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Have you ever wondered if you have what it takes to compose a beautiful melody? Well, in today’s Quick Tip, How to Compose a Melody (10-Step Guide), singer, pianist, composer and recording artist John Proulx shares his wisdom and insight on composing a memorable melody. As a matter of fact, he wrote an original song just for this lesson! You’ll learn:

• Intro to Composing Melodies
  • What is a melody?
• Guidelines for Composing a Compelling Melody
• Pre-Compositional Factors: Style & Form
• 10 Steps to Compose a Melody

This lesson will assist aspiring songwriters and composers in understanding the broad range of musical considerations that go into writing compelling melodies.

Intro to Composing Melodies

Have you ever thought about the creative work that goes into a musical score before you sit down to learn it on your instrument? Ironically, many music students and listeners don’t often think about the human effort that has gone into composing the melodies that they enjoy. However, perhaps this should come as no surprise. After all, you know plenty of people who work in sales, customer service, healthcare or manufacturing, but you probably don’t know very many composers, if any. In fact, the work of the composer is somewhat mysterious. For example, is songwriting easy or difficult? Is the ability to compose original music a learned skill or a divine endowment?

In today’s lesson, you’ll learn all about the meticulous work of the composer from a composer’s point-of-view. Even better, you’ll discover practical tips that you can use to help you write your own music, whether you consider yourself a hobbyist or an aspiring professional. Since this is an introductory lesson on the topic of melody writing, we use the key of C major to keep things as simple as possible. However, if you’re a PWJ member, you can easily transpose this lesson to any key using our Smart Sheet Music. Moreover, PWJ members can download the lesson sheet PDF and backing track for this lesson from the bottom of this page after logging in with their membership.

Before we get into how to compose a melody, let’s first consider what we mean when we speak of the “melody of a song.”

What is a melody?

Using music terminology, melody is a compositional product that is created by intentionally arranging individual pitches and rhythms within a tonal framework. Of course, in thicker musical textures such as orchestral works, all notes and rhythms are intentional. In such contexts, the melody is specifically the foreground part of the composition that has a singable character. Hence, another word for the melody of a composition is “the tune.”

Melody is also expressive and communicative. Therefore, it is anthropological. Even though a melodic line can be performed vocally or instrumentally, melody and singing are intrinsically related. Just as dogs bark and cats purr, humans sing! Therefore, the most compelling melodies exhibit an singable quality that is accessible even to the untrained vocalist.

“Music and song have likely been an intrinsic part of every culture in the world since the beginning of time. Even in ancient Greece, before alphabetic writing was used to record literature, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were not only spoken as tales but also sung…”¹

—Michael James Jackson, record producer, engineer and composer

Since melody is so closely associated with singing, composers intuitively evaluate whether a melody is strong or weak based on its “sing-ability.” The more singable a melody is, the more it will resonate with listeners.

In the next section, we’ll examine several guidelines that you use to determine if your melodies pass the “sing-ability” test.

Guidelines for Composing a Compelling Melody

Since the art of composing an original melody is a creative and personal endeavor, there certainly are not any simplistic formulas for the task. On the other hand, melodies are also communally received and enjoyed, which means that we can analyze what generally makes a melody work for listeners. In this section, we’ll consider characteristics of good melodic writing. If you follow most of the guidelines in this section, your melodies will most likely pass the “sing-ability” test.

1. Base your melody on a familiar scale.

Most of the notes in your melody should be drawn from a familiar 7-note scale, such as the major scale or one of its modes. Plan the overall contour of your melodic phrases as movement away form and toward the tonic (the “home note”) to keep your melody anchored in tonality.

2. Use mostly 2nd and 3rd intervals in your melody with occasional leaps.

Construct the contour of your melody primarily with stepwise motion (2nd intervals) and skips (3rd intervals). Leaps of a 4th interval or more should be limited and reserved for emphasis. Keep in mind that most melodic leaps tend to resolve in the opposite direction via stepwise motion (i.e.: leap up→step down, or leap down→step up).

3. Plan your melodic range based on the limits of the human voice.

The note span from the lowest note of your melody to its highest note is considered its melodic range. To pass the “sing-ability” test, this range should be confined to the limits of the average human voice. In general, aim for a range of about an octave to an octave-and-a-half. In addition, it is common for a melody to have just one instance of its highest note or apex, typically in the last half of the song.

