So the best advice I can give to anyone who has trouble writing good melodies is.increase your instrumental skills in the areas of melody playing, and a great place to start is to learn the alternating bass style of fingerpicking, where the melody is played over an alternating bass.įor me the words, and even just the overall story line or idea, always come last. Because of this, I find I almost never have to wait for 'inspiration' it just comes to me naturally as I noodle with my fingerpicking on the guitar. Having the ability to easily fingerpick melodies over a bass line provides endless melodic inspiration. there's only so many basic rhythms for me to choose: That takes about several seconds to decide.īecause I can fingerpick in various styles I find that writing melodies is also very easy. I never write with a view to 'selling' songs.įor my styles, rhythm choice is easy. It always works for *me* in this order (1) rhythm (2) melody (3) lyrics.Īll my writing is done on guitar or mountain dulcimer and I write in the folk/blues/ragtime/celtic/story-ballad traditions all done fingerpicking. Really listen to the songs YOU like and study their form, melody, etc. One bit of advice for you WRITE, WRITE, WRITE! Listen, Writers really don't have much to do with that part of the creative process. I have heard him sing parts to various pickers to getĮxactly what he wanted on tape. Billy Sherrill wasįamous for this (and also the top BMI award writer ever in Nashville). Is done in the studio by the best players in the world.Ī great producer (eg: Owen Bradley) can also suggest certain

Most of the creative MUSIC you hear on today's CD's I have had top ten records on a few songs that I wrote around a particular riff, but that's Started with either a title with a hook, or maybe just a great The top 10 all-time country writers however, and ALL of them Neil Diamond always starts with music either a feel or aĬhord progression he likes.

Real key to a hit song (yes, there are exceptions). As a country/gospel songwriter, the lyric is the No horn tooting here, but after more than 200 records on I have now written three songs by simply starting to sings a melody letting the chords just happen behind whatever my voice comes up with, and am finding this new method *very* satisfying. (note: my singing isn't particularly complex, so neither are my songs) Now, after several years of practicing the 'play by ear' approach, I can fill in chords behind whatever I'm singing. So I changed how I looked at songs and song writing. I eventually redefined my whole musical outlook, after thinking back on thatdifficult lesson from years before, and also thinking about those old Cabaret Standards that are so obviously melody based, and particularly well composed songs. Lyrics and melodies only came into the song writing process after all the instrumental stuff was pretty much arranged and mapped out. Indeed, chords first was the way my old band worked for years.

Well, I thought that was an impossible thing! See, I was working under the idea that you had to come up with a chord progression *first* before any melody could be put on top of the chords. He wrote out the melody line to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and my task was to fill in the chords above the staff. My first guitar teacher gave me an assignment.

Lyrical melody vs. rhythmic melody