There is an answer to every question. Without a good question, you cannot get a good answer.
Those 2 sentences say a lot about what we’ll discuss in this article.
I love melodies. They are the number 1 thing that connects me to a song. I believe they are the most expressive element of music. That’s why I chose to examine how they’re made, how they breathe, what’s their structure, what’s their purpose… During that search, I realized one nice little apparition. Most melodies can be compared to a dialogue. One part of the melody represents a question, and other, the answer.
What do I mean?
You’ll hear. Take a listen to this melody I wrote for my song ‘Shine Like The Sun’.
It is so obvious that first 4 bars of the melody act as a question, and last 4 bars as an answer.
I used totally different dynamics and note lengths for the question and the answer, opposed to the chorus melody of ‘You Will Find The Hope’:
It is clearly defined which part of melody presents a question and answer, but the dynamics haven’t changed here, only the tension.
What we’re doing here is just analyzing the structure of some melodies. I suggest you now take a listen to some of your favorite songs, and see how the melodies act there. Find the ‘question and answer’ approach.
Really, stop reading and take several of songs you enjoy listening to the most and work them out.
Have you done so?
How did you recognize the question part, and how did you recognize the answer part?
What was the structure of melody – were there more answers to one question, or was there one answer to several questions?
Just trying to answer those questions will open your ears to some details of melodies you maybe didn’t realize before. Verbalization of them maybe isn’t as important as knowing they’re there.
That’s the Terminator theme, one of my favorite melodies.
I’m sure you see which part is the question, and which one the answer, but, do you see the reason(s) why we’re working on this?
The main reason is to get a sense of structure for melodies. Through structure, you’ll find a musical balance and order required for the melody to work. One simple way to get started on this is to take some existing melodies, and separate them in question and answer parts. Then leave one part of the melody same, while changing the other. The Terminator theme is a perfect material for that. Since that theme already has an excellent balance, you will have to find substitute equivalent to what already is written. That will take some real effort to do, therefore building your creativity and forcing you to push yourself a bit, if not, a lot. This is something you really should do by yourself and for yourself. The purpose of doing this is finding yourself in those melodies you’ll make. In a way, you aren’t exploring melodies here, you’re exploring yourself. It doesn’t really matter whose ideas you’re playing, but how much of yourself are you giving into the actual playing.
I believe that most of the time, only we give ourselves questions and answers. Others can only push us into doing that, or show us how to do that. You should review the very first sentence of the article at this point.
Alright now, let’s continue. We’ve been through a lot, you might have realized, if you’ve been actively working on the article. This is a good basis of this approach to create melodies. I don’t want to write too much at this point, because the quantity might distract you from the quality.
There is just one more thing I’d like to mention. Every melody we worked on so far has similar vibe of question and answer. There is not so much diversity, and that can be altered. The following example is the chorus melody of ‘Imagination’. I had a bit different melody before the real drums got recorded for the song. Drummers’ input inspired me to write that section in 16th notes, since I followed his passing on toms. That’s when the diversity happened.
The question part is first 2 measures of melody, answer the second 2. Notice that the answer changes depending on how the question ends. That is not an accident. It feels natural to have appropriate answer to different questions. Sometimes they can be the same, but sometimes they cannot. Be aware of that. The vibe of the answer changes a lot because of the 16th notes.
Now you know a lot to get started on doing this on your own. Experimentation is the half of creation, so improvise with this approach in mind. I am sure you will get to many creative and magical melodies!
