Beatles

The Magic of Melody

Posted on by IJ

There is a lot of music out there that is not as melody-based, one extreme being rap, where elements such as rhythm, lyrics and production are relied upon to attract the listener. But in my case, I’ve always been attracted to a song with a powerful melody. Classical music was always playing in the house when I was growing up, and I believe that exposure to this kind of music gave me an ear and a preference for melodic songs.

So what makes a great melody? I think it’s a relative thing, but for me a great melody is either one that can exist beautifully without any accompaniment, or dances in a unique way over top of a great chord progression.
Although it’s difficult to actually teach how to write a great melody, there are some things you can keep in mind in order to improve them.

One very common problem I find with melodies is that they stay very close to the “root” note of the chord. Let’s take a little theory lesson…if you’ve already studied theory, you don’t need this next section…but read through it anyway!

Chords are made up of three or more notes…I won’t go into much depth here, but let’s take a look at the “C” chord as an example:

A major “C” chord has three notes…C (called the ‘root’), E (called the ‘3rd’ because it’s three notes up from ‘C’ in the C major scale), and G (called the ‘5th’ because it’s five notes up from ‘C’). So we have three notes…C (root), E (3rd), G (5th). Here’s a simple graphic:

Underneath are the notes of each string (the 6th or E string is not played, hence the “x”). You’ll notice that the only notes contained in the chord of C are as I described above…C, E, G.

Play each of those strings alone and hum each note as you pluck it..you’ll find that you are probably “attracted” to one of those notes more than the others…the root note of “C” may be the one that draws your ear. Chances are that you will almost unconsciously create your melody with that note in it more than any others. If your melodies feel hum-drum, this may be the reason. Now try strumming it and at the same time focus on singing notes that are not within that chord. Play with it a bit, until you get a sense of just how interesting your melody can get…every time you write your melodies, no matter if you write lyrics first or whether you already have the chord progressions, just being conscious of not repeating the same note too often can help your writing.

Another common problem I hear in melodies is that they move all over the place, almost the opposite to the problem above. This is where simplicity is the order of the day. Here is an exercise that might help you overcome the temptation to write complicated melodies…try coming up with a chord progression of three or four chords and then continue playing those three or four chords in repetition. As an example, try playing D, Bm, A, and G. Over top of that progression, sing one note that sounds like it fits pretty much all of those chords. Just one note. You can hum it continuously, or you can break it up by humming it in a rhythmic fashion, but only one note. Notice how the chord changes actually change the feeling of that note…it’s a subtle thing but very effective.

Very often, the rhythm of the melody is as important as the notes in it. As a guitar teacher, I’ve noticed that one of the hardest things for some of my students to do is to maintain a rhythm on the guitar while singing a melody that is syncopated. Syncopation is a rhythm that exists just before or just after the meter count. The dictionary defines syncopate as: “…change a regular rhythm by beginning a note on an unaccented beat and holding it into an accented one or beginning it midway through a beat and continuing it midway into the next one.” Phew! Does this feel like math? Rarely are melodies sung continuously on the beat…songs would sound awfully funny if every note was sung on the beat. As an example of syncopation, take for example, Paul Simon‘s song “Me & Julio”. I’ve placed the words underneath the meter of the music to show you how it would look:

|1…….2……..3……..4……
.Me and….Ju-…..lio……
…|1………2……..3……4…………….1……2……3……4……|
Down….by…the……..scho—-ol…yard

Notice how many of the words fall in between the beats. The word ‘Me’, ‘school’ and ‘yard’ are the only words that actually fall on the beat, on one of the numbers. Melodies are usually a combination of both. How do your melodies measure up? Get a metronome and just sing one of your melodies over top of it…notice where you place the notes. Do they sit too much on the beat, or do they always fall in between?

Melody and rhythm, are the simplest elements when it comes to writing a song, but a song is only as strong as it’s weakest part. Of course, listening to strong melody-based music, anything written by the Beatles, for example, will give you a new respect for the magic of melody.

IJ

Do Lyrics Need to Mean Anything?

