starting point of a melody

whats up fp! just have a quick question! kind of a noob question tho!

what note should your melody begin on? i meen yeah i know the root 3rd or fifth of the chord playing always pretty much sounds good but it sounds very boring to me as of late

like for instance i was working on a track in c#minor scale i started the melody
something like f# g# c# e (c# bass) but the f# just made the melody sound weird as if it wanted to be f#m i was taught you can play any note up against any chord long as its in scale and it will sound good idk sometimes i just want
to start on a non tone chord and it never sounds correct any tips?
 
Are you talking about a "real" melody (something that would be sung by a vocalist if the piece had lyrics), or a riff, lead-line, or melody fragment ? A lot of hip-hop producers call any riff or sequence of notes that are not chords or a bass-line "melody," but that is not wholly accurate.
Also, what is the chord sequence? What are the bass notes?

You can start anywhere, but some things sound better than others for various reasons. We need a little more information on what (and how) you're trying to achieve what it is you're trying to achieve. Starting true melodies in odd places in the scale can actually be quite interesting, but you don't usually want to juxtapose odd scale tones or non-scale tones over chord changes for long durations on downbeats. Non-harmonic tones (passing tones, suspensions, altered scales, etc.) can be used to great effect, but you need to know when they work and when they don't.

Give us a little more information...

GJ
 
You can't play any note against any chord and have it sound consonant as long as it's in the same key. That's only for beginners: it works ok in 90% of cases but it's not true in all cases. Play B and F over a C major chord and see what I mean.

Next step is to think of it like this: the important notes in a melody should be in the chord, and stuff inbetween can be anything. The important notes are long notes, notes that end phrases, notes on the beat (like beats 1 and 3 etc) and notes that you make a big leap to.

It's not a perfect definition but it's better than just playing random scale notes and hoping.

You can also extend your chords using melody notes for example if you play B or D# over a C#minor chord you get a C#m7 or C#m9 chord which has a richer and jazzier sound. Knowing what the different extended chords sound like (major 7, minor 7, dominant 7 to start with) is very useful to start to step away from beginning harmony.
 
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>>>>Next step is to think of it like this: the important notes in a melody should be in the chord, and stuff inbetween can be anything. The important notes are long notes, notes that end phrases, notes on the beat (like beats 1 and 3 etc) and notes that you make a big leap to.<<<<

Scrapheaper said it better than I did, but that (^^^^) is what I was driving at. The "odd" notes should not be on downbeats or held for long (probably 8th notes max).

GJ
 
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