4 Ways to Make Your Melodies More Interesting

Writing a melody is pretty straightforward. Just stick to the white keys on the piano and make sure it's four bars long, right? True, that will give you a nice and coherent melody, but it won't give you a very interesting one.

A great melody is one that sticks with us but never becomes annoying, one where every choice of note makes perfect inevitable sense and couldn't possibly have been anything else, one we simply must sing or hum along to whenever we hear it. When it comes to weighing up all the musical elements, we believe that the melody is the most important of them all, and so getting it right is of crucial importance.

Of course, achieving a great melody is far from simple. We can't promise we'll transform you into melody maestros with just 4 tips, but we hope these ideas will get you thinking about melodies in different ways and will put you on the path to making them more interesting. Before we dive in, though, let's first define exactly what a melody is.

The 'google search' definition of a melody is 'a sequence of single notes that is musically satisfying; a tune.' Whether or not that melody is musically satisfying depends on the listener, but we think this is a good definition. We can further break down a melody into 3 distinct features.

These are:

1. Pitch - How high or low each note is (the frequency)
2. Duration - The length of each note (in beats)
3. Contour - The shape and sequence of movement of the melodic line (does it go up or down)  

Now that we've defined what a melody is and broken down its features, let's jump into our 5 tips for writing more interesting melodies!  

1. Melodic Sequences

Repetition is a key part of making a melody memorable and catchy. But beware, it can be a double-edged sword. Too much repetition can make your melodies annoying and predictable and that's definitely not what we want.

Using a melodic sequence is a great way to avoid this! It gives you the repetition you need to make your melody stick but doesn't overdo it and become irritating. This is because a melodic sequence is when you repeat a melody at either a higher or lower pitch but with the same melodic contour.

Here's an example in C major:

As you can see, we have an initial melody followed by a repetition, except the notes between the two are different. Instead, the contour of the melody and the duration of its notes have stayed the same but the pitch has moved down.

There are actually two ways of creating melodic sequences. The first way is diatonically, which was done for the example above. This is when the notes of the sequence stick to the scale of the key the music is in.

Look again at the above example. In bar 1, we have the note G repeated 3 times, then on beat 4, we go down a tone (major 2nd) to the note F. In the repetition, we start on F and then go down a semi-tone (minor 2nd) to the note E. If we were to go down a tone from F, we would arrive at the note Eb, which is not in the key of C major. Therefore, we go down a semi-tone instead to E, so the music stays diatonic.

The other way of creating a melodic sequence is non-diatonically. This is where we keep the intervals between each note exactly the same in the repetition of the melody.

Here's the same melody but with the non-diatonic approach:

The only change here is all the E notes becoming Ebs, but now the intervals of the repetition exactly match those of the initial melody. In this example, the non-diatonic version does sound a little strange and not really 'musically satisfying', but remember, there are no chords yet and that could make a lot of difference.

If you give melodic sequences a go when you're next writing melodies, try out both methods and see what you like the sound of best. The diatonic version of the sequence will sound more natural and 'right' but sometimes you can get some really cool and interesting melodies with the non-diatonic approach.  

There are so many different songs and pieces of music that use melodic sequences, so instead of focusing on one, here's a list of a few:

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit

Billie Eilish - When the Party's Over

Imagine Dragons - Radioactive

Coldplay - Clocks

Louis Armstrong - What a Wonderful World

Katy Perry - Firework

Ramin Djawadi - Game of Thrones Theme

Hans Zimmer, Klaus Badelt - He's a Pirate

2. Combine Steps and Skips

For this next tip, we want to focus specifically on vocal melodies, although this can be applied to any instrument.

When a melody moves up or down by either a tone or a semi-tone this is known as stepwise motion. The opposite of this is skipwise motion, which is where the melody moves in either direction by more than a tone (or step). Most vocal melodies are predominantly made up of stepwise motion, as this tends to keep it in a narrow range and because smaller intervals are easier to sing, especially for those 'singing' along at home. However, the key to an interesting melody is to combine the two.

Adding in some skips can really take your melodies to new heights (literally). They may be harder to sing, but they definitely stand out and add more adventure to your tunes.

Let's take a look at two tracks that combine steps and skips in a similar way, and where I believe the melodic idea of the second song is likely inspired by the first.

The first song is 'Big Time Sensuality' from Björk's 1993 debut album, conveniently titled 'Debut'. Listen to the track below, the particular melodic line we're focusing on first appears from 0:49 to 0:58.

Björk is well known for her unique and interesting melodies, which are characterised by her vocal gymnastics consisting of lots of melodic skips. We've transcribed this melody and labelled all the steps and skips so you can see how it works.

This melodic line is almost completely made up of skipwise motion! There are 9 skips in total, 3 steps, and two repeated notes. The biggest skips are at the start of the melody, where we have major 6th, 5th, and 4th intervals. Towards the end, the skips get smaller, to major thirds, and we have more stepwise motion. The use of smaller intervals in a narrow range is a good way to end the melody as it gives it a sense of competition and stops the skips from becoming too much, keeping enough variety between the big leaps and the smaller movements.

We absolutely love this melody and it's a perfect example of how you can combine both steps and skips to make your melodies more interesting!

