New to Writing Vocal Melodies..

[kramer1309]

Hey guys,
I searched, found a thread, read the suggestions, but still seem to have hit a block.
I'm writing this song and the music is all written as are the lyrics, but i'm just not able to come up with an awesome vocal melody for the song (clean vocals).
I tried, came up with an less than spectacular one, wrote lyrics and am a little confused about how to go about it.
I've never really written songs with lyrics before and really need to get this done soon. Any tips/suggestions on how to write a nice, memorable vocal melody?

 

[smy1]

No. It's a talent. That's why most of the bands can't write memorable melodies ...

What you can try is:

a) write down the lyrics and sing any melody that comes to your head WITHOUT music. If you like one of the melodies then write the music to fit the melody

b) write a melody on the guitar while the background music is playing. Then try to turn this into words.

c) rewrite the music. Use simple, sustained root chords (I, IV, V) from the key you are in. It will make it easier writing a melody over straight chords than over dissonant chuggah-chuggah-riffing.

Those three tips might not help, because if you are struggling now, you will need years to get it right. Just like with everything else in life, writing melodies is a skill to be practiced and learned.

Btw: I do have the talent to write sth memorable. I've had it from the first day I picked up a musical instrument. It still means I write a lot of shit a lot of the time. So, tbh, you struggling after 1 attempt is a bit laughable. The first 100 tracks are usually 90% utter shit.

Write 20 songs. Then tell us about how many you like. If you like 5, you are already great!

 

[Skinny Viking]

b) write a melody on the guitar while the background music is playing. Then try to turn this into words.

Yup, this is what you need to do

I'd take it a step or 2 further and say whatever section you are working on for a vocal melody, take the music underneath and break it down into just the basic chord progression. Then start noodling with a guitar to the basic chords in the background. Don't worry so much about trying to make a melody fit to words that have been pre-written. When you come up with a melody you are liking, mold the words to work with it. It will probably involve re-writing lyrics in a few places but its what you need to do.

Another tip to keep in mind ... make your melody dynamically compliment the music .. that is, if the music in a section is very dense / orchestrated / busy ... keep the vocal melody simple. It prevents over complicating and ensures the melody isn't fighting the music to stand out, plus makes it more enjoyable for the listener. The more basic and not-busy the actual music is in a section, the more adventurous you can get with a vocal melody

This applies to any instrument melody you wish to be more prominent in a piece of music whether its a guitar melody, a vocal, piano, etc ...

Yes, there is a natural talent associated with writing catchy, memorable vocal lines that flow and there are people that are great at it and others that suck at it but like anything else, the more you work at it the better you will become ... or at least, it'll be easier for you to come up with something quicker that you'll be satisfied with

 

[DanLights]

I´ve found the only times I come up with cool memorable clean vocal melodies is when I come up with it from the lyrics and without any music, I would then make the guitars/music to fit with it. I´ve never been good at vocal melodies, my wife on the other hand is really damn good with that, I give her 100% complete musics and 100% complete lyrics and she makes the lyrics fit the music and sound cool, I guess some people have it easier than others

 

[drew_drummer]

Just like with everything else in life, writing melodies is a skill to be practiced and learned.

Btw: I do have the talent to write sth memorable. I've had it from the first day I picked up a musical instrument.

 

[SocialNumb]

I see what you did thar^

 

[smy1]

drew: The quotes you posted aren't exclusive or even juxtapositions. Taking them out of context like that seems a bit silly.

What I'm sayin there is that even if you have talent, you can improve your skill by practicing and learning. If you don't have talent, you better be practicing your ass off to even write mediocre stuff ...

 

[ahjteam]

I have noticed that the general problem is usually too much lyrics in too short period of time. Works cases like Paramore and rapmusic, but most likely not for any other stuff.

 

[Ronixis]

You can also try improvising without lyrics by singing "nah-nah-nah" and recording it. It's just a matter of working on the song piece by piece, rewriting the bad melodies and rhythms and keeping the good ones. After that you have to fit the lyrics with the rhythms and melodies. James Hetfield among with many other singers do this.

 

[DanLights]

I know Cedric from the Mars volta when writing lyrics to the bedlam in goliath album (omar always writes all the music then cedric all the lyrics and vocal melodies) used to improvise a lot over the parts making up vocal melodies and even lyrics right at the moment, and many times the band even decided to leave it just like it was, with lyrics that came quickly from the very back of his head and melodies that sometimes were even out of tune because he was improvising, they used a lot of mega distorsion and purposeful autotune-like effects to cover those mistakes on the final album, actually those parts sound awesome hahaha

 

[Line666]

What I'm sayin there is that even if you have talent, you can improve your skill by practicing and learning. If you don't have talent, you better be practicing your ass off to even write mediocre stuff ...

Sami, you need to define talent in this instance, are you referring to work already put into developing musical ability or magic fairy talent dust gifted from the gods?

 

[DreamNeonBlack]

I always improvise vocal melodies while the band is playing. Usually they have something in mind and at some point I jump in and babble nonsense. After a while a melody usually surfaces that sticks. Sometimes verses and choruses come right away, sometimes only a part. I got itno the habit of recording practices when we do this in order to help remember the good parts.
Then I go back listen to what I'm babbling and start making lyrics from that.

 

[kramer1309]

Thanks guys..
Sat down with my friend (partner in this project) and just started singing some random tunes and I got a little something I'm fairly happy with for the verses, now the chorus remains..
Guess I had writers block for a bit..