Transcription
Hey guys, hope you're well and welcome back to another episode of Transportals. In the studio with me, Asteroid. So today, we're going to be looking at lead melody composition. And in this video, we're going to be covering things like how to achieve a good rhythm, how to decorate your top notes, and also the best part, some tips and tricks for how to achieve a good melody with little to no music theory knowledge. We're just about to jump into Ableton Live now, but as with most melody writing, it can take some time. So I'd recommend grabbing a cup of tea or coffee, and I'll see you inside the DAW shortly. Cheers.
Okay guys, here we are inside Ableton Live for the next episode of Transportal. In the studio with me, Asteroid. As mentioned earlier, we're going to be looking at melody composition today. And for the purpose of this video, I've decided to recreate my melody from "Voices of Gaia." It was a track of mine that was released last year on After Dark. The reason for doing this is because not only is it my best track so far, but it's also the one I get asked about the most as well. And on top of that, it's also one of the more complex 16th note patterns as well. Um, I thought it would be a really good opportunity to show you guys how I made that. Um, so, so far, we have a 16-bar loop with nothing in it. Um, so I'm just going to jump into the MIDI clip now.
A quick tip for those of you who have little or no music theory knowledge: if you compose all of your melodies in the A minor scale, this will then mean using all of the white notes. You know, it's a little bit more difficult to make any mistakes and also a bit more intuitive when you're drawing in notes on the piano roll as well.
Okay, so I like to work in sections. So generally, I usually zoom in to bar one, two, three. I'll highlight that area and loop it. Oops. Okay, I'm just going to move this back one. All right, great. And then I'm going to look for A1. I'm going to ensure that I'm also on the 16th note grid. Excuse me. So we're going to be in A minor today. So I'm just going to draw a couple of bass notes in here. That's more than a couple. Okay. Uh, right, so there are, uh, there are my bass notes and there is, you know, it's a pretty basic rhythm so far. I'm just going to go two octaves above. So we have A2 here. I'm going to go to A3 and I'm just going to draw in the top notes here, just in between, basically in between the gaps for the bass notes. Okay, so it will look something like that. So at the moment, it's going to sound like a very basic rhythm.
[Music]
Okay, so now what we're going to do is we're going to move around some of the top notes in order to give our rhythm a bit more complexity and make things sound a bit nicer as well. So it's going to look something like this. You know, I, I know this melody, of course, so I'm moving them around quite easily. But don't be afraid to kind of experiment. You know, it's all the white keys, so it's not that, not that difficult to move them around. Um, so I'm just going to go up here again. I'm just going to get like a, a two-bar loop of the same thing.
Okay, so now we have this kind of rhythm.
[Music]
Okay, so that's starting to sound quite nice now. I'm going to highlight the notes and then Command or Control D to duplicate. And we're just going to do this for eight bars so far. That will give us a chance then to, excuse me, that will then give us a chance to develop the melody further. So at the moment, we just have C on the top note. So I'm just going to move the, the top notes a little bit as well to get some more kind of melody going. Yeah, around here, I think.
[Music]
Okay, so so far, we've only moved the top notes. So let's have a look at moving some of the bass notes now to include chord changes and some kind of emotive rhythm.
[Applause]
Okay, that sounds really nice. So generally, the chords now have added that nice emotion there. Um, but please, you know, don't be afraid to move around some of the middle notes as well. Technically, the top line is the melody, the bottom notes are the kind of chords, and then the middle notes will count as kind of, I guess, harmonic notes or if they were in pads, it would be chords as well. Um, so we're just going to move some of the middle notes around as well, just to give it, give it a bit more vibe.
[Applause]
Okay, that's sounding really nice. So I'm just going to decorate the top notes a bit more. If I remember rightly, in "Voices of Gaia," I did something like this.
[Applause]
[Music]
Okay, that's sounding really nice now, guys. As mentioned before, you know, don't be afraid. You know, naturally, we tend to move around the bass notes here to add the feeling and also the top notes. But again, don't be afraid to experiment with the harmonics here and with the middle notes as well.
Okay, so I'm just going to highlight this section and then duplicate to make it 16 bars long so that we can create a bit more of a story and evolve the melody over the further eight bars as well. It might take me some time just to get this right because I'm going from memory, of course, but just bear with me. As I mentioned earlier, you know, melody writing can take some time. So.
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[Music]
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Okay, so it's starting to sound nice in the second, uh, eight bars or so from bar nine onwards. Um, in "Voices of Gaia," it kind of jumps up quite high through the notes to create this kind of feeling or this element of, you know, rising or climbing. So it's not always easy to achieve in melody writing, by the way, and that's kind of why I wanted to show you this one. So we're going to develop these notes to climb further or higher up, shall we say. Um, for that, I'm just going to move these down to look the same as the rest. And then I'm going to highlight all of these. And going back to what I was saying about the middle notes, they are in F and E here, but I'm also going to move them up now. In the middle notes, the top and middle notes are going to go up. So that the middle notes are reflected in C and B instead of F and E. Um, that should give us this nice kind of jump from this, from this chord here. It's going to give us a nice kind of jumping feeling, you know, climbing or chord change, I guess, dramatic mood change, that kind of thing.
[Music]
[Applause]
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Okay guys, um, that's the recreation of my track "Voices of Gaia." Um, it took me a little while to, to remember exactly where the notes go here. As you can see, the movements are quite, you know, well, I guess to people with music theory, it's probably not that complex. Um, it certainly is for me being self-taught, and it may be very useful for you guys to see this as well. Um, so as I mentioned, uh, to reiterate about the, the middle notes and how important they can be in a melody, uh, for mood change and drama. Um, these, you know, going from F and E up to C and then B here. So they're in the same position, you know, right after each other, but just in different, different notes on there, on the scale. Um, so it goes up to C and then B here, and then F and E here. So this F and E is actually an octave above this F and E here, which is true, traditionally not what, you know, we would think to do in a melody. But as you can hear in this, it works really well. It adds loads of drama, loads of tension in that climb at the end here. And to climb, you know, we've gone right down low to D, E, F, and G here, and then we're climbing with, though, with the top notes as well to add to that drama. Even, you know, I mean, they're moving in, in notes of two here, increments of two. And at the top, just to get even a little bit more tension, we move in increments of one just for the last bar. So, you know, don't be afraid to experiment with these kind of things, guys, because, you know, this kind of where the magic happens when you do things that aren't, you know, the norm, I guess. Um, the reason I love this melody so much is because I studied a lot of the classic stuff, and, you know, I just really wanted to create something kind of classic in vibe. And I'm, yeah, I'm super happy with how it turned out. I hope that you found it useful. Um, just looking at the structure, looking at where the chord changes are. And I would just like to say a massive thank you to Transportal for the invite. Um, I hope you found the video useful. Also, guys, please, uh, please remember to hit the subscribe button on the Transport channel and also hit the notification bell as well. Uh, just so that you can keep in the loop of all the amazing content that these guys are putting out as well. Yeah, take care of each other. Hope you've enjoyed it, and I will see you somewhere soon.