four bars.
• 03:00 - 05:00: Finding Melodies in Unusual Places The chapter titled 'Finding Melodies in Unusual Places' discusses the notion that writing melodies is not as difficult as it is perceived to be. The author believes that if one remains attentive and receptive, melodies can be discovered everywhere, even without conscious effort. They liken musical ideas to butterflies that must be caught and nurtured before they are lost. The author shares a personal insight that melodies may spontaneously arise, even waking a person from sleep, and must be quickly captured to preserve their essence. This serendipitous nature of melody creation is both surprising and rewarding, as these small ideas can evolve into something substantial.
• 05:00 - 07:00: Making Tunes from Random Notes The chapter discusses the concept of creating music from seemingly random notes. It begins with a simple three-note melody that resembles a nursery rhyme, demonstrating how repetition does not necessarily lead to boredom. In a different experiment, a colleague, who considers herself tone-deaf, was asked to play random notes on a piano. Surprisingly, she quickly created a tune that was used to compose dozens of musical pieces. The underlying message is to encourage creativity and not to be intimidated by the randomness of initial musical exploration.
• 07:00 - 10:00: Singability and Inspiration from Surroundings ### Singability and Inspiration from Surroundings In this chapter, the author discusses the simplicity and potential power of musical motifs. Reflecting on a recent film score project, they reveal how the main theme, derived from a mere three-note motif for the main character, initially seemed overly simplistic. However, through further composition and development, this simplistic motif evolved into a complex and colorful theme, demonstrating how simplicity can lead to creative expansion in musical composition.
• 10:00 - 12:00: Economy of Ideas in Music The chapter discusses the process of musical creativity, specifically focusing on the 'Economy of Ideas'. It highlights how a simple motif can be the foundation for a wide range of creative expressions. The speaker shares insights into how they often discard ideas only to later realize their potential. By revisiting and combining initial thoughts, particularly those initially considered poor with those of higher regard, they can create something unexpectedly remarkable. This process underscores a dynamic balance between simplicity, potential, and creative evolution in music composition.
• 12:00 - 15:00: Starting on an Offbeat The chapter 'Starting on an Offbeat' discusses the creative process of composing music. It emphasizes the stress associated with the quest for a good idea, but more importantly, it focuses on the journey of making something work. The chapter highlights the importance of being open to finding melodies in unexpected places. It suggests that a simple baseline, which initially didn't get much attention, can turn into an excellent idea for a tune. Additionally, it discusses the possibility of taking a few notes from an existing tune and transforming them completely.
• 15:00 - 18:00: Accompaniment Ideas and Jam Sessions In this chapter, the discussion centers on unique accompaniment ideas and the inspiration behind certain jams. It includes anecdotes about how famous songs and compositions were inspired by everyday sounds. For example, David Bowie's 'Starman' incorporates the first three notes of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow', showcasing how existing melodies can lend themselves to new creations. There's also a mention of Captain Beefheart, an experimental rock musician, whose song 'Bat Chain Puller' was inspired by the sound of a windscreen wiper on his tour bus. Such instances highlight the inventive approaches composers have when looking for inspiration in their surroundings.
• 18:00 - 21:00: Beware of Streams of Notes The chapter titled 'Beware of Streams of Notes' describes the process of finding musical inspiration from everyday experiences. The author shares an anecdote about composing a piece called 'Alamadi,' which originated from the rhythmic sounds of a train. The chapter highlights an alternative method of creating melodies by allowing them to emerge naturally without overthinking or being overly meticulous about the composition process.
• 21:00 - 23:00: Phrases in Melodies The chapter explores the process of creating musical phrases by integrating rhythm and pitch. Initially, the rhythm is derived from a drum pattern, providing a structured beat. To determine the pitch of the notes, a dice is used, symbolizing a random selection process. This approach results in a unique melody with six notes, corresponding to the six sides of a dice. The combination of randomness in pitch and structured rhythm in melodies is emphasized.
• 23:00 - 25:00: Using Motifs The chapter titled 'Using Motifs' describes a creative process involving a randomized approach to composing a melody. The narrator rolls a die to determine the sequence of notes, starting with a C note after rolling a one, followed by an E flat with a roll of three. The intention is to discover a melody rather than invent one from scratch.
