Secondary Melodies...???

[Chew_Bear]

Perusing music theory knowledge and concepts and first time coming across this term.

Never heard it before and am quite confused.

1. What is/are Secondary Melodies...? Are they the same as a counter melody...?

2. Which instruments play the secondary melody...?

3. Where are they used (i.e. second-third verse/chorus)...?

4. How are they supposed to be used (i.e. emphasis of something else, support of main lead etc)...?

 

[Croatia MD]

What I wish I knew 10 years ago when I started producing is "chords". Chords is is core. It's the backbone of every track. You write a chord.

For example I'm gonna give you my signature song:
1.) Turned on synthisizer, played little melodies and came with rhodes you hear on 0:00
2.) Took some kind of key sound from an vsti instrument, and played same notes i played in rhodes chord before, just a bit more rithmic 0:30 melody
3.) Made beats
4.) Made bass
5.) Tried to make main melody, 3 notes you hear they change a lot. 1:00
6.) So at that point I have 3 melody instruments playing, not including bass line that starts at 1:00
7.) After some time, I change main melody just to give in variation to a track, kind of peak of a song, like in a book, a twist,
8.) After that goes silence, break, vocal alone
9.) After that, BAMM, goes everything.

That is my proces of making song in my signature. You have back melodies, point 1. and point 2. and the rest comes later from itself, main melody etc... They all need to follow same KEY that chords were played in! Most important thing.

 

[The Funk Junkie]

Perusing music theory knowledge and concepts and first time coming across this term.

Never heard it before and am quite confused.

1. What is/are Secondary Melodies...? Are they the same as a counter melody...?

2. Which instruments play the secondary melody...?

3. Where are they used (i.e. second-third verse/chorus)...?

4. How are they supposed to be used (i.e. emphasis of something else, support of main lead etc)...?

1. Yes, they're the same. A second melody within your piece that works with your main melody (or perhaps doesn't on purpose for an aggravating effect)

2. Whatever you want, most likely a different instrument than the melody but it doesn't matter. Picture a saxophone and trumpet playing a call and response type of melody

3. Use them at any point. No rules at all.

4. A lot of people will use them to play off the main melody and it give it something to bounce/work off of but once again, no rules

Really there's NO RULES!!! Do whatever sounds best to you and if you end up with two instruments playing melodies off of each other then you can refer to it as a secondary or counter melody