Transcription
Welcome to Creative Penn Academy with me, Joseph Sakura, and that is very true. Today, we're gonna get really serious and dive deep into how to write a melody, how you can improve your melodies, and probably haven't seen what I'm about to show you in this video. So stick around. Let's roll that intro and get cracking. One second, almost forgot. I made that little bit wonky. Still room for improvement, but anyway, back to the intro.
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Guys, don't forget to smash that subscribe button if you haven't done so already, as well as a notification bell next to it, so you know when I upload new videos. Also, I've put together a new free giveaway for you. Check the concert information box down below. It's called the Top 5 Kind of Exercises for Beginners. Check it out, that's your thing. Now, okay, so take a listen to this first.
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So, what you heard there isn't like a melody I'm super happy with, alright, put into a piece of music or anything like that. What was doing has a very specific purpose that I want to explore with you in this video. But before we do that, let's take a quick step back and have a look at what score skills, what cost skills we need to develop to be able to create melodies in the first place. And for me, there's, there's two core skills essentially that go together hand in hand in order to allow you to, to express yourself and write melodies. And the first is technique. So you've got things like spacing, you've got tension and resolve, all that, although all the theory, the essentials that go into writing a melody. But that's not what this video is about. You know, your three tweaks to do this, your three tricks, your three hacks, all I can stow. I've got that on the channel and I've got where most of planned on it. It's super important, love it. But this video is about something else. This is about developing your personality, your intuition with writing melodies, because that's the other side too. Okay, what makes, what makes your melodies you? So while I was doing that, is essentially taking the C major scale and just noodling around the notes. Um, noodling, it's a great word. Icing it. We're gonna noodle, noodle around all those notes in the C major scale. You know, we'll learn all these techniques and scales when we first start learning the piano, right? And it's like, well, what can I actually do with it? So this is what you can do with it. So first, I'll show you a, a bit of a broad overview of what we're doing here, but it might be a bit overwhelming. So then we're gonna dive in and I'll show you two techniques you can use to get started. So first of all, we need to be familiar with the C major chord. Now, I'm hoping before you start this video that you're very familiar with it. But if you're not, I'll show you this first and you can go away and practice it. Start on the C and we essentially move up all the white notes. So when we get to the E with that third finger from underneath to the F, all the way to the top and then back down again, third finger over. When you get used to that first octave, got another octave. Then when we get to the B here with the fourth finger, thumb underneath, okay? And then it just resets back to the beginning. Form under, up to the top, third over, fourth over, third over. Now, whizzing through that because that's not what this video's about. I want you're really familiar with that C major scale first, but that's it in a nutshell.
Now, we need a bit of a left-handed compliment that we're gonna repeat over and over again. It's like a foundation to explore melodies. And that we're gonna use a C chord here. We're gonna play that twice. We're gonna move to the G power chord, G and D. We're gonna play that twice and E, that twice, and then okay. So this is a familiar thing that I've explored a few other videos. Our gods are a great way to just give a very basic left-hand compliment. Doesn't take much brainpower. But as we're getting used to this, as a complete gift to you, you don't need to put your email in or anything like that. If you check down in the information box, I've put together just me playing piano in the background using those chords, a little bit more interesting than just power chords, so that you can just play that in the background and then have a go. But what we're about to do next, so just check that out. You can download it, no strings attached, just my gift to you.
So now we're all set. And if you haven't done this before, it is going to be chaos. It's gonna be overwhelming. Do not worry about it. It is totally expected. You can start, but I have this nice pattern going and we're just gonna start playing around with these notes in the C major scale, totally random. And it just doesn't matter what we do in here. We just play it around. I'm gonna stick to that first octave, so we're not gonna go beyond that first octave or anything, just stick to one octave.
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And the idea here is we want to start feeling, hearing, and digesting and getting used to what sounds good to us personally, what doesn't sound good, what notes in consecutive orders sound really nice, what sounds a bit weird. And over time, the more you do this, the more that that I want that to become part of you. And that's the intuition side of melody writing. It's like, that's brilliant. So all that sounds like it works is, it's a bit cheesy than salmon too, but it works. Yeah. But if I was to go.