• 25:00 - 27:00: Balance of New Ideas and Repetition The chapter titled 'Balance of New Ideas and Repetition' discusses the process of creating music, particularly focusing on developing a tune that maintains a balance between being new and repetitive. It features a conversation or thoughts on a musical piece that's not considered a classic but has potential to be utilized throughout a video. The emphasis is on creating a melody that is both singable and fresh, suggesting a recurring theme in melody creation where familiarity and innovation are key.
• 27:00 - 31:00: Incorporating Leaps in Melodies The chapter 'Incorporating Leaps in Melodies' explores the creative process of coming up with new melodies. The author prefers to capture melodies by singing into their phone while on the go. They emphasize the importance of hearing the complete arrangement in their mind before transferring it to a more formal writing process. The chapter also discusses improvising on the saxophone, recording, and then transcribing these spontaneous creations. The author reflects on the natural process of working out melodies mentally, without always knowing if they're effective until further developed.
• 31:00 - 33:00: Length of Tunes and Ideas This chapter explores the process of songwriting, emphasizing the unpredictability of inspiration. The author discusses how melodies often sound different in reality compared to dreams, and typically writes music by initially improvising on the trumpet before moving to the piano. The essence of creativity is highlighted as it is often influenced by one's surroundings.
• 33:00 - 38:30: Chords and Melodies Relationship This chapter emphasizes the importance of immersing oneself in the musical creative process in a physical space, such as with instruments or tools like drum machines and keyboards, rather than on a computer. It highlights the value of simple ideas in music creation, where even small, humble tunes can be developed into significant pieces. The chapter encourages maximizing creativity with minimal resources, emphasizing a love for economical music-making.
• 38:30 - 41:00: Conclusion and Further Learning Resources The chapter concludes by highlighting how simple musical ideas can be transformed into hit songs. It provides examples of popular tracks with straightforward melodies, emphasizing that complex music theory isn't always necessary for success. The narrative suggests experimenting even with seemingly 'bad' ideas, reinforcing that creativity doesn't always demand intricate concepts. The chapter also encourages continued exploration and appreciation of music in its various forms.

Writing Melodies: 15 Things You Should Know When Making Up Hooks Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 here are 15 tips on writing your own tunes whether you're writing pop music film music electronic music obviously there are no rules to this um and we've invited lots of different musicians to give their different perspectives on how they come up with ideas [Music] what is a melody for the sake of this video i'm going to say a melody is something like the verse of a song and a phrase
• 00:30 - 01:00 is pretty much what you can sing in one breath which is often four bars long i'm not going to use the word theme but i am going to use the word motif which is going to be a little bite-sized chunk could be as short as two three or four notes like that could be a motif so that's our terms to find let's get going with the first tip
• 01:00 - 01:30 i think it's a myth that writing tunes is is really difficult if you're alert you'll start to find them everywhere even if you're not trying to make them up for me they are like butterflies you're given these ideas and you've got to catch them and they're given to you and if you don't if you know they can happen in the middle night you can wake up you've got to find otherwise you'll lose it and it has surprised me sometimes when um i realized that something that has grown into something kind of maybe
• 01:30 - 02:00 orchestral has started as a three-note almost it could be a nursery rhyme or something like that and you can just go round and round and actually it doesn't really necessarily get boring repeating it so in another video we asked my colleague olivia who claims to be tone deaf to just muck around and plonk away on different notes on the piano only took a minute she came up with a tune that i thought was great and in that other video i made dozens of pieces of music just using her tune my main point is don't get spooked
• 02:00 - 02:30 by the idea of writing tunes just throw some ideas out certainly with a film score that i've just written the the main theme for the main character is just is three notes and it's just a motif that goes when i first wrote it i was like we can't use that like way too simplistic and i meant to be a composer and then actually what happened is i started writing around it and then all the colors and everything the character of the music
• 02:30 - 03:00 it then sort of revealed itself and then that motif because it was so simple it gave room for it to then do lots and lots of other things a lot of the ideas i write down i just binned basically and then i come back to it and realize oh there's lots of potential with this bit or maybe i'll i'll combine the the phrase that i thought was terrible and the phrase that i thought was really good and suddenly make something fantastic you know
• 03:00 - 03:30 it's quite stressful being composing but this idea of a good idea i'm more interested in how i make something work and the journey i go on number two you can find melodies in the strangest places you might find that your baseline which you weren't even really concentrating on you think actually that would be a brilliant idea for a tune it could be that you take a few notes of someone else's tune um and you completely transform them so