4. Structure successive melodic phrases around harmonic cadences.

The simplest compositional structures for composers and listeners alike use an even number of measures. Therefore, plan the melody of each section of your song around 2-measure or 4-measure phrase units that end with a specific harmonic cadence. Not all of your cadences should end on the tonic note. Instead, composers often use the grammatical-like structure of an antecedent phrase followed by a consequent phrase wherein a consequent phrase ends on the home note. This creates a meta-structure in which successive phrases sound like a question and an answer.

5. Use various forms of repetition to unify your melody.

Beginner songwriters often underestimate the value that repetition provides for the structural unity of a composition. Without repetition, the listener hears successive ideas as random and unrelated. Therefore, composers skillfully weave repeated melodic motives and rhythmic gestures throughout their compositions to create an overall sense of continuity. This frequently involves generating contrasting materials by deliberating extending, contracting, transposing and mutating earlier materials.

Now that we’ve covered some general guidelines for composing melodies, we’re ready to walk with John Proulx as he composes an original melody for this lesson. You’ll find that John’s melody incorporates many of these guidelines. However, first we’ll discuss some pre-compositional factors.

Pre-Compositional Factors: Style & Form

Many composers today write pieces that are commissioned for special events or occasions. Other songwriters compose for specific artists or record labels. As such, the musical genre or lyrical subject matter is often decided by collaborative partners. In most cases, there are typically many pre-compositional factors at work before the first melody note is ever written. Therefore, it’s helpful to begin with the end in mind in terms of genre and form. For example, if you’re writing a modern pop song, you’ll want to optimize it for streaming platforms by keeping it around 3 minutes or less. You’ll also need a catchy hook and a short intro.

For today’s lesson, John states at the outset that he decided to compose a jazz ballad using a 32-bar AABA song form. Depending on your occasion for writing, many of your pre-compositional factors may be fairly obvious. However, other factors, like an singer’s vocal range, may require some inquiry or research. Taking the time to dig into the pre-compositional factors upfront can save lots of time on the back end.

Alright, now that we understand the role that style and form play upfront, we’re ready to consider John’s 10-step guide on how to compose a melody.

10 Steps to Compose a Melody

Here are the 10 steps that John uses to compose an original jazz ballad in today’s featured Quick Tip tutorial. You can quickly navigate to a particular step by clicking on the links below:

#1: Start with a Short Melodic Phrase

The first step to composing a melody is to start with a short, singable melodic phrase or motive. This could be as short as a few notes, or slightly longer. In the example below, John opens with a 7-note motive which outlines a C▵7 chord. The overall contour is descending and the motive primarily uses steps and skips with one leap.

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#2: Repeat Melodic Phrase with Slight Change

The second step to composing a melody is to repeat the initial melodic phrase, although not in the exact same manner. For example, here John repeats the initial melody while simultaneously expanding its descent to include two additional notes. In addition, John begins shifting the harmony away from C major toward its relative key—the key A minor.

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#3: Develop Melody While Maintaining Continuity

Step 3 is to develop the melody while simultaneously maintaining continuity. In other words, we are going to introduce some new elements to our melody while keeping other aspects the same. Here, John introduces new pitches from the C scale and new chords from the key of A minor. However, if you examine the rhythms and the melodic contour, you’ll notice that they are very similar to the opening measures. This makes it clear to the listener these measures are in fact a continuation of the same song.

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#4: Setup the First Ending

Step 4 is to setup the first ending. In AABA form, the first ending introduces a repeat sign in measure 8 which goes back to the beginning of the form. The first ending typically ends on a Ⅴ chord with the melody coming to rest on the 5th of the Ⅴ chord. In music theory, this is called a half cadence. Right before the cadence, John introduces a brief transitional motive which quickly rises and falls.

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#5: Setup the Second Ending

The next step is to setup the second ending, which should create forward motion into the bridge. Harmonically speaking, the bridge in a jazz ballad often explores to a new tonal center. One common option is modulate to the key of the subdominant (the Ⅳ chord), which is what John does here. Therefore, the second ending contains the Ⅱm7 and Ⅴ7 of F major, which are the chords Gm7 and C7. The melody in the 2nd ending begins in a similar manner to the first ending, but ends on the 5th of the C7 instead.

