Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'll just start laying out the melody exactly where I want it to fall. And then I'll go back and fill it out. Whereas, in other pieces I'm really just going a couple bars at a time.
Hunter can write a melody and stuff like that, but his forte is lyrics. He can write a serviceable melody to hang his lyrics on, and sometimes he comes up with something really nice.
In a song, you have to have a lyric that gives us new ideas on how to live, a lyric that makes us feel, and a melody that gives you some kind of body response and emotional response.
From the time I could play the piano, I remember trying to write tunes. They were in my head, and I would just sit down and start noodling. Next thing I knew, I had written a melody.
While the business of "collecting" lyrics and melodies happens all the time, when it's time to corral them all into something, I have to be in a good mood, ready and willing to work.
John Coltrane, he talks to god. He starts playing his solo, he might play for 14 minutes. For 14 minutes, it seems like he's talking to god, but he always takes a hold of the melody.
I'm the kind of person who can hear that stuff. If you sing along to the radio and you're not going to sing unison with the melody, but find the harmony, I find that pretty easy to do.
Essentially my contribution was to introduce repetition into Western music as the main ingredient without any melody over it, without anything just repeated patterns, musical patterns.
Through song you learn, and I think school systems need to learn that. Through the rhythm you can learn better, through melody, with something you need to learn; it's a vehicle for it.
Music creates order out of chaos: for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent, melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous.
If you can write a catchy melody and a song that captures people around the world, what better thing to do? Other than 'Let Her Go,' I haven't managed to do that. And that's fine by me.
Ever since we started, we've been trying to give people music that is pop music where you could just get into the melody and get into the performance of the band and be quite satisfied.
A jazz tune, melody, or composition is usually based on either a traditional twelve-bar, eight-bar, or four-bar blues chorus or on the thirty-two-bar chorus of the American popular song.
If you can whistle the melody, then the song will stick. But if you need a bunch of machines to make it sound good, you're probably not writing anything that's going to last a long time.
I really don't think I have that much of the gift; I have a little bit, but I wish I were Schubert or Chopin or Beethoven, though Beethoven had a very difficult time writing melody, too.
Sometimes songwriters and singers forget that. They get a melody in their head and the notes will take precedence, so that they wind up forcing a word onto a melody. It doesn't ring true.
It was very challenging, trying to add an orchestra on top of these traditional African rhythms, because as soon as you add any kind of melody or chords over it, it stops feeling African.
Often when I find myself listening to music, at least 60 to 70% of it is foreign, so I don't understand a word of it. Melody to me will always be a million times more important than words.
'Nova' was one of the tracks that inspired me to create 'Fade,' which later became 'Faded'. It has a beautiful melody, and the way it progresses throughout the whole track is just amazing!
So, essentially my contribution was to introduce repetition into Western music as the main ingredient without any melody over it, without anything just repeated patterns, musical patterns.
As soon as 'Still D.R.E.' starts playing, you know what it is because of the melody. Most of the world's biggest records are less chord-driven. They have that instantly recognizable sound.
The melody will tell me what the song should be about, the tone of the song. That's when the intellect comes in. Because I have a list of possible titles and concepts, and I expand on that.
A good theme - like the 'Pink Panther' or 'Baby Elephant Walk' - can work all the way through the picture, which is what I did with them. So, for me, a good melody is not just a pretty tune.
I find it really easy to write on the bass, because you kind of get straight to the point: you do lyrics and melody without thinking about decorating the song until after you've finished it.
When I was 17, death metal and extreme hardcore was the best music in the world to me. But as I got older, my palette changed and my thirst for melody and emotion just got bigger and bigger.
We're basically a rock band - guitar, bass, drums and vocals. But we take it further than that. We can be rotten, dirty, and heavy as anyone, but at the same time, we've got a lot of melody.
My mother came from St. Thomas. I heard that melody and all I did was actually adapt it. I made my adaptation of sort of an island traditional melody. It did become sort of my trademark tune.
I'm glad I had a daughter first because with a boy you have to teach him stuff and it's just a little different. Having Melody has changed the way I see things. It's just a heavenly blessing.
Sometimes I feel like a melody doesn't have anything to do with me, but it's just something that comes, is accumulated from me playing on the piano, and then this little creature just appears.
When I sing, it's different from when I speak in a very interesting way. I think that, when you're singing, a message is carried in a different way. I don't know if that emotion needs a melody.
With iPhones, nobody has an excuse for writer's block. If you're at Whole Foods getting your green tea extract and you have a melody, you just drop it into your voice memo and save it for later.
Nothing I do is ever void of melody. I know it might seem like I'm doing a lot of rapping, but I'm always utilizing tone and trying to find a key signature. So, I don't look at myself as a rapper.
My symphonies would have reached Opus 100 if I had but written them down... Sometimes I am so full of music, and so overflowing with melody, that I find it simply impossible to write down anything.
I know melody. I know rhythm; I know bass guitar; I know the piano. I know everything about music that helps build the music that go along with creating the whole art form, you know what I'm saying?
I came up with the "We are explorers," with sort of a counter-melody to [Opetaia Foa'i] melody. And so, it happened so organically, that it really, to me, is the most emblematic of our collaboration.
A song just doesn't have verse-chorus-verse. It could just be one line. There are Chinese love songs that you have to learn one melody for a three-minute thing, and nothing ever repeats. I like that.
We're falling into a place where melody is somewhat lacking in music. Everybody feels like, okay, too much melody or too much harmony, and it kind of goes over people's heads; they don't understand it.
There's something to writing a hook and something to writing a memorable melody. That's what I liked about musicals. Then I realized I could write my own songs, and I didn't have to sing other people's.
I rap on 'Front Porch Junkies' and 'Whatcha Got in that Cup.' I try to channel my inner Lil Wayne and Drake. It's fun to be able to freestyle over a country melody and say country words over a rap song.
I'm good at melody - I'll write the top-line melody and ideal words I want to go with it. But I'm not that good at writing lyrics. I bounce those back and forth with songwriters or someone who can sing.
If melody is going out of our songs, if meaning of lyrics are getting trivialized, if golden voice is missing from our music and bad content creeps in, all of us should fight it together to stem the rot.
On 'The Grand Budapest Hotel' I must insist that the sounds of the instrumentation are crucial to reflect what the movie should convey in terms of energy and emotion. It's not just the melody or the tune.
I'm definitely a fan of juxtaposition. Using the most beautiful line to say the most horrific thing - I think one of the main things in songwriting is definitely friction between the words and the melody.
Usually, the music inspires the lyrics. The lyrics just sort of fall off like a bunch of crumbs from the melody. That's all I want them to be - crumbs. I don't want to work any kind of fabricated message.
A chance to work with the guys from Isis sounded like a lot of fun. I've always been into the atmospheric sounds they had created with that project and felt my sense of melody would meld well with theirs.
I know a girl who cries when she practices violin because each note sounds so pure it just cuts into her, and then the melody comes pouring out her eyes. Now, to me, everything else just sounds like a lie.
'Dirt On My Boots' is a very different song. I heard the melody, and I heard the lyrics, and I heard the drive of that song. I totally related. It was kinda me when I was on my bulldozer working for my dad.
A good song has to have a great melody, and the lyrics have to touch my heart. Now, if it's just a little toe-tapper, got to make me feel good somehow or another, or when I sing it I can't make you feel good.
Anyone can sing badly, but to sing badly on purpose and make it believable is harder. I listen for the actual melody in my head but sing right underneath or above it out loud. It takes a lot of concentration.
The first thing I do is lay out that melody and figure out how it has to hold here and then finish to land here, because you know in advance you're going to want the melody to catch four things in the action.