In my previous posts, I talked about few methods of creating melodies. I decided to break it down and not put all the methods in a single post in order to facilitate easy comprehension. All these methods are quite practical and effective in creating melodies. This in essence, is because of the fact that in the business of songwriting, creativity is supposed to be unlimited, there ought not to be a single or definite approach to writing a melody. You can employ as much as 20 ways.
Unfortunately, many songwriters are of the opinion that great songs are birthed through natural inspiration. However, the truth is sometimes you might experience inspirational blocks as a singer especially when you have a forthcoming album and the songs ideas aren’t showing up. This is same for solo songwriters who don’t have great vocal ability and whose sole aim is to create award winning songs, thus creating a name for themselves and also amassing wealth from their songwriting endeavors.
With all these been said, let’s just jump right into the idea of this post. This idea is still under the “ALEATORY MUSIC” category which entails simply creating a song from random choices but one of those random choices we want to look at now is that which was used by the American singer-songwriter TOM WAITS. Waits had asserted that he got inspiration by turning two radios on at once and listens to the overlap. The thing is when two or more radios plays at once, there is always an underlying distinctive sound progression that accompanies the sounds the radios are making. After this, creativity comes into action. A songwriter is now left with the creative effort of using that melody as a reference or to get a feel of how the chorus and the verses should sound.
Of course, the lyrics shouldn’t be a problem. For me, lyrics is the simplest part of songwriting. The main thing a songwriter should focused on is the melody and this is because a song´s melody forms part of the determinants of whether that song will hit or not. However, this is not to say that the lyrics isn’t as important as the melody. The melody is quite important and that is why a song with empty lyrics can still top various songs charts.
To wrap up! I know some of you might be thinking that this method sounds so good to be true, but just practice it and see the potency. I have tried this myself and I can certainly say it works. Just get two or three radios and play them at once. You can set them on same or different radio stations and relax on your couch while you listen to the overlap of sounds. Then hum and record that overlap into a tape recorder so as not to forget it. This is because the first conception of a song´s melody is like lighting a match stick, when the stick is on with the fire, it will off sooner and can be lighted up again. From the melody, you will be able to flesh out the song easily.
Enjoy!
Thanks for reading!