[MUSIC PLAYING]
All right, let's go back to melody for a second, because love melody.
I love taking a great melody and injecting it
with a little bit of adrenaline and just making it rock.
Let's start with the premise that there are six basic melody shapes.
There is an arch shape melody, a melody that goes up and comes back down down.
There's inverted arch shape melody.
It goes down and comes back up.
There's a single note melody, a melody that stays on the same note.
There is an ascending melody, a melody that heads up.
There's a descending melody that comes back down.
And then, my favorite, the zigzag melody, the melody
that kind of goes up and down, up and down.
Most melodies are combinations of these six.
But let's just kind of talk about them on a basic level.
What I find most songwriters do is subconsciously
when they go from their verse to the chorus, whatever
melody shape they have chosen-- and again, usually they
have chosen it subconsciously.
They're like, oh, this sounds good.
But they have a tendency to stick to that shape throughout the entire song.
And so what I love to do is I analyze the song,
and let's say my first melody is an arch shape melody.
I will then cross that off my list.
And when I get to the chorus, I can use any of those other five shapes
that remain.
So let's say, my verse has an arch shape melody.
My chorus has a zigzag-based melody.
That still leaves me four other melody shapes for my bridge
later on in the song.
The reality is that most melodies are combinations of both of them.
But you can still kind of play the same game.
Let's say, your verse melody is an arch, followed by a zigzag, all right.
So in that order, I'm not going to use that combination.
So in my chorus, I still have four melody shapes left,
or I can even do like a zigzag and then an arch shape.
As long as I'm not doing the same, exact thing.
Because your listeners pick up on that, and they say,
oh, they're just they're doing the same.
You've all experienced that.
When you're listening to a song, and by the end of the second verse,
you've lost interest.
It's these little things that are happening.
So just by tweaking the shape of your melody
and having a contrasting melody shape in each one
your sections will do wonders for your song.
So for instance, let's do an example.
Here is a--
I'll start with an arch shape.
[PLAYING PIANO]
And I'm going to start it on the third.
Remember that other tip about not starting out on the root,
because, again,
[HUMS]
[PLAYING PIANO]
For the chorus,
[HUMS]
So notice I had a single-note melody that descended,
so it's completely different.
[PLAYING PIANO]
The listener hears contrast.
It sounds refreshing, and so that way, when they get back to the verse again,
[PLAYING PIANO]
you know it sounds like they're returning to something familiar.
It's like they're coming home, and they're
embraced by this wonderful melody.
It's such an easy trick to implement.
You don't even have to know music notation, just listen.
I have my students literally draw out their melody shape.
I call them melody constellations.
Here's what my melody constellation looks like, and then
just don't do that in your other section, and you will be good to go.
I promise you.
You'll love it.
It'll work.
[MUSIC PLAYING]