4 Tips for Writing Great Melodies
For many composers, their lifelong musical pursuit is trying to write that perfect melody.
When the Theatre composer Andrew Lloyd Webber first played his father (who was also a composer), the melody from 'Memory', apparently his father simply replied - ‘It sounds like a million dollars’.
So here are my 4 favourite tips for crafting an effective and memorable melody:
- Starting with a simple short motive, before then developing the motive
- Ensuring your melody includes a mixture of steps and leaps
- Making sure your melody has an overall arc or contour, including a climax or focal point
- Limiting the melody's overall range (to an octave plus 3 or 4 notes above)
🔁 Starting with a short motive, which you then develop
Most strong melodies start with a small simple fragment of an idea or building block called a motive. By having a small contained idea first, it helps to focus the listener's attention by providing clear and easily remembered patterns. Motives are typically one or two bars long and contain an initial idea of pitches, as well as a strong rhythmic identity.
Most successful melodies take an initial motive and through a careful balance of repetition and variation or development, take the listener on a melodic journey, from point a to b, forming a complete melody.
An example of a Melody which is based off of a very strong rhythmic motive, is the Opening Titles from the film One Day, composed by Rachel Portman:
📶Ensuring your melody includes a mixture of steps and leaps
The next tip is to try to include a mixture of movement by both steps and leaps in your melodies. Moving by step is where consecutive notes are neighbouring pitches, or scale degrees. So it could be from B to C, or say G to F#. Moving between pitches by step makes it easier for the listener to digest and helps to add a sense of familiarity to your melody.
Moving by leap on the other hand is where there is a jump between consecutive notes of an interval of a 3rd or more. Leaps help to give your melody more uniqueness and character and to some extent, some unpredictability. Common leaps include intervals of say a 4th, 5th or 6th, and they can of course be in both an ascending or descending direction.
A melody with lots of stepwise movement can start to sound bland and boring, while lots of consecutive leaps can sound chaotic - so you want to find a healthy balance between both.
As for examples - just about every melody makes use of both steps and leaps - so here's a famous one!
⛰️Making sure your melody has an overall arc or contour, including a climax or focal point
Ultimately, you want your melody to ideally take your listener on a musical journey - going from point A to B. A Melody which doesn’t really travel anywhere could feel stagnant or boring. You always want your melody to go somewhere - starting from one place, going on a journey and then eventually coming back home.
You’ll also want your melody to have a clear single focal point or climax - a highest pitch, which is typically only reached once. By hitting this highest note once, it will give it more impact and have the most dramatic effect.
You’ll see that most melodies have this climax during the 2nd half of a melody (an exception to this is Somewhere over the Rainbow, where the highest pitch is reached during the first phrase!). Most melodies have a sense of an arc, although potentially a little lopsided - rising up gradually to the highest point during the 2nd half, before then quickly coming down for the ending.
In the example below, from the soundtrack to 'Maleficent', the climax of the melody occurs at around 1:46:
🎵Limiting the melody's overall range (to an octave plus 3 or 4 notes above)
Aim to keep the lowest and highest notes of your melody to within an octave, plus 3 or 4 notes.
If the distance between the highest and lowest notes is too great, the melody could potentially feel like it's wandering too much, without any clear sense of direction.
If, on the other hand the range is too small, if might feel like it hasn’t been on a distinct enough journey. Melodies with a large range also run the risk of being hard to sing, which you should be able to do with a strong tune.
In the example '1976' from the score to 'Rush' composed by Hans Zimmer, the range of the Cello melody, which starts at around 1:41, is just over an octave (a 9th).
These tips are obviously guidelines and not strict rules - you don’t have to follow them exactly for your own melody. If something sounds right to your ears, then it is right!
