I have idea of rhythm/melody in my head.
I can record it as clicking sound from my tongue or basic weird beat box from my mouth or tap on the desk using hand or some object and also write down as letters.
I can even measure the tempo using BPM detector in app.

What now? What next?

For example I recorded this rhythm/melody as a tongue clicking sound. (File in the attachment)
I can also write it as letters but it is not fully accurate I guess:
Thu, Thu, Tu, Hu, Thy, Thy, Thy
Tu, Tu, Thy, Thu, Thy


Now. How to determine it as a rhythm or melody?

Every "Thu", "Thy", "Tu", "Hu" have own counterpart as a Note (In Melody) or a Drum Element (In Rhythm).

Melody
Notes:
C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B

Rhythm
Drum Elements:
Kick
Snare
Hi-Hat Closed
Hi-Hat Open
Rimshot
Tom 1
Tom 2
Tom 3
Crash
Ride


First example - Melody
If I wanna convert this into melody...
How to determine scale?
How to determine notes?
What note is "Thu"? What note is "Thy"? What note is "Tu"? What note is "Hu"?
What I should do first?

Second example - Rhythm
If I wanna convert this into rhythm...
How to determine drums?
Which drumkit element is "Thu"? Which drumkit element is "Thy"? Which drumkit element is "Tu"? Which drumkit element is "Hu"?
What I should do first?

Third example - Mixed Melody & Rhythm
More practical example:

Rhythm Part
I have some idea in my head for this as a rhythm mixed with melody.
I can imagine this as a drum break like someone plays on the drums Kick, Kick, Snare with Closed Hi-Hat in the background.

Melody Part
Now this guy play the rhythm from the tongue recording and the end part he plays using drum stick and play it on the edge of snare or tap drum stick into second drum stick.
End part I mean this "...Thy, Thu, Thy"

How to determine notes of this drum stick?
For example I have sample of the drum stick.
I put it into sampler.
Which note is "Thu"? What note is "Thy"?
Or I wanna alternative version with Rimshot from the drum machine.
I load rimshot sample into sampler.
How now play this sample or arrange to make "Thy, Thu, Thy" sound out of a Rimshot sample?
Or maybe there is something different which I should do first?

 

Last edited: Jan 30, 2023

The scale is up to you (unless there's a specific context), usually that comes by ear. Once you have a rough idea of which notes you want, you can extrapolate the scale from there. There are types of scales that have specific sounds, like if you want something happy you chose major, sad is minor, stuff like that.

Your asmr sounds very modern, so probably you should mark well the strong beats (1 and 3). "Thu" or whatever note you want to start the chain should be the root of the scale or something that has a strong relation to it, beat 3 could be the same or another note you want to emphasize. The rest could be simply a way of going from 1 to 3 and from 3 back to 1 (of the other bar).

Probably decide what's going to be on beat 1 and 3. But since it sounds modern enough, i'd say go with your ears on that. Just play random chords and notes and adjust to taste, but keep in mind that beat 1 and 3 are going to be important, you'll probably be able to hear that.

The typical thing would be kick on a strong beat, snare on weak beat so Thu=kick and TU=Snare, though The TU's on the seccond bar should be accompanied by THU's. That's one way of looking at it, i'm sure people who know their drums better can help you more on that.

 

Ok. I think I get it.
Scale is not that important at the beggining and I should determine it later when I set the choosen note from the melody as a root and then I could choose the scale to be more sad or more happy and eventually move some notes to fit this scale's mood. Or didn't change anything and find scale which all the notes fit and eventually if they not fit change notes that don't fit to fit to the closest fitting scale. Am I right?

Ok. This one I get too I think.
So the sound which is the closest to "Boom" more heavier should be Kick, closest to "Tksssh" more weak should be Snare and lighter and shorter like "Ts" should be Hi-Hat.
I think i should watch some Beat Box youtube tutorials and this should me help more understand how to translate Drums into Mouth Sounds.

This one I don't get because totally I don't know what You mean by "Beat 1", "Beat 3" and why play random chords?

This one too. I don't get it mostly because I don't understand "Beat 1 & 3".
But it's interesting, please continue.
It will be too helpfull for me but by "How determine notes?" I mean more something like which notes choose to melody in daw from synth wroted as midi to sound the same as this clicking sound and from where to know why play those notes why those ones sound like this and how to learn this?
Something like you listening to song where is melody and singer which sings something and ends and there is solo melody which is the same as the singer like you hear lyrics just from intonations of the synth.
Now for example I am singing something with melody on words just from my voice.
How to convert this into MIDI melody in DAW?
How to learn converting analog melody into midi melody?
This was only example and I can't sing but I can weirdly beatbox or tap on desk or clicking using tongue to achieve something close to melody from singing.
How to convert melody from tongue clicking recording into MIDI melody in DAW?