For the next song, we're going to head over to the music of Radiohead and take a look at their song 'Fake Plastic Trees'. Frontman Thom Yorke is a known fan of Björk and we're convinced that the melody we've just discussed had an influence on a melodic line in 'Fake Plastic Trees', which was released only two years after 'Big Time Sensuality'.

Listen to the melody in question, which first appears between 0:18 to 0:24 and many times throughout, and see if you can hear any similarities. Did you notice it?

If not, listen to how similar the melody sounds to the first bar and a half of 'Big Time Sensuality'. We've also transcribed this melody for you so you can easily compare the two.

If we look at the contour of the melody we can see that it first rises by a major 6th, then falls by a tone, rises by a 4th and then finally falls down an octave. Go back to the first bar and half of the 'Big Time Sensuality' and you'll see that the contour and the change in intervals are exactly the same, with the only difference being the rhythm! Whether this was intentional or not, we think Thom Yorke was clearly inspired by Björk.

As the melodies are almost identical, this one also consists of mostly skipwise motion, with one step and a repeated note to keep things balanced, giving us a very memorable and satisfying melody.

Next time you're writing a melody, start off by focussing on using stepwise motion and then take things a 'step' (or in this instance a leap) further by adding in some skipwise motion. You never know what interesting melodies you might land on.  

3. Emphasize Non-Chord Tones and Extended Notes

To understand this tip, first, we need to clarify the difference between chord tones and non-chord tones, as well as explain what extended notes are.

A chord tone is a note that exists within a certain chord. So, for example, the note E is a chord tone to the chord C major (C-E-G). If we have this chord in our harmonic progression we can emphasise these tones by including them in our melody over the C major chord.

On the other hand, non-chord tones are any notes that don't belong to the current chord in your progression. So, if again, we have our C major chord, this would mean emphasising notes other than C, E, or G in your melody.

Finally, an extended note is any note that goes beyond the standard triad (1st, 3rd, and 5th) of a chord. So, that could be the 7th, the 9th, the 11th or the 13th. For a C major chord, those notes would be: B (7th), D (9th), F (11th), and A (13th).

So that's that cleared up but how do we emphasise certain notes in our melody? Well, the answer for that is pretty straightforward. Simply have the notes of your melody you want to emphasise land on strong beats, like beats 1 and 3.

Let's take a listen to the chorus of the song 'Exist for Love' by Aurora (between 1:15-1:39), which uses non-chord tones and extended notes in its melody.

Unless you have perfect pitch you probably don't know where in the melody the non-chord tones and extended notes were, so again we've transcribed the melody for you. We've included chord symbols and labelled both the non-chord tones and extended notes.

As you can see we have a few non-chord tones and extended notes that all land on the first beat of the bar. The way the melody highlights the major 6ths, 7ths and 9ths (as well as the tasty bit of chromatacism over the F#m7 chord) really gives this melody a romantic and expressive feel.

Now we're not saying you should avoid using chord tones or notes from a chords basic triad completely, the example above uses simple chord tones on strong beats and there are many more throughout the rest of the track, instead, we suggest using a combination of the two to get the most interesting and exciting melodies!

4. Rhythmic Displacement

This final tip concerns the rhythm of our melodies, or more specifically, which beats we choose to put our notes on. For this one, we going to use the song 'Dirty Diana' by Michael Jackson as an example. Listen to the chorus, between 0:57-1:13, through the video below.

In the chorus of this song, we have the same lyric (Dirty Diana, nah) over the same melody 4 times with one other lyric (Let me be) and melody at the very end. So how does it manage to stay interesting?

Well, it uses a very subtle technique called rhythmic displacement. This is where you take a musical element, in this case, the melody, and move it either slightly later or earlier in the music (for the drummers reading, you may already be familiar with this technique but under the name beat displacement).

Listen again to the chorus and pay attention to which beat the 'an' in the word 'Diana' lands on the third time we hear the lyric sung. Now compare this to the three other times and you'll notice that for those it lands on beat 1, whereas for the 3rd time it's been moved over to land on beat 2!

It's so subtle that it mostly goes unnoticed but this tiny difference has been put there for a reason. The 1 beat pause in the vocal melody between the 'Di' and 'an' in 'Diana' really suspends you in the tension for just a moment longer and stops it from feeling like you're just listening to the same melody and lyric over and over. It might be subtle, but it's certainly very effective.

Here's a vocal transcription so you can see exactly what's going on:

Of course, repetition is needed for making a melody catchy, but if you think your melody is becoming too repetitive, try using the rhythmic displacement technique to add some subtle variety to your melody without having to change it too drastically.

And, as an added bonus tip, next time you're writing a melody consider starting it in a place that's not the first beat of the bar. Normally, when we write melodies we have the tendency to always start them on beat 1, but a lot of really great melodies begin on a different beat. Next time you're writing a melody have a go at starting your tune on beat 2 or even 3. Or maybe you want to start it on an off-beat or at the very end of a bar. Try it out and see what sounds best to you!

So there you have it, 4 tips that can make your melodies more interesting!

We can't guarantee that any one of them will turn you into the finest tunesmith overnight, but we hope they get you thinking about your melody writing in different ways and help you come up with tunes you might not have otherwise.

So, go on, give them a try and see what you come up with. You just might produce your catchiest tune yet...

...but please, for all our sakes, make sure it's not an earworm!

Think we missed out some essential melody tips? Tried out some of these techniques? Let us know on social media - @auxdotapp!

Thanks for reading!