Posted on by IJ

For years music lovers who followed Elton John’s career wondered about the meaning of the lyrics in the song “Daniel”.  They argued back and forth;  some thought it was about the Vietnam War, others that it simply had to do with a relationship between two brothers, and another group thought it was about homosexuality.

I was very intrigued to see an interview with Bernie Taupin, the lyricist behind the song, years later when he was asked “So what is ‘Daniel’ really about?”  Bernie’s answer surprised me, and then again, it didn’t.

He shrugged his shoulders and casually said “I don’t know.”  And that was about it.

This issue came up again recently when I was teaching a Radiohead song called ‘Karma Police’ to one of my guitar students.  We sat there afterward and tried to analyze the lyrics.  At the risk of copyright infringement, I’m going to show the lyrics here.  Let’s just say it’s about the ‘art’, guys!

Karma police, arrest this man,
He talks in maths
He buzzes like a fridge,
He’s like a de-tuned radio
Karma police, arrest this girl,
Her Hitler hairdo is making me feel ill
And we have crashed her party


This is what you get, this is what you get
This is what you get, when you mess with us

Karma police, I’ve given all I can,
It’s not enough
I’ve given all I can,
But were still on the payroll

This is what you get, this is what you get
This is what you get, when you mess with us


And for a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself
And for a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself
For a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself

Okay.  I love this song, but not for the lyrics.  I love the chord progression and melody.  I hate the radio noise at the end of the song, but that’s for another article!

If you understand the word ‘karma’, in Buddhism it means ‘what goes around, comes around’.  That’s an over-simplification as any real Buddhist will tell you, but for our purposes let’s stick to that meaning.  So the line ‘This is what you get’ in the chorus, makes sense;  this is what you get when you behave that way, etc.  Even the title ‘Karma Police’ makes sense to me in this context.

At the end of the song we have a completely different section, an ‘extro’ or ‘outro’ or ‘tag’ depending on what you like to call it.  The chord progression changes and they repeat the line ‘And for a minute there, I lost myself’.  In Buddhism again, the ‘self’ doesn’t exist, so even this line makes sense within the context of karma.

However, the rest of the lyric seems to have absolutely no connection to anything.  What do they mean ‘her Hitler hair-do is making me feel ill and we have crashed her party’?  What does that have to do with anything?  ‘He talks in maths, he buzzes like a fridge’…what does that mean?

Now I am not a prude or snob, and I already told you that I love the song.  But sometimes I think bands and artists take liberties with their lyrics, especially those who write in the rock (alternative, if you will) and pop styles.  They assume that people don’t really care about lyrics.  I think they are right, to some extent.  How many songs have you fallen in love with but had no idea what much of it meant?

So what does this mean?  Should we be as flippant with our own lyrics?  Those of us who write in these genres tend to have the same attitudes…that the lyrics don’t really matter.  I think you should care more about what you are saying in your lyrics, in spite of what Bernie Taupin or anyone else thinks.  By all means, when you are first writing, as I’ve said many times, don’t edit yourself or you’ll put out your little creative flame pretty quickly.  But when you are at the re-writing stage (and there should ALWAYS be a re-writing stage!), look at what you’re saying.  Does it make sense in any way whatsoever?  Does it relate to the theme or the title of your song?  Is there a thread that goes through the whole lyric and pulls it together?

Maybe you don’t care, but you should.

On another note (little pun there!), there’s a famous story about the Beatle’s song ‘Hey Jude’.  It was written for John Lennon’s son Julian by Paul McCartney, and one of the lines is ‘the movement you need is on your shoulder’.  Paul was agonizing over that line, but when he went to John about it, John said something to the effect “Don’t worry about it, I know what it means.”  And so the line was left as is.

It’s true that we need to make our lyrics universal enough so that a listener can have some room for interpretation.  But there is a difference, a big one, between ‘universal’ meaning and ‘no’ meaning.  Think about it for awhile, and for pete’s sake, don’t get lazy!

IJ

[update Feb.09/09…during an interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes last night, Coldplay’s songwriter Chris Martin was asked what the meaning of “Yellow” was…guess what he answered??  “I don’t know.”]