I don't have right now music example of same melody from synth and singer voice but
I think even without it now You get and fully understand what I mean. Right?

 

Last edited: Feb 1, 2023

You do not mention which DAW. In Logic, I would take your recorded beatbox; and I would enable Flex Pitch. This is very similar to Melodyne. There is a function in Logic Flex Pitch which will extract a Midi playback file (of pitch and note on/off) from the Flex Pitch data. Maybe your DAW has a similar feature to this.

 

Ableton or Fl Studio. Logic only on Windows. I don't know if version 5 had this Flex Pitch feature. Probably no.
I know that most DAWs have something like converting audio into midi (melody, rhythm).
But it is mostly not accurate. I think we must wait for AI versions of it which will be something big.
But for now when things like this are inaccurate.
I mean more how to do it using own skills than just have hope that automatic DAW midi convertion bring some ok results.
What if I just hear some melody somewhere or it pop up in my head but I won't be able to translate it into mouth sound or record and it will be only in my imagination. How from there convert this into MIDI?
I mean more something like this

 

I use that function all the time with samples. It is not 100% pitch accurate, but it is close. For the actual hits, drums as an example; it will generate playback of the rhythm as accurately as would be done by Recycle. But you are right, it is not Magic. If I remember correctly, Flex Pitch was introduced to Logic Pro at the 10.4 update.

Your other options could be something like the Voclea Dubler. Or Melodyne. None of this stuff is perfect.

 

Pretty much, yeah.

I was refering to the written pattern, i think what you refer to as Tksssh used to be the TU .
But yes. To expand a little more, on a typical 4/4 song beats 1 and 3 are considered "strong" and 2 and 4 "weak", all of those are usually very important and what's between them is kind of secondary. That goes for both melody and rythm.

If you're still confused bu the "beat" thing, you should probably get familiarized with time signatures, particularly 4/4. Whatever information you can find about rythmic patterns and stuff is probably going to be explained in beats and time signatures and all that.

Well not RANDOM random, what i ment is don't restrict yourself when there's no reason (yet). If you have only one chord it's probably not enough to imply an entire scale, so there are many options as to what chords could come next, you just have to explore by ear and see what fits your song. Unless you did decide beforehand you wanted the song on a specific scale, in which case you'll have less options and also be constrained to the sound of that scale and all it's pros and cons.

Oooooooooooh, okay. Got that completely wrong . Sadly, i have no idea. I know that Melodyne can do that, but don't know how well that works. Honestly i couldn't really tell you were making a melody.

Ah, that makes more sense now.

 

Last edited: Feb 1, 2023

You can do it Abelton.

Timbaland does something like this and there is a video of him doing it from a few years back.

This is a pretty common way some composers and orchestrators start working on ideas with DAWs or other musicians. If you can click it or hum it you should be able to play it, or in this case record it and extract the notes. This will give you a base mode at least from which you can extract a scale and then arrange around a time structure.

This is one of the most common ways of composing anything from a song to symphony.

Hum the melody and if you can play an instrument you play it or note it or use your DAW to find the pitches.

It's a very human way.

 

1. If it's a melody, you could sing it. Melody is sung or played with a pitched instrument (piano, guitar, flute etc.). It's not important how you sing it. If you don't have good voice and can't sing properly, you should listen to a melody by your "inner ear".

If you can't sing it, it's not a melody, it's a rhythm. Rhythm is played with an unpitched instrument(s).

Yes, any rhythm can be converted in a melody. But, strictly speaking, there are a lot of melodies that we can derive from a particular rhythm.

2. Technically, converting your recorded track in a drum beat isn't hard by ear and by eye. Load the track in DAW, look at peaks in it. Detect tempo (peaks must correspond with grid lines and entire file must fit in one, two, four etc. bars). Then in MIDI file (MIDI track) place particular beats in places where you see or hear peaks. Use different drum parts (kick, snare, hihat etc.) or a single sound as you wish.

When you work with a melody, the first step is the same. But then you have to find correct pitches for all your "Thu, Tu, Hu".

Try to do it by ear and by eye, without programs. It's more challenging and time-consuming but it develops your hearing enormously. Musician can't live without such basic skills.

 

Last edited: Feb 1, 2023

3. You cannot sing all song (all sounds in it) together at once. It's impossible. Many of sounds remain and exist in your imagination only. When you are done with recorded track (all sounds are more or less detected), use it as a starting point and try to find sounds and notes you haven't sung when recoding. There is no such a program yet which could be able to undestand what you imply.

