What Makes a Great Melody? - Music Composition 

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Absolutely phenomenal.. not only do you go through your points for 20 minutes without messing up a word, you also not skip a beat when playing a piece from sight reading. You’re such a masterful teacher. Thank you. :)

I will always think of this lesson now every time I play fur elise. Thank you for a wonderful lesson!

I usually either think of a melody in my head or it arises from a chord sequence. I then refine it after listening to it.

This is very good teaching. Before I came accross the Music Matters channel I have thought that I would never really undertand music theory. Thanks a lot

Very good advice! The planning stages are the least intuitive at first but it helps so much to think of the big picture more and more. As someone with ADHD and a million thoughts/possibilities, this helps to stay focused.

Haunted by the genius of that simple but amazing key progression In Fur Elise. 🙏🙏🏿👍🦄

Best video ever on explaining melody 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Very interesting video and lesson. I love that you mix both giving tips with examples AND analysing a well known music peice. Please keep this formula for more of the same type of content! I love it! As for melody, I just finished a new track and watching this video afterward, I notice the things I got instinctively correct and the ones I could improve. I usually go on with a melody I have in my head and figure out the harmony afterward but keeping in mind a structure is a tip I will apply from now on, as well as all the other ones in this video. Very helpful. Keep it up Gareth! Thanks

Wow. So 90 % plane and 10 % inspiration. Thank you very much for sharing this.

I enjoy music composition as a past time.I find your video very encouraging.As you mentioned many of the difficulties that I have encountered. And ways to think more clearly as how to progress with a composition.

Helpful as always - thank you! When you said, at the beginning, that you'd use a famous piece at the end, I was hoping you might use the slow movement from Beethoven's 5th piano concerto - just the opening orchestral section. What a beautiful melody that is... I'm glad you went for Beethoven anyway! :)

A great melody is the one that you hear once and remember forever...

A very helpful video. Sometimes one might also think of pitch and of the melodic line as a whole: where are the highest notes? Where are the lowest? How far apart are they? Of course you try to keep in mind the strengths and limitations of the voice or instrument you're writing for.

Great lesson ! Other teachers tend to avoid discussing melody and leave it to the muses. I like this balanced approach.

Really interesting and insightful enabling inspiration through planning and structure.

Thank you Gareth ,your lessons (& Beethoven’s) are very much appreciated . 👍

one thing that has really helped me, is connecting music to speaking. music tells a story or makes a statement, same as when we speak or converse. naturally, when we speak, we take pauses (to reflect or think of what to say next), we sometimes linger on or either get straight to the point. we have commas, colons, dashes, question & exclamation marks. in music, this would equate to cadences, melodic lines intentionally working in & around a scale, etc. another way i like to think about it is... if we were to converse about music only, not about the weather, a vacation we just took, our job, etc.... that would be like writing melodic lines where the notes intently fall on the "right" beats, rather than having just any old note land anywhere. it would sound dysfunctional. so, if we were to converse about music only, we keep the talk music-related & not get off-topic, or allow the conversation to become dysfunctional.

That was an excellent lesson. I'm not likely to write a great melody any time soon but this helps me to understand what makes those great pieces of music so great!

Thanks!

Really interesting.

Awesome descriptive narration while the music is progressing.

Thank you Gareth! Always a pleasure :)

Great tips! Thank you!

I love your channel!

Hi, Gareth. You may remember me, a few months ago I posted personal concerns about my lack of practice and commitment, I'm 18 years old (male), and I hope you'll be pleased to hear that I've increased my paltry average of 30% of days to 75% as of May, I'm happy to finally be more likely to practice than I am not to. haha. Still aiming for higher though.

Thanks for this good advice. I first heard Fur Elise while waiting from my music lesson, and wonder if I liked it how the left hand keeps running up into the right hand; only Beethoven could do it.

Hello Sir, respect from India 🇮🇳

Beautiful video thank you so much.

Thank you so much for this. I am just scratching the surface of the realities and craft of composing. I want to incoporate Irish Traditional music tunes. I am entering my third year of music at the Cork School of Music in Ireland. I just finished reading the biography of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. In it the author describes a bit about his process of composing. He mentions "sketching" out a piece. It is fascinating to find out how all the great music I have heard comes about. I may join your Maestro group or do a course on counter-point before long. Thanks, again.

Very useful cues for formatting structure 🙏👏👏👏👍🎩🦄

Nice trick using the tritone to make your voice leading point, Gareth! 😉

Really great tips Gareth!

Thank you!!

The best melodies come in your dreams, as Sir Paul would attest.

Wonderful stuff Gareth, ding dong...ding

nice man really helped me out !

I find a story relating to a piece helps to give to give it some form.And some idea as to what volume content it should have .

Nice lesson

GREAT Video

Thank you so much sir. Great video.

Your lectures are always interesting and packed with useful information and observations. I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder (or listener, in this case), but do really beautiful songs share any traits in common...and if so, what are they?

I totally agree!!! It’s much easier to do number 2 after you’ve done number 1 💩😂 6:37

Interesting! Usually I first come up with a melodic idea and if it's good, the whole piece turns out good for some reason... Otherwise no matter what I try the piece doesn't have the same punch you know?

Good tips - but do you have any advice for atonal compositions? Is that a totally different game?

I’ve been playing piano for 50 years and havnt really improved much since I was 12. How do I get better? I practise a lot

Happy birthday Mr Garrett

Hi, i write music for flims, songs , i struggle with expression , communicating sertain emotions (which i have to ) in music

I know the answer its Btob

Alan Belkin's textbook "Musical Composition" has 1 mention which says: "write a pregnant melody." (Without explaining that metaphor.) "Pregnant" melody, what the? 🍼🐣 Pretty much no material on 'great melody' or even 'good melody' in his text which unfortunate. Probably he is trying to play it too safe so as to not define anything a "bad" melody. 10:30 Tips #4, #5, #6 are much better ways of defining good melody. Now what would be revealing is if this same video were made for "What makes a great jazz melody?" and then compare-contrast the result. Music is music regardless of genre especially 21st century music, so the result should be the same, except, in academic circles especially, it is not.

I just knew when you said “structure,” I would be lost.

* serialists have left the stream 😁

Hasn’t some of the greatest music anywhere been created using your steps in the opposite direction?

The out of tune makes the melody