Melodic Methodology

Melody is what makes a song.

There are some songs that sound great as poetry.  You can read the lyrics and be moved.

Other songs are incredibly boring if you only read the lyrics. The Lament of the Highborn?  Totally boring to read, but it's one of the best loved pieces of music in Warcraft when you get to hear it.

I hope my melodies can inspire such a transformation.




I had a basic melody in my head from the first time I started repeating the phrase, "The snow falls." (Later, "The leaves fall.")

The original might not have been exactly like that, but it was close.  That's the result after a bit humming.  While I was humming this, I started to hear a harmony.

Here's where a little bit of my music degree came in handy. In the melodic line, "leaves fall" goes from A->G, and in the harmony, it's E->D.  That's what is known as a parallel fourth (because both A and E and  G and D are a perfect fourth apart) and is generally a "no-no" in music.  I decided to change it to the following, which avoided the parallel movement and added some interest to the music by having the voices move less lock-in-step.  By having the the harmony wait that extra moment before moving downward, it created a moment of tension and rhythmic variety.

A note to those who are later listening to recording: yes, I kept the parallel fourths in places.  The overall style of the song meant they didn't sound very out of place, and alternating when I used them added some variety to each verse.

You don't have to know rules to write music.  There are plenty of people who write music who haven't studied theory, or can't read notation. Just because there is a rule in common practice saying "no parallel fourths", it doesn't mean you can never break it.

The advantage of knowing rules and theory is that when I'm trying to figure out why a line is pleasing or not,  theory gives me a logical framework to reference.  Studying theory is essentially the study of past music and learning what all the "good" music has in common, such as a lack of parallel fourths, and using those lessons to improve your own music.   It's a timesaver, because when I hear something that doesn't sound quite "right,"  having studied theory means I can see the parallel fourths right away and already have an idea of how to fix them.

I can choose to break the rules when I wish if I think they don't apply; that's my right as an artist and the only way for the medium to evolve.

Here's another example of how I edited a line.  I was rather unhappy with how "the leaves fall" was repeated exactly.   I wanted to add a flourish on the second "leaves."

It seemed like a good idea, but when I played it, I had that feeling of "not quite right."  It took me a little longer to spot the problem this time.

People who've read a little about how to construct a story are probably familiar with the concept of a climax point. It's the "high point" of the story where there's the most action and tension.  The same idea applies to a melodic line.  In my original melody, the "high point" was the high C on the word "fade."

When I changed the notes for "leaves," I accidentally created twin peaks in my melody.  Both words reached up to the high C, which diminished its dramatic effect.  You can't have two climaxes.

The original melody, though a little boring, was better dramatically for having two little peaks followed by the C, rather than having the C reached so quickly.  I still wanted the feeling of motion on the second "leaves," however, so I found another solution.  I put the motion in the harmony.

That is the advantage of having studied theory. I may have eventually figured out the I preferred to not have the flourish in the melody on "leaves," but I figured it out a lot faster with the experience I have from college.  Furthermore, I was able to give a specific reason why I did not like it beyond "it doesn't sound right."   It's a lot easier to find a solution to a problem when you know what that problem is. 

I finished out the rest of the harmony, again varying the rhythm on the word "fade" to add interest and avoid another set of parallel fourths, this time moving upward.

In total, the actual melody itself stayed relatively unchanged.  It was the harmony that was modified to provide those little flourishes and extra movement to keep what's a relatively simple song from feeling too repetitive.  In the final version, there's only a harmonic line on the second half of each couplet (or the first half of verse three.)  

My next post I'll talk a little about writing the instrumental sections.