 

Last edited: Feb 1, 2023

Load a VST instrument on a MIDI track and try to find notes you hear. Piano is preferable, it's more natural and neutral for our ears. Use a sampled piano, basic, easily loadable, you don't need a big library. If you use FL Studio, find a decent piano soundfont, it's very fast and easy way to get basic sounds in FLS.

You're just starting as I understand, so this task will be a real challenge for you. Additional advices:

1) First try to record a melody you hear. As you're just starting, picking up a melody by ear takes time and you'll just forget your melody. Or, may be, try to memorize your melody first. Just sing it in your imagination many times and try to fix in your memory how it evolves.

2) You could train yourself. Load a piano plugin and start to sing random notes you play. Choose one, play it and then sing it, choose second one and sing it etc. Play high, middle, low notes. Play neighbour notes and notes that are separated by two or three keys. Don't bother with your voice qualities, you don't have to sing beautifully or loudly. If you can't sing it, sing it by your inner voice. A note you play and hear must correspond to a note you sing. Yes, it's a bit stupid practice. But after some time finding notes in a melody will become easier for you.

3) Try to pick up a melody of any popular song or song you really love. By ear, with piano. You always can listen to this song again and you probably remember its melody very well so you don't need to relisten it. After such a practice it becomes easier and faster to pick up your own melodies.

 

Last edited: Feb 1, 2023

@lbnv is 100% right.

If you can do it by ear it a lot easier.

Your clicks for example, I came back to them because the timing seemed somewhat divisible in septoles. It was a really close to septoles just little over 128bpm.

Example in just about 30 mins of messing around an not really exploring it too much. It doesn't sound that good, but that's not what we are after just the transposition. The hard part is finding the right sounds and feel with a groove and that is somewhat of dark art. It also takes a lot more time than I have before bed.

 

Ooops, yes! I forgot about - let us say - 'humanization'. It complicates the job.

 

Haha. It sounds like the drum guy in my head will have a stroke
Because like Ibnv said many of the sounds remain and exist only in my imagination.
And I have completly different vision of it evolving and other people have other vision only based on the recording.
And if this is not enough every people is differnet and have own path of creativity so even if everyone have the same basic vision and all the details in the recording result can be much different

 

it's not a dumb idea, it is the entire premise behind the product Vochlea Dubler mic/software combination. You can sing or beatbox into the mic, and the software translates it into MIDI to pass along to other programs/plugins; or you can set up your drum kit, for it to recognize various beatbox'd sounds into separated drum hits.

Does it actually work acceptably? I can't say. When I extract notes from a sample/audio recording the usual way, I do not expect it to spit out a carbon copy when connected to a different destination synth. But it is generative, and you can always just edit it; or maybe even change it completely. The played rhythm is more important to capture than the pitch, because it's harder to fix.

 

A midi keyboard is actually useful. First, there are only 12 notes; and then the octaves if we're talking basic western melody. It is laid out linearly. Same with drum software. You can lay it out and focus on the snare first. Then the kick. Then the hihat. Being ADHD can interfere- I should know- but listen to the music in your head. If you're like me, it's there. But yes, it's an excellent idea for software.

The music is there. See yourself as channeling it- and maybe you can approach it as paint by numbers.

 

I haven't tested this method enough to be sure is productive. But once I tried this:
- Any controller to insert kinda dummy-notes on the track. Dummy meaning doesn't matter which note but the timing. You can also do it with mouse obviously but the idea is doing it real-time with some auto-quantization and stuff
- MidiGuitar2: sound to midi plugin, and it has a lot of nice features, like mapping to scales, etc
- step-sequencing mode on the DAW

Can give you nice results. Of course you need some method to change the dummy-notes to the correct note coming from the audio to midi. This depends on the DAW

 

Is somewhere something similar to Solfege?
Like list of Tonal Words/Syllabes which have representation in Musical Notes or Major/Minor Scales?

 

No, you've got Notes with Names,
and Scales made of Notes, including Major/minor scales..

(although in pratice is better to think about scales/chords in terms of Intervals rather than notes..)

We don't need to develop any sort of sign languaje for music because > we already got the musical language itself.

 

I mean more list of all tonal words/syllabes which sounds like notes.
Like "Boom Boom Pow" - from mouth have representation in drums as "Kick Kick Snare".
Something which help translate sounds from mouth into musical notes.
Also more words like "Boom", "Pow", "Tss" to help translate mouth sounds into drums.

I don't wanna develop new language but learn from existing things.
You misunderstand me I think.