• 03:30 - 04:00 they're unrecognizable that's what david bowie did with his song starman which is actually the first three notes of somewhere over the rainbow if you listen to that or you could it could be a sound that inspires you something you hear out in the world there's a track by the experimental rock musician um captain beefheart he did a song called bat chain pull-up which is actually entirely based on the sound of his windscreen wiper of his tour bus all the composers that we've spoken to have got stories about
• 04:00 - 04:30 this one piece i wrote called alamadi i got the groove from actually being on a train so i thought oh this trainer's kind of making a really strange rhythm and so i wrote it down and yeah the piece kind of came from that little thing that i heard here's another way of finding a melody rather than inventing one let's make up a tune which i'm not going to be too precious about in fact i'm going to try to not do any thinking at all in the process so
• 04:30 - 05:00 we're going to need some notes and we're going to need a rhythm for those notes so how about taking the rhythm from a drum part good idea [Music] so that's the rhythm but what about the pitches of the notes well i'm going to roll a dice to decide these notes i need six notes because that's the number of sides on a dice one two three four five six notes
• 05:00 - 05:30 um great let's let's um roll the dice so let's see what i get first okay so i've thrown a one that means i need to put a c there for that first note okay here we go next three that's gonna be e flat so remember what i'm trying to do here is find a tune i'm not making up a tube so there it is um let's see what it
• 05:30 - 06:00 sounds like [Music] yeah not bad i think um it's not a classic but i'm sure we can do something with that and we're going to be using this tune a lot through the course of this video i really like to try and write tunes where the melody is singable but also i am
• 06:00 - 06:30 it's just the best way for me to come up with them really even if i'm in an awkward just walking down the street i'll sort of bring my phone up and sing into that being able to sing something and then just constantly go around around singing it and hearing the rest of instruments in your head and then transferring it to wherever is comfortable to write it it's the best thing and sometimes it will be improvising on the saxophone and recording that and seeing what i come up with and then transcribing that i think i can work out melodies in my head but i don't know whether they're
• 06:30 - 07:00 good or not until i've sung them out loud i have several dreams about writing the most amazing song ever ever when i wake up i maybe sing the melody that i think it was out loud and it's really terrible i usually write melody improvising from my trumpet i'll probably move to piano or the other way around but the melody writing is usually either on my trumpet or the piano that moment of inspiration that place it's so going to places inspire you being in a
• 07:00 - 07:30 place and environment i think that's really important and that for me is not a time with the computer that's a time with your instrument that's the time with your drum machine your looping pedals your keyboards that's time when you dream it up four a little idea can be a classic i love economy i i really like doing a lot without with with very little it feels good to me to do that even a really humble tiny little tune um could be worked up
• 07:30 - 08:00 into something that's completely brilliant take the chorus of happy by pharrell nothing particularly clever about those note choices the the riff in single ladies by beyonce that's just an arpeggio nothing particularly clever about that but they've been worked up into these monster hits i actually sometimes play a game of trying to come up with a really bad idea and the truth is in music it's it's not
• 08:00 - 08:30 even the material it's what you do the material throughout the piece it's always a i think emotions about using imagination being inventive and making the most of little i really believe that you can write material which is just as good as um pharrell's papi or beyonce's single ladies it's how you craft that material that is gonna make the difference five start on an offbeat here's an observation most tunes don't actually start on the first beat of a
• 08:30 - 09:00 bar i've looked at a lot of student pieces who are writing stuff for exams and often especially the weaker pieces they start on the the first beat of the bar the tune starts on the one now of course you can write a brilliant tune which starts on the first beat of the bar there's tons of them you know wuthering heights yesterday the chorus of chandelier by syria or anti-up by um mia and buster rhymes one of my favorites they all start on the first beat at the bar and they're brilliant um i looked at the charts uh a few months ago the top 20 and
• 09:00 - 09:30 20 of the songs started on the first beat to the bar so it might be something that you do you want to think about if your tune is sounding pedestrian if you just take the example that we made up earlier on using that dice and the kick drum pattern it doesn't start on the one it starts before the one or just after this one starts just before one two three four one so the note comes in before
• 09:30 - 10:00 give it a go get some accompaniment ideas down to jam with and make dunes over the top might be a beat you just get a beat going a lot of time for me it can be working with a drum machine and you set a tempo and it's a tempo it can be 120 bpm it can be 87 it can be 127 and it's almost like a pulse and from that for me things happen
