Melodies.
Ugh.
or YAYYYYY!
That all really depends on how you look at things I suppose. Since moving my primary focus from guitarist to composer a few years back, I've used my long (ish) history as a rhythm guitarist to leverage a sort of niche in my writing. Probably the main thing that got me through college honestly.
But after a while you learn that as a non musician the listener generally hears the sum of the whole, but remembers the melody.
This dramatically shifted my point of view from writing guitar riffs with relative ease, to trying really hard (in vain) to write catchy melodies. Of course being a musician means I'm generally my worst critic and due to this an my newness in melody writing I immediately thought I was a doomed failure, typical right?
I was scrolling through YouTube procrastinating (as is my right dang it!) and I stumbled onto an amazing guitar channel.
It's run by a guy named David Wallimann. Since he's probably never heard of me and chances are never will I'm certainly not getting paid to promote his page but he had videos that really helped me as a writer. I'll leave a link to his channel on this post so that you guys can check him out. Great stuff.
However back to this video I stumbled onto....
It was based on how to write effect melodies and guitar solos. At some point in the video he said something that clicked. You see I had heard all the typical "how to write a melody" Stuff in college. If you're not familiar I'll write it below.
1. Write an interesting rhythm before adding notes
2. Write based on the chord notes
3. Write in non chord tones for tension, and spice
4. ????????
5. PROFIT!
See I was missing something and what Mr. Wallimann said in this video seemed to be the key.
He said that as a composer you are the instrument, not your guitar.
He even told people when writing melodies to not have their instrument in hand. But to instead hum, sing, or otherwise make noises to develop the idea before taking it to your instrument.
THIS WAS IT! If any of the people that know me intimately view this blog, they will recognize that I'm CONSTANTLY doing things like this. Humming melodies, drumming with pencil's on drinking glasses, I'm constantly "composing" without realizing it...
But the missing link as it were, was for me to take those odd musical ramblings that I generally attribute to an acute case of ADHD, and flesh them out into musical works.
That's the secret I've been looking for all these years!
You see as a musician I'm very unstructured. Yes I've learned loads of theory over the years, and as a guitarist, I can come up with multi time signature based riffs on the fly, and so on and so on.
However just about everything I've done has been improvised in some sort or fashion. Which can be a great thing, but in my case over the years it has lead to many an unfinished song, or even music that sounds like a near carbon copy of each other.
As a professional procrastinator, I realized that putting those things to use requires a ton of work to sit down and focus. (GAHHHHH)
So I honestly found it easiest to sit down with a score writing program for an hour or so, and shut off the internet for at least a while. Shutting off data on my phone, and just going at it helped a lot. Knowing that I wouldn't be writing with an instrument in hand made it easier to sit down and either remember melodies and rhythms I came up with goofing off, or to start the process of melodic composition in the truest sense of the word.
Remember, you are the composer, the instrument is a tool. The music has to come from your mind, heart, and your body.
Hashtag Musicalzen.... (hehehe see I can make cheesy jokes too!)
Annnnd as promised a link to that amazing channel!
https://www.youtube.com/user/Wallimann
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