Writing melodic death - how is it done???

[blackvelvet03]

I don't understand how these bands do it - Amon Amarth, Kalmah, In Flames, Soilwork, etc. How do metal bands like Kalmah come up with such badass melodies?

Do they use scales, or just sit and fiddle around? The songwriting duties in my band have pretty much fallen on me, but we have collaberation with the whole band at some points. Our drummer is totally incoherent - he's very new to drums. Only been playing a few months, but I'm working him hard enough. He can almost do blast beats.

What I want to know is how do these bands come up with their material and write their songs? I don't wanna hear any of this "oh we just jam" shit - Metal as good as Kalmah makes it can't come from jams. It has to come from somewhere else.

How do melodic deaht bands come up with their melodies is my quesiton I want answered the most, though.

 

[Eisbär]

Mhhhhh...........

I don't know how long you listen to metal or harder guitar orientated music (please don't understand this wrong!!!), but I'd say that first you have to understand the music(listen, listen, and listen again), then, as the second part, you have to find your own style(this needs some time, but yeah....your music will be better). "I want to write music such as <insertfamousbandhere>!!!" isn't an option in my own eyes. Noone needs coverbands AND as an artist you would limit myself....Definatly not the thing someone needs.
See and experience what kind of music comes out of you when you pick up your instrument. Perhaps melodic DM isn't your thing and if that happens, you have a big problem.
You could compensate this when you're a musical genius(some people are able to write fascinating music with logic but without emotions), but this needs a huge amount of experience....

And, even if you don't want to hear that, JAM!!!
If you don't know how to jam, then learn it (yeah, even there some things should be given, or everything will turn up in a huge pile of shit)!!!
AND(!!!) you're not alone. You're part of a band, so this is a decition of a group.
You need some music theoretical knowledge, too.....And the ability to understand music(doesn't matter what kind of music - classic, rock, metal...)...and your own taste, but this I have said before

Hope that stuff helps a bit

 

[crom aka boris]

first of all you have to be from sweden...or norway...or maybe finland, but than your music will be either very cheesy (nightwish/children of bodom) or very mad/strange (and oceans)...yeah! thats it.

 

[metal thrashing thor]

hahahaha its funny you say be from sweden! thats very true!, people many times ask why i write so melodicly or "SWEDISH STYLE!" or why i write so thrashy! i say cuz i'm german/swedish,and its in the blood! like i write black metal
it sounds like marduk or bathory not darkthrone i have to try to sound more norwegian than swedish to make that style metal! so it is funny to me heehehheh


but i say beautiful metal riffs come from beautiful things! like i think about women when i write riffs or nature or things that cool or inspiring! i know it sounds really insane or cheesy but possitive things help me write! even when singing about bloody battles or gory death i'm always happy cuz melody is possitive and its fun to play like inflames or kalmah also listen to hyper technical metal like say suidakra or even epic groups like thyrfing,moonsorrow etc.......melody is in the soul you must summon it up.....every note is like a lyric with melodic death,ryhthm guitar must be thick and steady with heavy thundery clashes and speed breaks most of the time i play e minor bar chords or 5th chords then harmonize the second notes!

"GRAVEWORMS_unhollowed by the infernal one" is a geat example for triling leads over ryhthm, or also inflames inbody the invisible!

CLICK


also just stand and tril around the fret board and just test notes try and harmonizing old riffs harmony is everything in melodic death.



so you dont think i'm a nut check out my song above its one of my best melodies.

KALMAH on the other hand have alot of celtic riffs wich are simple and very usaly on blues scales that are altered.

 

[Corporal McDick]

At first you need to listen alot to music and learn some music theory.... scales etc.

 

[Darth Victor]

I don't understand how these bands do it - Amon Amarth, Kalmah, In Flames, Soilwork, etc. How do metal bands like Kalmah come up with such badass melodies?

Do they use scales, or just sit and fiddle around? The songwriting duties in my band have pretty much fallen on me, but we have collaberation with the whole band at some points. Our drummer is totally incoherent - he's very new to drums. Only been playing a few months, but I'm working him hard enough. He can almost do blast beats.

What I want to know is how do these bands come up with their material and write their songs? I don't wanna hear any of this "oh we just jam" shit - Metal as good as Kalmah makes it can't come from jams. It has to come from somewhere else.

How do melodic deaht bands come up with their melodies is my quesiton I want answered the most, though.

it works like this: you say you are two guitarists? well, when you make a riff or even if it's only one note you tell the other guitarist to play something else. If you know scales you know which notes fits with the ones you already play-if not you just have to try until you find something that sounds good.
However I think you will work it out when you get more practice.
Good luck!

 

[GoddessHecate]

I don't think there is any kind of set formula that can be pinpointed. I think it all has to do with feeling, what you are feeling inside of you, that just comes out into notes when you pick up that instrument.

