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[Valrus]

Dear people who write songs where you sing actual notes: When you're coming up with melodies, how do you do it? Do you wing it and try different things until it sounds good or do you use notation? Do you do the chords first and then the melody or vice versa? Do you ever write a melody and then decide later that you need to scrap it completely and start over?

[audacity]

Usually I do it by ear, and then go back and get technical to see if everything is all right.
It usually goes quicker that way, for me, and I'm usually more likely to be content with the end product.

[ImRonBurgundy?]

I just yell.

[audacity]

.. Your avatar is hypnotizing.

[JimmyJazz]

I usually just come up with a melody that fits well with the music, and then I'll go over it to make it fits in the key of the song. Somestimes I'll become bored with the melody I'm using, so I always try and three different melody ideas for a song and pick the one I like best. The melody changes once I add more layers to a song as well.

[Thrillho]

I don't write them. I just sing about until something comes out. Oddly I usually write the lyrics before the melody and just shoehorn a melody into it. I don't bother checking if it fits the key of the song because I'm aware of when I'm singing out of tune, but if it's slightly otherworldly then I like it better that way - besides which my chord choices aren't usually conducive to staying in one key specifically.

[Johnny C]

Dear people who write songs where you sing actual notes: When you're coming up with melodies, how do you do it? Do you wing it and try different things until it sounds good or do you use notation? Do you do the chords first and then the melody or vice versa? Do you ever write a melody and then decide later that you need to scrap it completely and start over?

The answer is "all" for me. Sometimes the melody and lyrics come before anything else in a song. Sometimes I revise a melody so that it works better with the mood. Sometimes I just improvise until I hit what works, and even then sometimes I improvise live just because it feels better. I rarely use notation but I make sure to remember what I sing.

[Thrillho]

Oh yeah. If your song isn't memorable enough for YOU to remember how it goes, you may as well be glad you forgot how it went.

[The Viz]

The way I write songs is, I'll be messing around with some chords on guitar and I'll just start humming a melody.  As that melody and the chords under it become more defined, the lyrics sort of come along with it.  I never write out my melodies, I'm never satisfied when I try to do it that way.  The melodies just sort of happen on their own.  They're there already, I just need to find them.

[dalconnsuch]

Dear people who write songs where you sing actual notes: When you're coming up with melodies, how do you do it? Do you wing it and try different things until it sounds good or do you use notation? Do you do the chords first and then the melody or vice versa? Do you ever write a melody and then decide later that you need to scrap it completely and start over?

mostly in my current project we right the musical aspects of the song first and then we right the lyrics and whatever key the song is in and whatever scale i'm running our singer tends to stay in key, rhythm and follow the changeups basically, all the notes he's singing follows the notes the band is playing, it produces a thing called harmony, which is effective for making a band sound like its gelling (gelling being molding together and sounding gewd) and for choruses and melodies? those vocals are the equivilent of a guitar playing a solo, as long as you stay in key, rhythm and following the basical note intervals (scales) your gonna sound okay

of course everything i've said is true if your a slave to music theory, i'd just sing, constantly, the more you sing the better you'll get and know what sounds good

[Valrus]

Oh yeah. If your song isn't memorable enough for YOU to remember how it goes, you may as well be glad you forgot how it went.

Good point. I always feel like I should record the melodies I come up with because I tend to find them really hard to devise, but when you put it that way I don't feel too bad about the fact that I almost never do.

[sombrasoubrette]

Even if it seems too classical and hokey, a music theory course/familiarity has made my melodies sooo much better. Sure, they're usually based on chord tones, but familiarity with nonchord tones and different cadence styles really helps.