How To Create A Melody In Your Songwriting Using The Question And Answer Approach
One of the keys to writing great music is understanding how to create an interesting melody in your songwriting. When most people are thinking of how to write a song melody, they commonly use similar fundamental ideas. These ideas revolve around what is known as the “Call And Response” songwriting method.
If used effectively, this method will help you be able to write a great song melody for your music in any musical situation. Today, I’m going to show you the basics for how this method works to help you get better at creating melody in in your songwriting.
Call And Response Melody Writing
When using this method, the melody is divided into two parts-
1) The “Call” (…asks a question) and
2) The “Response” (…gives an answer)
The first half of the melody is made to create tension in the listener with the purpose of making him/her want to hear what comes next. Then in the second half of the melody, this tension is relaxed by giving the listener what they want.
To get an idea of how this works for yourself, begin writing a song melody using any of the following notes: A B C D E F G. Then, follow these steps:
Create the “Call” part of your melody.
Begin writing your song melody on with an “A” note. After this note, use 2 - 4 additional notes to make the first half of your melody (repeating any notes if necessary). To complete your melody, end on an “E” note. Then, repeat this 2 times while holding the last “E” note longer than the rest.
Example 1:
A – C – C – D – D – E - E (End on this note and hold it longer than the rest) x2
How does this sound? Does it feel complete as if the music is finished, or incomplete as if there is more to come?
Write the “Response” part of your melody.
When writing this half of your song melody, begin with the same “E” note that you ended on in the first half of your melody. Additionally, keep the overall sound of the first half of your melody in mind (use similar note rhythms) as you add in the notes to complete this half. Finally, to complete the second half of your melody, end on an “A” note. How does this feel when compared to the other half of your song melody?
Example 2:
E – D – D – E – D – C - A (End on this note) x2
Example 3, both halves together:
A – C – C – D – D – E - E (End on this note) x2
E – D – D – E – D – C - A (End on this note) x2
This is only the most basic way to write a song melody using the “Call And Response” method. In addition to this basic approach, there exist many more interesting variations of this method. To get a better idea of how this works, listen to at least 10 song melodies of your favorite musical artists and observe how they have structured their melodies with this method. Then write this down to use as a reference point for writing song melodies in your own music.
Learn powerful songwriter techniques and gain tons of creative songwriting ideas .