How do you write a melody based on a beat?

[fantasyvn]

Dear all, I'm a newbie here. I joined as I love Max Martin's songs as well as other songs by Swedish songwriters.

I also write songs based on 'traditional' way: playing piano and improvising the melody. At the moment, I am interested in writing the melody (topline) based a beat.

I have tried to listen to some beats that I like on the web. As you know, you can listen to the full versions, which are voice tagged, on many sites. I try to imagine and improvise the melody, but so far I fail.

May I ask for your experience in writing the topline this way? Do you just listen to the beat and hum a melody? Do you need a keyboard beside you?

Thank you

[AlexanderLaBrea]

Yeah that is basically the process! Put your phone on record and hum jibberish until you come across something good. With time you'll get better and better and you'll start to, beforehand, know what'll work over the beat and not. Also you'll be able to "hear" good melodies over the beat which you can then play around with. It's all practise! A keyboard can be a good idea so you can transpose your melodies and such, but recording your "melody jam" is most importande I'd say. It's otherwise really easy to come across something awesome which you'll forget the next second.

[sonnyblack2000]

Improvise sing out loud untill something catches your ear. I just wanted to add that a lot of those internet beat are musically (harmonically) poor so at some point its hard to get inspired with always the same basic lazy chord pattern. That s what I've noticed with my clients who purchase beats online.

[j.fco.morales]

The first thing I do, is to find the right note in the verses -to improve the rhythm of the melody- and do the same with the chorus, you need to find the right note to make it sound good.

To have some lyrics or a concepto is helpful as well.

[fantasyvn]

Thank you so much for your kind replies, which are very helpful.

I agree with the observation that many of the commercial beats are not really good. Often it seems the harmony and the drum feel just the same throughout the instrumentals.

[j.fco.morales]

Something I often do is strip down the arrangements and play it on guitar or piano, and work the production from there... to adjust it to what the songs suggest me.

[NeutronSynergy]

I try to imagine and improvise the melody, but so far I fail.

With keyboard

You can easily generate a simple melody by throwing a couple of key signatures  in (on tenor clef)
lets say fis and cis

and then play the next chord positions on moderately slow tempo in a time measure of 4/4

verse :I IV II VI
chorus: V II IV V

on a way that with your right hand you play melody by pressing every second SINGLE note (a 1/4 , a quarter note) from a chord of
every chord positions / 4 times on a measure . (on D it would be Fis, etc.. )

while at the same time with your left hand you play only one time of each chord position
on a time measure of 4/4

and you have a simple melody!
                        
right hand following the rhythmic pattern taa taa taa taa (1    2    3    4 )   
               and left hand: taaaaaaaaaaa   - whole step.                   

you can do this separately with guitar: The chords and melody.  Just find the root tone position on the guitar and play the scale , just
remember that whole tone is two steps on the guitars fret board while semitone is one , - might be confusion at first if you are a piano player.

By playing natural minor or natural major scales back and worth on your keyboard you can easily find more complexity to the melody

add spice
- borrow stuff from parallel key lets say I chord position from the natural minor scale and V from the major scale play them together .
- play 7chords instead of basic Major or Minor triods (on major or minor scale)  and you have a nasty hook already ready for your upcoming
  pop song when layering material.
- Use inverted chords specially on G and D major

If still missing a clue. Borrow from the ones who have already made their hits for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03gNY1IvVmk

this M.Sandberg demo goes on a key of A major.
try to play the notes you hear of A major natural scale.

Experiment! transpose the Martin Sandbeg demo to G major/ e minor -
or 'go back' one key signature  'down'  (D /fm)  and you are back in the key of our example.

find a beat that goes 4/4 play the melody line you just learned . At this point it should be very easy to  find the ingredients necessary to make a decent melody.
+
The melody you play - shares distant similarity with the Bryan Adams huge hit "everything I do I do it for you" on the same D major key.

you can even practice your melody improvisation skills now just by playing the scale up and forth and then finding the melody of that B Adams song and try to fit your own melody.
do it slow. then transcribing/transforming an idea you have in your head between actual instruments is a lot easier.

So apply these 3 steps and you can write melodies comparable to multi-million hit records in no time.

If you have for example a garageband: You already have a stock instruments sets + high quality class effects and huge amount of ready beats and virtual drummers at your disposal. quite comparable to the performance of what Martin Sandberg had with his Roland JV series back in the golden days of Cheiron -
(Of course by the lack of actual rack gear - you can only dream about that "Cheiron effect")

play/record/edit/  improvise- record. add bass + other instruments , get a vocalist, record again. 

Remember the order of steps in chord positions on a natural minor scale which are: minor dim major minor minor major major.
and on the steps on natural major scale: major minor minor  major major minor dim

Tip: A third hit going on the same D / bm -  major scale made by Martin Sandberg  is "Wish you were here".
Many famous M Martin songs goes on Major keys on time measure of 4/4

after this learn more scales. melodic, harmonic, etc..and make even better melodies this way and layer and construct Lead vocals in voices and harmonies! a common pop-song arsenal.

[J_A24]

Another trick is to play the root chord over a progressing bassline and improvising the melodies. Then when you find something that sticks, you can develop the chords.

[NeutronSynergy]

Another trick is to play the root chord over a progressing bassline and improvising the melodies. Then when you find something that sticks, you can develop the chords.

This reminds that: basically you can choose any element of the song to be the tonic (on sub content) or "center element" as pythagoreans are said to describe it.

This way you can construct every part of the song with the possibility of improvising and over riding within the writing process to gain alot more possibilities. this is specially
true if you are doing virtual and acoustic recording part's + editing/mixing/ simultaneously. 

[NeutronSynergy]

Decided to "test-drive" that short how-to which I wrote above.

First two samples are made with the guidelines and 'rules' given there..
+ done in relatively short period of time (15-30 min) utilising as suggested - only the inbox Garageband set of tools and sounds.

https://soundcloud.com/spectrumid/star-meadows-caf-off-real-time

https://soundcloud.com/spectrumid/star-meadows-real-time-room-for-vocals

...and here's what happened to the song when used a little more time - in Logic.

sound demonstration 1:
https://soundcloud.com/spectrumid/star-meadows-1-sound-demonstration

Sound demonstration 2:
https://soundcloud.com/spectrumid/star-meadows-2-sound-demonstration

Sound demonstration 3:
https://soundcloud.com/spectrumid/star-meadows-3-sound-demonstration

[sonnyblack2000]

Thngs get off beat and unquantized when moving to the hiher range. Melodies should be tried on vocals to make sure they re actually singable. I thinknthere's some good elements in there, once yu fix the timing issues and try vocals you ll hear what s needs to be tweaked better imo

[NeutronSynergy]

Thank's for listening and for your opinion's.

Yep , there are some loose screw's to be tighten before a final release - and specially more if for a commercial release.

Interesting that you mentioned , there are couple of lyrics and vocal lines ready to go - have to see how that progress on.