• 10:00 - 10:30 i'll often start with a hoo a bass hook and i'll just sing over that but that bass line i might even play it in octaves and just really start and then just repeat it over and over again until it become it feels like it's got an energy and then i'll sort of know what the energy is and then i'll add a chord or it might be that you get a loop down um or it could be that you just sit and have some some chords and you go you just get them looping around you play a chord and you you sing whatever or you play a chord sequence you find a
• 10:30 - 11:00 chord sequence you sing whatever that chord sequence inspires and you see if the gibberish you're singing kind of comes out with some sort of lyrical idea and if it does then then maybe you've got your your kind of beginning of a chorus or whatever then seven beware of streams of notes writing streams of notes can be exactly the right idea but especially if you're writing vocal melodies or melodies to be played by maybe a wind instrument
• 11:00 - 11:30 it can be difficult because people need to breathe and sometimes they can feel like they're just going on and on this is the sort of thing i mean that sort of thing where it's just going no one note after another and there's no gaps there's no well every note is the same length um just be careful about that when you're writing tunes i'm not sure that is really a tune or whether it's just a list of notes
• 11:30 - 12:00 having said all that i do want to say that sometimes waffling can be a brilliant way of generating material you could play for five minutes just playing one note after the other and just there's one bar that turns out to be really inspiring and it's that bar that becomes the basis of your piece so um use it as a way of generating material great eight phrases so if you're writing a vocal melody or any kind of classic
• 12:00 - 12:30 melody you're probably writing in phrases so when humans first started making music they were probably singing and they had to breathe and so they would sing for a while take a breath and then sing some more and that's we've inherited that kind of structure in in the way that we think about tunes so let's take take my example of the the stream of notes composition i could just take one little bit of that
• 12:30 - 13:00 and immediately make it start to sound more like phrases i'm just going to take the first five notes and do something with that something like that i've got this i've mixed the rhythms i've had some space in there and it starts to sound perhaps like an idea that you could develop into a tune nine motifs writing music is sometimes
• 13:00 - 13:30 more about finding the good stuff that you've already made rather than just making new things up and what you might find is that within your tune there are little motifs little slices of music that you can make more things out of so take our dice tune you see that bit in the box there i could make a tune just out of those first five notes
• 13:30 - 14:00 or maybe just the first three and start just using that tiny little slice to make a whole new tune out of 10. balancing new ideas and repetition do remember that if you've got a great idea um you'll probably need to repeat it in order for the audience to to lodge it in their memory if you take
• 14:00 - 14:30 a song like rehab by amy winehouse that no no no phrase happens several times throughout the song it doesn't feel repetitive it's just a hook which means that she can be creative around that repetition or the example that we were using earlier on of good king wenceslas um you know incredibly famous tune but actually the first two lines are exactly the same they're just repeated with different words
• 14:30 - 15:00 and then the fourth line is sort of half the same [Music] i would say to myself don't be afraid of repetition repetition is so important so i would choose one rhythm maybe that da da da da thing and then i
• 15:00 - 15:30 would just use it every i i'd maybe use it every at least maybe i'd use it every two bars but i probably use every four bars and i would see when it starts becoming annoying so there you go a balance of some things which are being repeated and some stuff which is new 11. remember you can have leaps in your melodies as well as going up in steps our dice tune great it's got lots of leaps it's got this one of a fifth
• 15:30 - 16:00 one two three four five a loop of a fifth and then it goes down by a sixth one two three four five six um whereas the tune that i wrote which was the sort of stream of notes was tending to go in stepwise motion nothing wrong with that necessarily it could be that a stepwise motion tune works but if you're if you're feeling like stuck and your tune feels a bit pedestrian and you're wanting to experiment with it
• 16:00 - 16:30 try putting in leaps like even a third there's uh which is this one two three if you take um this famous jazz tune pull in the mood that's just thirds or rita ora in for you she uses a fifth one two three four five she goes step wise for the whole verse and then the chorus does a leap of a fifth up or a sixth this example by mozart one two three four five six
• 16:30 - 17:00 or you could maybe even leap a whole octave there's plenty of songs that do that we mentioned one earlier on star man you might even find that picking an interval and deciding to play with it say right i'm going to play with fourths today you might start to get completely different melodic ideas that you would never have thought of otherwise 12. how long is your tune there's a strange thing about a lot of music that