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#6: Compose Contrasting Bridge Melody & Harmony

In Step 6, the objective is to introduce contrasting material for the bridge. Here, John debuts a descending melodic line that originates on the 3rd of F▵7. However, this melody is not entirely unrelated to what has come before it. Instead, the rhythm in measure 11 is based on the same rhythm as the transitional motive from the first and second endings! Then, in measure 12, John repeats the descending melody from measure 11…except that he lowers the first note from A to A♭, which introduces a bit of modal interchange.

If you analyze the Fm7 and B♭7(♯11) above in terms of the parent key of C major, they are the Ⅳm7 and the ♭Ⅶ7. In jazz theory, these chords are known as the backdoor progression or a backdoor 2-5. Usually, these chords resolve to a Ⅰ▵7 (or sometimes a Ⅲm7). However, here in measure 13, John segues directly into a minor 2-5-1 progression in A minor. Afterward, John uses a pair of tritone substitutions to descend chromatically back to F▵7 in measure 15.

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#7: Introduce Non-Diatonic Key Center

Step 7 is to introduce a non-diatonic key center. This means that we want to briefly modulate to a key that is not so closely-related to our parent key of C major. If you recall, so far, we’ve visited the keys of A minor and F major, which are considered closely-related keys. However, in a non-diatonic key, the temporary tonic is not a diatonic chord in the parent key. Although this sounds rather complex, jazz arrangers have a number of familiar progressions that they use to create such modulations. For example, here John uses the same chords from the backdoor progression (Fm7 and B♭7) except that now he resolves them to the key from which they truly belong—the key of E♭ major (which is the ♭Ⅲ in relation to C major).

Amidst all these exciting harmonic colors, John maintains continuity throughout this section by continuing to restate the descending bridge melody beginning on different pitches. Finally, John moves from E♭▵ to A♭▵7 in measure 17, which sounds like a simple Ⅰ▵7 to Ⅳ▵7 progression in the key of E♭ major. However, the A♭▵7 slides downward by half step quite naturally into the G13sus measure 18, which prepares our return back to C major.

🔎 For a deep dive on the topic of modulation (aka “key changes”), check out our courses on Modulation Essentials – How to Modulate a Song (Beg/Int, Adv).

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#8: Restate Initial Melody on Return to “A” Section

After the bridge, Step 8 is to return to the final “A” section and restate the initial melody. In this step, we can recycle almost the entire “A” section note-for-note. However, the final melodic phrase will require some minor adjustments which we’ll address in Step 9. Therefore, the follow example demonstrates the first 6 bars of the final “A” section.

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#9: Alter Final Phrase Contour to End on Tonic

You may recall that the first two “A” sections in our AABA form ended with transitional material that prepared the listener for something else to happen. However, in Step 9, we want to cue the listener that our melody is coming to a final conclusion. Therefore, we need to adjust the final phrase of our melody such that the song ends on the tonic or “home note.” Moreover, it is customary for the final tonic note to be approached with stepwise motion, either from above or below. Therefore, the last two notes of a melody are quite often either 7 to 1 (B ➚ C) or 2 to 1 (D ➘ C). Keep in mind, both note options (7 or 2) are part of the Ⅴ chord, therefore it is completely a matter of melodic preference—the harmony is unaffected by this decision.

In today’s lesson, John opts for 7 to 1 (B ➚ C). However, be sure to notice the beautiful descending leap of a minor 7th in measure 25 created by A leaping down to B. Ironically, the final 3 notes are A, B and C (or 6, 7, 1). However, John uses octave displacement to magnify the drama of the final three notes.

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#10: Put It All Together

Alright, we’ve come to Step 10, the last compositional step in which we put all these melodic phrases together. The example below shows John’s final melody in lead sheet form along with a performance demonstration. Notice how John stylizes his final performance in this step with professional jazz piano performance techniques that include fills, quartal voicings, inner voice movement, chord alterations and more. These techniques reflect post-compositional considerations that should be understood as performer’s discretion.

Conclusion

Congratulations, you’ve completed today’s lesson on How to Compose a Melody (10-Step Guide). Now you’re ready to try composing your own original melody using the songwriting techniques that we’ve explored in this lesson.

If you enjoyed this lesson, then you’ll love Jonny’s full-length course on Jazz Ballad Composition (Int/Adv). In addition, here are some additional PWJ resources that you will likely enjoy:

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¹ Nash, Graham. Graham Nash and Manuscript Originals Present off the Record: Songwriters on Songwriting: 25 of the World’s Most Celebrated Songs. Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2002.

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