Graham English

Posts Tagged ‘melody’

MusicHack #5. Turn It Upside Down

In honor of my brother’s birthday. He turns 30 today. Happy Birthday Brian!
Here it is inverted:

Here it is backwards:

First person to guess the original melody gets a free standard edition of Absolute Pitch Power. Post your answer in the comments.

How To Hear Interval Quality Distinctions

If you can do a good job identifying your basic diatonic intervals (unison, major 2nd, major 3rd, perfect 4th, perfect 5th, major 6th, major 7th, perfect octave), the next logical step is to move on to hearing the distinctions between the different interval qualities:
major/minor 2nd
major/minor 3rd
perfect/augmented 4th and perfect/diminished 5th
major/minor 6th
major/minor 7th
In the beginning of [...]

Music for 02-24-06

I tightened up the song I wrote yesterday and recorded this piano track. I’m going to commit to a melody and start putting some lyrics to the form.

Music for 02-23-06d

This is an edit of the track before. It’s a pop rock ballad (u2, coldplay); EbMAJ7, BbMAJ7. You can hear the verse and chorus shaping up with a melody, form and changes. I’m going to write the lyrics and FINISH this one.

Music for 02-23-06c

This is the work in progress of the next song. No need to listen to this unless you want to hear me composing. Around 12:00 I start to find what I’m looking for.

Songwriting For Busy People

Mind Hacks posted how choice is demotivating when there are too many options.
“Offer students a choice of 6 essays, rather than 30 essays, for extra-credit and more will take up the opportunity if there is less choice of essay titles – and, what is more, they write better essays.”
And if you have 45 song ideas [...]

How Do You Develop New And Interesting Chord Changes?

Here’s a handful of my top techniques that I use to develop new and interesting chord changes.
1. Stick with I-IV-V
I know, it’s not new, but I-IV-V doesn’t have to be uninteresting. There’s a reason why these chords are so fundamental to our harmony. So master them. Use their constraints to challenge your songwriting ability.
2. Copy [...]

Top 10 Lyric Writing Insights

*Before I continue, and I’ll say this many times, I operate under the assumption that the opposite of everything I say is equally true. Including the opposite of what I just said.
Here’s my top 10 lyric writing insights:
1. The rhythm of your melody and the rhythm of your lyrics should match.
Rhythm has *strong [...]