Success Music Studio

ten ways to spice up your melodies with melodic variation - sheet music coffee cup.jpg

Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation

Facebook
Twitter

Estimated reading time 4 minutes

Table of Contents

Introduction

Do you have writer’s block? Have you run out of melody ideas? Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation gives you the tools to multiply your songwriting ideas.

Melodic variation is an easy way to come up with more music ideas.

  • When you have, say, a chorus but not a verse or bridge, try these tips as a jumping off point to new melodic options.
  • Some of the variations shown here will sound similar to the original theme, which can be good for instrumental sections.
  • Other variations will sound almost like a new theme while still keeping a sense that it relates to the germinal melody.

This post uses technical music words. For definitions, see the Glossary at the end of the article.

Sing in Tune Like a Rock Star - singer at a baby grand piano - Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation - Sing Perfectly in Tune All the Time with Touchstone Instruments - What Is Your Definition of a Good Musician

Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation

Similar Sounding Melodic Changes

I’ve chosen Joy to the World as a theme we can use to demonstrate the ten ways to spice up melodies using melodic variation:

  1. Diminution: This technique simply halves the rhythmic values of the main theme, giving it more drive.
  2. Augmentation: This changes the theme in a similar way as diminution, but in the opposite direction – doubling the note lengths. Augmentation gives the theme a slower, more stately quality. It can be used for dramatic endings by drawing out the melody.
  3. Changing Modes: Modes can really change the mood of a melody, but still let it retain its basic character. We could have used a variety of modes, but here I have the minor mode. After the major mode, songwriters use the minor mode the most often. Notice how it creates a darker mood for the theme.
  4. Changing Time Signatures: This transforms the theme more than the others in this section. Nevertheless, you can still clearly hear the theme in it. However, different time signatures will create very different effects. You will most likely need to adjust the theme to get it to fit. I have included one example, but many other time signatures remain for you to explore.
  5. Melodic Fragments: A theme can be broken into smaller units called motifs. A motif being a small but complete-ish sounding subphrase contained within a larger melodic phrase. You can then take the motif and put it in a sequence. In other words, you put the motifs at progressively higher or lower pitch levels.

Dissimilar Sounding Melodic Changes

The first five variations in Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation all sound close to the original melody. The next five melodic changes often transform the melody so that you cannot hear as much of the original theme.

  1. Diatonic Inversion: We’ll look at two types of inversion, the first being diatonic inversion. This takes the theme and turns it upside down. Take all of the intervals in the theme and make them go in the reverse direction. This means the inverted theme stays within the original key. Inversion can be a handy songwriting tool. Especially when you want to break up phrases where you have repeated the same subphrase too many times.
  2. Exact Inversion: This makes the intervals stay exactly the same as the theme, just in the opposite direction. Exact inversion puts the melody in a different key. Diatonic and exact inversion sound similar to the theme, but not overly so.
  3. Expanding the Intervals: Expand each interval by one. In other words, 2nds become 3rds, 3rds become 4ths, etc. This creates a fun variation off of the “Joy to the World” theme that sounds similar, but not too similar, to the theme. If a melody lends itself to it, you can also do the opposite and contract all of the intervals by one.
  4. Deleted Notes: With this you delete notes systematically. Just pick a pattern, cut out notes, and see what happens. This technique will often change the time signature. However, here I chose to adjust the rhythm to stay in common time.
  5. Retrograde: Simply take your melody and play it backwards. This change obscures the theme so that almost no one will recognize it.

Discussion of the Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation

Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation shows you how to transform your songs in new and exciting ways.

Some melodic changes can be used to structure the subphrases of your melodies. Other melodic changes help you to create new melodies when you run short of ideas.

  • For instance, Steve Cropper took the horn part from In the Midnight Hour.
  • Then, he reversed it to use as the horn part for Knock on Wood. Thus, these songs give an example of retrograde in RnB.
  • If you do not insist on making the retrograde exact, just as Cropper did not, then your melody making options explode.
  • In addition, when you take retrograde and combine it with inversion, you have another way to change the melody so that it doesn’t sound much like the theme.

In this post, I arranged the order of the variations so that they gradually became more removed from the sound of the theme.

ten ways to spice up your melodies with melodic variation - music tunnel.jpg

Music Examples Showing the Ten Ways to Spice Up Melodies Using Melodic Variation

Mobile users: for best results reading the music, tilt your screen 90o to the right.

Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation line 1
Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation line 2
Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation line 3
Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation line 4
Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation line 5
Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation line 6
Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation line 7
Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation line 8
Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation line 9
Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation line 10
Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation line 11
Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation line 12
Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation line 13
Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation line 14
Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation line 15

Sound Track to Ten Ways to Spice Up Your Melodies with Melodic Variation:

Conclusion

This gives you the ten ways to spice up your melodies using melodic variation. If you start with the basic variations and combine them, you can quickly get a staggering number of melody options.

Not all of these will work for every melody. However, it’s a great way to get around writer’s block and get the ideas flowing again.

© 2021 Geoffrey Keith

Newsletter Signup

Join me for in-person or online lessons today!

Back to The Craft of Songwriting Category Blogs page

Back to the Successful Music Student Blogs page

Glossary

Is the Suzuki Music Methodology Bad for Learning Piano - Little Girl at Toy Piano - Best Music Program for Three-Year-Olds

Best Music Program for Three-Year-Olds

As you may already know, Geoff from Success Music Studio is an expert in multisensory teaching, teaching piano to children as young as four-years-old. However, he has recently expanded to teaching three-year-olds a pre-instrumental music program that ultimately leads into piano lessons. Keep reading “Best Music Program for Three-Year-Olds” to learn more. Estimated reading time 2 minutes.

Read More
shape note sight singing - Is There a Better Way to Learn Sight Singing - chorus - Is Singing Solfege Helpful for Learning to Hear Intervals by Ear - Singing Shape Notes Solfege Lydian Melodies

Shape Note Sight Singing Success

Have you always wanted to sight sing music, but found it too hard? Shape notes can help. Also, last post centered on singing melodies with a specially tuned synth-organ sound. Namely, we focused on harmonic tuning. This week we will look at the same melodies, but from the angle of melodic tuning. Most of the examples have sing-along sound tracks, but the last example is a shape note sight singing quiz. Read more to experience shape note sight singing success. Estimated reading time 6 minutes.

Read More
Singing Shape Note Solfege Dorian Melodies - Chant Manuscript - Singing Shape Note Solfege Aeolian Melodies - Discover Early Music Via Beautiful Medieval Gregorian Chants

Singing Shape Note Solfege Dorian Melodies

Have you ever wanted to sing exotic music from long ago or far away? Do you have trouble performing modal music? Modes can create the feel of mysterious sounding mediaeval chants, some old timey folk and roots music, and exotic types of ethic and world music. Every other month we will explore a new mode. “Singing Shape Note Solfege Dorian Melodies” will start you down your path of discovery. Estimated reading time 3 minutes.

Read More