HOW TO WRITE HIT MELODIES, Part 2, by Molly-Ann Leikin
In writing a melody, it's critical to keep your audience surprised. Since we speak English in iambic pentameter, it's natural to assume we can write in the same meter. Unfortunately, it's deadly boring. So I suggest you deliberately vary the lengths of your lines, and the number of notes in each, along with the number of lines or bars per section, to avoid your song sounding predictable. After all, it's your job as an artist to tell your audience something they aren't expecting.
The range of most contemporary singers is an octave and three - the interval from middle C, for example, to the E an octave above it. If you write a tune with a range greater than that, you'll be hard-pressed to find a singer with the chops to handle it. My song, "An American Hymn", which I wrote with Lee Holdridge, was only recorded once in twenty years until Lee figured out how to revise the bridge melody, reducing our octave and five to an octave and three. Now the song is recorded at least once a month.
Most hit "power" ballads, such as Daughtry's "Home," end their verses on notes lower than the ones on which the choruses start. To create tension and drama in their melodies, I urge my clients, and you, to go up into the chorus, not sideways or down. Doing the latter is like letting air out of a tire. So go up and stay up. And although some contemporary songs break the rising-into-the chorus rule, you can bet their rhythmic hooks at the beginning of and throughout the choruses are strong enough to overcome the melody's drop, and keep us listening.
~Molly-Ann Leikin (rhymes with bacon) is a song marketing consultant in California, who, for a modest professional fee, works one-on-one to help you find the right writing partner and then helps you market your finished work to all the right people. A Eurovision finalist (American Idol in Europe), Molly is the author of "How to Write A Hit Song, Fifth edition", (June, 2008) from which this article is excerpted, and "How to Be a Hit Songwriter", both published by Hal Leonard. She has a house full of gold and platinum records plus an Emmy nomination, has written themes and songs for over four dozen TV shows and movies, including "Eight is Enough" and "Violet" that won an Oscar. From the USA and Canada, you can reach Molly, toll-free, at 800-851-6588, or from anywhere in the world, at www.songmd.com. Please note: Molly does not accept unsolicited material. © 2009 Songwriting Consultants, Ltd. For more information on the USA Songwriting Competition, please go tp: http://www.songwriting.net