 

[Sumerian]

Just sit and fiddle around. Anything can be conisdered a scale if it sounds good to you. So just screw around making sounds that feel good to you and it will all come together. The worst thing you can do is get bogged down by playing other people's shit and worrying too much about what bands you like are doing. Nothing sucks worse than a band that sounds just like someone else.

 

[Desolatory]

OK dude, nobody else is going to give you any straight answers, they will just give you vague shit like 'the answer is within you' or some gayness like that, and in the end thats the truth but you dont wanna hear that rite? you wanna hear what we think of the question well this is how i see it: the music of the swedish scene can be reffered to as classical music, in the sense that it, for the most part strives for perfection and beauty within the music itself. To achieve it you need to know the fundamental forms that make up music and this is something that only comes with listening to and playing alot of music, but you already knew that. Fundamental aspect one:
Rythm - A sense of repetition is essential, having a constant atonal beat(one that doesnt move around from the tonic(first note in a scale)) is 'perfect' in a sense, it is nuetrality, but nuetrallity is never alot of fun, you need to make people beg for nuetrallity and you do this by exposing them to extremes. Which brings us to..
Melody - Melody means moving around with the notes, going higher and lower and such, this is where it gets tricky because it REALLY helps to know which note is which and how they are going to understand one another BUT dont despair! you have ears, and thats exactly what the people that wrote the theory had so just use them and play with what sounds good, in the case of what you want to achieve, dont stray too far from the tonic, only move around up and down in very simple patterns. like...
A|-5--7-8-7-5-3--3-5---|
E|--------------------3-|
Thats going from 5, D the Tonic up a tone and a semitone and coming back down below the tonic and finishing up a fifth below the three which also relates back to the tonic since the tonic is the fifth of the G.

The basic idea with the melody construction of about 90% of swedish/classical perfection orrientated music is to have four parts first one repeating theme, then a tail to that theme then a repetition of the original theme and then finally a varyation of the first tail. This isnt followed exact, most people dont even know they are doing it, its just an observation ive picked up... So by that theorm we would construct a melody like...


A|-5--7-8-7-5-|3--3-5---|-5--7-8-7-5-|232-5-|
E|-Theme------|Tail- --3-|Theme------|Tail------|
ANd below that you would put a beat that emphasises every fragment of that four part melody with thirds or fifths or something like...

A|-5--7-8-7-5-|3--3-5---|-5--7-8-7-5-|232-5-|
E|-------------|-------3-|-------------|------|

A|-3-----------|-5-------|-3-----------|-3-----|
E|-3-----------|-7-------|-3-----------|-1-----|

Anyway thats how i see it, if it helps you it helps you, if it doesnt it doesnt, fuck me dead... i wrote an essay

 

[blackvelvet03]

Dude, I fucking LOVE you! That's exactly what I was looking for! That helps SO fucking much!

 

[Obscurity]

He makes a really good post, but leaves out dominant features in MDM. While Swedish music (more in general their guitarists) derive themselves from classical compositional structure there are quite obscure parts within the playing itself. Lets take the song Death In Fire for this post, so we can have a song to use as an example.

It seems a 2/4 and 3/4 beat are the most common within playing MDM. In the drums though, these are often overlapped by a repetative double bass drum or a roll on the toms (example Death In Fire) and is not as dominant as it would be in Alternative Rock (or something like that). That's a great key in the type of music Amon Amarth in perticular play. The dominance on the last beat isn't so that it would stand out, and it shows in their music that it's always continue to 'roll'.

Several things that Desolatory left out were the emphasis on the way rythme guitar is used, and how it affects the way your lead will emphasis on notes. For example if our rythme is playing a rythme for a fill and it goes something like:

A|-5--7-8-7-5-3--3-5---|-5--7-8-7-5-232-5-|
E|--------------------3-|-------------------|

Now a lead would emphasis on the last note of every measure it could look like something like:

e|-17-20-17-19-15-17hbr-17hbr-17fb---|-----------------------
B|-------------------------------------|-----------------------
G|-------------------------------------|-----------------------

Im sure you see the point

 

[Desolatory]

good point dude, but i wouldnt use fifths, thirds sound alout purtier, and if your going so many octaves above i would start one interval behind the tonic rather than a fifth in front, that always sounds oh so much sadder. But the non emphaises if the last beat, you know i didnt pick up on that, but ill have to look into it later on since im not listening to anythin at the moment, in my experience most bands emphasise the first beat, but you may well be right that these swedish bands do not.

 

[Thrymfal]

just use the ole 2 fret rule....basically play whatever the fuck you want, and then have your other guitarist play the same fuckin thing on either the higher or lower string, 2 frets higher, or frets lower...check any in flames song....the 2 fret theory holds true!