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And you know, these notes don't particularly sound very nice on their own. And it's that kind of thing that I want you to start getting used to and feeling. Okay, so that is the grand overview. That's the exercise. Stick to this one octave, one octave, and you start playing around. Okay, what sounds good? What does that latch on to? What sounds good? Train, repeat. Now, overwhelming, totally understand. So let's break that down. Have a look at two methods you can explore to get used to it, you know, stepping stones, so to speak. So the first thing I want you to do is think about limiting the number of notes that you're allowed to use. Now, you can essentially break this down to just using two notes, a C and an E and a G. Okay? And you can, you can start playing around with just those two notes. Doesn't sound particularly exciting, but doesn't sound bad. And that's just using two notes. And then after a while, you can just add this E here. So yeah, now it sounds a little bit more interesting. He's still a bit, what would you say, still a bit common and bland, but it's beginning to sound a bit like some other stuff you might hear out there. I'm just using three notes. Add another note in. So listen, this is not being so now we've got these four notes, we've got B, C, D, E. And hopefully you kind of get an idea of what I'm doing here. And, and, and do this in stages. So get, for me, get really comfortable with two notes, get really comfortable with three, then four. Yeah, don't just whisk through it like I'm doing now. I'm just showing you the essentials here. So now we've got four notes.
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And then of course, you know, the idea, we're gonna add another note in. So we'll have to say, well, let's just, let's, let's limit it now to these five and this B here. So six notes, B, C, D, E, F, and G. And also, if you are just getting used to this, you've got one position here, okay? You've just know this. There's no need to worry about any of these fingering nonsense or anything like that. That could come later. A just live into here and your thumb can just now and again jump over to that B. So.
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I could just go on for hours like that, but you get the idea. Okay, so that I staged number one, just limit the amount of notes, get used to that. First stage, number two. Okay, now we're getting into the realms of proper good melodies. Okay? And this is a real good tip for you. Good melodies are repetitive. They, they get lodged in your head. They repeat themselves over and over again. So this time, we're gonna explore creating rhythmic patterns. And essentially, you can break that down to using just a few notes as well. So for instance, if we just take these three notes here into a latch onto a repetitive pattern that sounds, that I think sounds quite nice, and I'll just keep repeating it over and over again. I'm rambling. This is what I'm talking about. So nice. How I'm just repeating the same thing. Yeah, you could even simplify that, you know, how about just one note?
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Three notes, not just repeating corners, but then you can. So that's just the starting point. Then you can start getting really creative with this. And then.
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Um, honestly, I'm not, I haven't even planned this. I'm just, just playing. You know, and that's the point. Yeah. I want you to start getting spontaneous, get creative. The more you do this, the more it becomes natural. And what I'm hoping emerges from practicing this are little things that you latch on to that, that you like, you like personally. And they will start developing into your sound and start coming through in the melodies that you write. You know, you listen to Ed Sheeran, you listen to Paul McCartney, you listen to, you know, a lot of Ryan Tedder's songwriting stuff, Queen particularly, you know, they have a sound. They have something where you can go, Brandon Flowers is one that I can recognize straight away. You know, you'll listen to it and there's just something about the melodies that they write where you go, that's him instantly. And so this is a way to start developing that kind of thing. And you might find those little things in the melodies that make you sit up and go, I like that. And then they'll start becoming part of you. For instance, for me, and something that all the time, stop seeped into my melodic style, so to speak, is something like this. See this here? They stop run down. I just love how that works when I plan that fourth chord and the G together with it. And I just, it just, something that sounds good to me. And so I've, I've heard that creeping into my melodies all the time. They saw it like, and it's nothing special. It's not particularly massively interesting or anything. It's just something. It's, it's crept into the way I write melodies. And that's come with experimentation. It's come with play. It's come with time. Play in the sense that I'm, I'm just playing around. Yeah, not just playing piano, playing, playing around in that specific way.
So, a quick recap. C major scale first, get used to that. And then you're gonna start just playing around with all those notes, just, you know, experimenting. It doesn't matter as much. Not about writing melodies right now, it's about getting familiar with the process of writing melodies and developing that musical ear. Then we had a look at stripping down to just using certain amount of notes and that's it to get used to that. So for instance, just three notes when you get the idea. And then we took a look at patterns. Okay, so.
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You.
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That really is touching on proper songwriting technique. I'm gonna save a lot of that for another video, but do get used to that and you won't go far wrong. And of course, when you've got used to just using a few notes, just using a few patterns, bring those skills back into using the full octave, you know, noodling around, so to speak, like, like a bit of noodling. And just see if any of those skills you've been developing pokes through into your noodling. And so now you have a cycle that you can keep repeating and getting better all the time. So hopefully something a bit different for you there, not just your average two trips or three hacks or anything like that. This is the deeper level stuff. This is the stuff that'll start developing your musical ear and your musicality and developing you as a creative musician. So hope you like that. Back to me.
Okay guys, I really hope you liked that. If you put that to use, you've got hours and hours and hours of practice where you can start developing your musical ear. Remember, I mentioned I recorded a piano backing for you just in case you're struggling with that left hand. So do download that gift to you. All again, you know, I hope the message, the techniques, the exercises came across in this video is a little bit more abstract rather than you're off, do this, do that. So hope you get something out of it. Like the video if you liked it, subscribe to the channel, and I will see you, I'll see you in the next video.
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