Hi to all. First, forgive me for my bad english: i'm italian. I'm a 17 years old noob from Italy who just finished whatching 2 courses on lynda.com (obviously with a friend of mine account) with a year of music school and hours and hours of youtube videos on music theory. And i can't make a fucking 2 beat melody. I surely know the basics of music theory, of harmony and melody. And i can't do nothing. I don't have ispiration, imagination, i just sit down, open up Fl studio, plug-in the keyboard and start playing with notes without creating a melody. When my shitty life wants to give me a little of hope i succeed to put 4-5 notes in a beautifull order... But then? What happens to these 4-5 notes? GONE! Gone in the wind, because i don't know what to do next, what to add, what will be, what will be the message in the song... Please, if anyone can, help me... And also, please don't be rude at me, i already had enough of this. Just tell me what should i do. Thank you.
Ok i have some word of advice - don't worry go for a walk with friends go to nature refill you batteries and inspiration will come to you if you do song try to take from your life some event something that happened to you or inspired you? at least that work for me!
Creating an arrangment is not an easy process. Start with a simple sequence (ie C-D-E-D-C) and create some variations. You have enough time to create hard things. Sometimes could be useful starting with a drums beat sequence. To listen to this track could help you Last edited: Apr 16, 2016
Thank you both. I do meditation for this...Unfortunately i'm so from a year (or two)... Thank you but i suck even more with drums ... :/ And yes i have the time but not the patience, this is one of my dreams since i was 10, and i'm trying since i was 15, even when i used to play guitar back in the 13-14s i tried to compose something, but nothing. (i hadn't all the music knowledge i have now)
Perhaps you could try thinking of this process as a jigsaw puzzle. If you were to tip all the pieces over the floor and expect to have it completed within an hour you would lose all inertia and momentum. You would most likely put all the pieces back in the box until next time, when you would repeat the whole process again. Now, if you were to aim to put together a few pieces when you see that they fit, then leave it alone for a while, the next time you come back to it fresh you will find your momentum has refreshed too. Same as building a track. Try it. You have nothing to lose.
Per fare pratica prova a copiare qualche altro pezzo, prendi carta e penna e individua quali elementi sono presenti e dove. Alternativamente guardati qualche sessione completa in cui si arrangia un pezzo dall'inizio alla fine in modo da comprendere il workflow e prenderne spunto
I like how you made this answer... Very smart. I will try, thank you... Grazie, però non mi sento a mio agio a copiare un pezzo... Al massimo posso analizzarla. Comunque grazie lo stesso... Thank you all for replying... I have to solve my DAWs problem first, by the way. But i'll try all the advices you gave me.
I used to play guitar for a year, i think. Then i left, because i sucked with it too. And i play a little bit of piano, not an expert tho.
One thing I do that helps, transpose your midi so that you can use just the black keys to write your melody. They are normally the pentatonic scale in the key of F# maj/ D#min. So if your underlying chord progression was in the key of Gmaj, you would transpose your midi +1, so that every F# note you play would end up G, etc. of course you can begin to deviate from the black keys, and to get a good melody you would have to at some point, but it's a very good base to start with. Also, especially at first when it's so hard to find inspiration, definitely write your melodies over a beat and a chord progression. When first trying to compose interesting melodies, this framework is absolutely crucial. And also at first try restricting your melodies to simple arpeggio tones based on the underlying chords. Lastly, I write a lot of melodies on my MPD18, for some reason that layout just works better for my mind. If you can get your hands on something similar, it could help you break your writers block?
I would strongly suggest taking five of ur favorite Tracks and analyzing them. Analyse the changes from bar to bar, Set a marker and give it a name that makes sense to you. This will give you an idea of how a song should flow. It can give you pointers as to what ur missing on ur tracks. DO NOT compare yourself with the tracks you choose (It will kill ur inspiration) use them for analysis only. Lastly i would be very patient with this, it doesnt come fast, it takes time. But One thing i can tell you, the more you do it the better youll get at it.
I won't offer any advice about how to make yourself a better composer because others have done that, but you shouldn't be so hard on yourself. You're only 17 and have a long way to go yet. With time, patience and practice, it'll come.
I ask because writing music and playing an instrument can go hand in hand when trying to express oneself. I am sure that others have a different story to tell, but I first began singing other's songs, then learned an instrument (my first was trumpet at nine years old, followed by studying guitar while all along playing that untuned piano that we had in our family room, then on and on....) before finally writing songs. Relax and give yourself some time. Rome wasn't built in a day, so pick up that guitar and play, just like yesterday. Don't fool yourself by thinking that you suck, we all do the first minute. But minutes quickly before you realize, turn into years, and in years from now you might just look back happily with a smile on your face, remembering this thread and say to yourself, "I'm glad I stuck with it, look at me now!". Brother, you are only 17 with a whole lifetime of musical joy ahead of you. You are going great to be great!!! Keep on keeping on with one foot following the other on your road to happiness, always go forward but never go straight.
Thanks again to you all... I'll try... However i'm "so hard with myself" because i tried so many things other than music, and sucked a lot with all of them. But that's another story, i don't want to annoy you.
You're very welcome. I hope it works for you. One other thing. Don't apologise for your English, I wish My Italian was as good.
Imitation is the best education. Try to copy some melodies you like. Cover your favorite songs by ear. You learn new tricks and improve your ears. Use all the resources you can like live video and promo videos on you tube. Someone might even have a video showing you how to play it. When you have the song down, play "with" the song by adding your own new parts. You will teach yourself a lot of things by doing this, but start with something easy.
Dont waste your time learning music theory to be able to create melodies or beats. Ofcourse unless you want to be a pro musician in the future. There is no formula or receipt for this, it is not maths, comes from inside. The worst thing you can do is to think about these and stress out. Relax buddy ;) If you weren't 17 i would suggest some other ways to get inspiration ehheh Yeah besides the joke, Infidel already suggested what i was going to suggest. Imitation is the best education. +1 from me Just keep listening to music and live your life to the fullest. Mostly what you live / face will inspire you.
Hahahahhaah... However, i don't think with the ":DDD way" i will get ispiration too. It's something like "chronic no-ispiration", lol
You think this is a game you can learn over a couple of years? These guys above are really good people not being mad with you. This is a serious business with people spending years and years to get something happen and in the end it mostly leads to nothing, or at least it's just a very expensive hobby for most. So most importantly you should never give up doing this. Exercising is the No. 1 advise to go for. Next one is music theory. What really pisses me off are people who think you don't need music theory. If you want your one-hit-wonder a la Spinnin' Records an co. you shouldn't really waste your time with this fancy theory stuff. You want to do real sophisticated music with your name representing your own style? Start suck in every musical theory you can get. And this does not only consists of knowing which cadency (C-G-Am-F -> such stuff) you should use, it also consists of getting to know new music instruments you've never heard of (do you know the difference between a violin and a viola?), or how other people play a very common instrument in a not so common way. Also you should, as mentioned, imitate or even totally re-arange a song you love. You learn so much about every detail by copying succesful songs. Good luck & always consider: Art is no competition.