• 17:00 - 17:30 long pieces often need short ideas and short pieces often need long tunes so let's take some examples from classical music where you do find a lot of long pieces with short melodies the one that we played earlier on that's from a mozart symphony and he uses just that little bite size chunk of tune hundreds of times same with the beethoven tune that we've used a lot that's pretty humble isn't it four note tune and yet he spins it out hundreds of really imaginative ways of
• 17:30 - 18:00 playing it high low different keys different instruments so a small idea can go an awful long way and you also get the opposite you get um yesterday's the probably one of the most famous examples it's got a tune that is actually over 20 20 seconds long for a two minute june 13. does your melody imply chords it's strange but melodies have this kind
• 18:00 - 18:30 of secret that you know is there but it takes a bit of work maybe to uncover sometimes it's i can hear the chord i'm looking for i don't know what it is and i'll find it other times it's just playing around and seeing what works and then maybe i'll come up with something i prefer it's always just mashing around on the piano and whatever works works sometimes i'll come up with a melody first and then work the elements around it like what will the rhythms be and the harmonies and all that or sometimes they come together the melody with the
• 18:30 - 19:00 chordal structure and a lyric it depends sometimes you can hear chords or sense that a chord is possible with a particular tune so if we take our melody the the dice melody i've got a sense that it's going to have quite a few chords and i've got a sense of where it's most tense so now i just need to actually work out what these chords are and hopefully the tune will sort of help me so i knew that i wanted that to be probably not in c minor well it's b flat so why don't i just
• 19:00 - 19:30 play a chord which has got a b flat in it okay let's just start with b flat oh yeah that's actually that's sort of what the one that i heard i'm going to play that where should i go next um no i don't want to go there i could do but i'll rather go here yeah what what am i going to do for that one that's got an e flat but i've just played an e flat
• 19:30 - 20:00 maybe what else has got an e flat in it c minor maybe i'll try that um okay let's see if that works and then i wanted that one to be tense didn't i [Music] tense so i need a tense chord with an f in it and the q c minor well i happen to know that a g7 would work so let's give it a go
• 20:00 - 20:30 and you proceed like that and so on and i made this sort of twinkly slightly romantic mournful sad tune but the point i want to draw your attention to is that by finding the chords that sort of wanted to go with my tune um it gave me an atmosphere i could now start to see okay what counter melody do you want to make what melody do i want to follow this maybe
• 20:30 - 21:00 all [Music] the chords that have taken me there so it's a great way of sort of stabilizing your music giving it a frame and giving it a vibe 14 maybe your chord sequence is your melody so here's an example
• 21:00 - 21:30 by by bach um where he's got this sort of pattern it's basically just a series of chords broken into little riffs what he's done he's just got this one thing that goes the same waggly sort of motif but he takes it through tons of chords i think there's 30 chord changes or something in this in this piece interesting but it's actually a catchy motif
• 21:30 - 22:00 even though it's it is actually quite hard to sing that because it's got that big leap it's very catchy and it gets in your head you could do the same thing with a arpeggiator of a of a synth um i could be holding down similar chords to the bark maybe like [Music]
• 22:00 - 22:30 this could be a number of things i mean technically speaking a drum pattern going it's not a melody but it is a piece of catchy material and you might want to use it in the similar ways that you would use a melody yeah musical material is not always um it's not always the starting point for when you're writing you can use the sounds you hear so
• 22:30 - 23:00 except you know from well anywhere from nature from i don't know walking on a crunchy surface you know you don't have to start with the actual notation you can write tunes where the melody is singable and it's something clearly recognizable which i do in some of my work in other areas of my work it's more taking field recording so for example a field recording is going out into the street and recording sirens or traffic light going off or
• 23:00 - 23:30 someone walking you can take those elements and make it into a tune whether through sampling or just editing it and manipulating it and stretching out um i took a i did recently a tune where i took a marvin gaye tune and i reversed it stretched out and put it in reverb and that became like the sound world um in another example you might have um maybe a beat and an accompaniment pattern and at a particular point in your song
• 23:30 - 24:00 or in your film score this big sound comes hasn't even got a pitch but it happens at a certain moment and it's sort of catchy it's memorable and you can use it in similar ways you could make it you know you could make it higher or lower you could double the length of it half the length of it you could do all the kinds of things that you would do with a melody and develop it in the same way so there you go that's 15 things to get you started when you're trying to invent tunes in the first place
• 24:00 - 24:30 if you're interested in developing your tunes and i think you will be interested in developing your tunes you should check out our videos called 28 things you can do with the tune which is more about once you've made something up what you then do with it and you'll find a link below [Music] [Music]
• 24:30 - 25:00 you