Two melodies at once

M

Mercuri

New member
Sup guys? New to the forum.

I've been playing with my little toy keyboard since when I was 9. Now I'm 19, and months ago, when I was at a friend's house, I found a thing called FL Studio. The friend told me his brother used to create amateur songs, just for fun. I borrowed the program, and I started to see how it worked. Now I bought a MIDI keyboard just for fun, and I started to like the entire thing.

I always liked music, almost every genre, but I prefer hands up, dance, trance (not the modern one) and similars. Anyway, I never made something serious, just 30 seconds melodies with basslines and some drums repeating. I'm trying to make something more serious, and I start to understand how it's hard!

I know the basics + something else from music theory... my first question on the forum (how big is it!? so many topics ^^) is: is there a "rule" or some "guidelines" to follow when trying to put together two melodies at same time?

Let's say I have a piano melody (in minor) and a synth melody (in the relative major). I put a bad bassline and some drums, then I play first the piano, then the synth and finally all together. Result: noize and bad sounds everywhere. I know that relative scales in minor and major sounds better, but I don't know what else to do. Maybe trying to make the melodies similar? As: same intervals somewhere, or same movement?

You know, I try to create some very easy easy song. Amateur stuff, like Dj Splash or Boosterz Inc (I was on Euroadrenaline time ago). I analyzed lots of MIDIs to see the structure of my favourite artists' songs, and in six months I must say I got better (well I'm still the same sh1t, just with a little more knowledge). Still the style I'm trying to recreate, even if it's easy, I can't get it quite well...

Thanks everyone!
 
Some common elements in a song structure are [Intro][Verse][Chorus], add optional [Bridge] between those to merge the parts or transitions, and a similar usage can be done with [Instrumental] or [Melodic Solo], then [Outro] to finish the track. I think the terms are pretty self explanatory and since you studied music theory i'm not going into details.

Speaking about putting melodies together, i think that creativity, personal taste and using ears is what will decide the outcome.

The "noize" or bad sounding could also be due to a bad mixing, or volume peak distorsion.
 
my first question on the forum (how big is it!? so many topics

Music Theory isn't as big as you think. Intervals, Scale Degrees, Key Signatures, Time Signatures, Diatonic Harmony. Major Scales, Minor Scales, Modes, Secondary Dominants, Modulation, Modal Interchange etc... The thing about theory is that once you get past the fundamentals some concepts can get complex such as voice leading and counterpoint. Its best to learn the fundamentals first because without those there is no way that you will be able to understand the advanced concepts.

is there a "rule" or some "guidelines" to follow when trying to put together two melodies at same time?

The important thing to remember is that there are no rules in music. Music Theory concepts themselves have rules but that doesn't mean that they can't be broken at any time. Music theory is a tool. Not a prison. That being said music theory is a great tool for improvisation, composition, and especially communication with other musicians. Your question depends on the rhythmic content of the melodies themselves. Is the 2nd melody acting as a harmony of the 1st melody or is it acting as a counter melody? If the rhythmic figures are different then its a counter melody. If the rhythmic content is the same then you're beginning to deal with harmony. For the latter I suggest you look into studying Diatonic Harmony which can give you an idea of some guidelines that can help you when harmonizing two notes at the same time. As for dealing with the interaction of two rhythmically independent melodies I'm sorry to say that I don't know yet. It has to do with counterpoint which does have quite a bit of rules.

Let's say I have a piano melody (in minor) and a synth melody (in the relative major)


You can only have one key. You can't have two melodies in different keys at the same time. The key of a song is determined by its tonal center not by the melodies. A melody can imply a certain tonal center such as major or minor but you can never be in minor and major at the same time. I suggest getting yourself a book on music theory/harmony because from this statement its already apparent that you don't have a complete understanding of key signatures.

Maybe trying to make the melodies similar? As: same intervals somewhere, or same movement?

Once again this is completely up to you. Music theory isn't an answer to every decision that you plan on making. Its easy to tell whether the song itself needs work. A bad song with great mixing is still a bad song. What I do sometimes is adjust the melody according to the bass line or the chord tones. If you want an example of what this sounds like then look up Burn My Heart & TFFB by Galneryus. Like I said understanding Diatonic Harmony is necessary to even understand this.

As an example of this lets say we are in the Key of C Major. The notes in a C Major 7 Chord are C E G and B. If the Melody is based off of these chord tones then it's going to sound correct relative to the chord being played underneath. However the introduction of the other notes diatonic to C major which are D, F, and A are also necessary in order to introduce tension. And if you want to break the rules then you can use the non diatonic notes which are the notes that aren't found in the key.


 
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dannydawiz said:
You can only have one key. You can't have two melodies in different keys at the same time. The key of a song is determined by its tonal center not by the melodies. A melody can imply a certain tonal center such as major or minor but you can never be in minor and major at the same time. I suggest getting yourself a book on music theory/harmony because from this statement its already apparent that you don't have a complete understanding of key signatures.
Click to expand...

There is no rule that says you can't have more than one key operating, it is just that inmost situations, it does not sound good, so most folks stick to the one key /scale concept. I do not dispute the rest of what you have written, but please if you are going to say things like you can only have one key - at least say why and how and why this is not an absolute, but a great rule of thumb.......

as for studying this stuff, check out the tutes in my sig
 
bandcoach said:
There is no rule that says you can't have more than one key operating, it is just that inmost situations, it does not sound good, so most folks stick to the one key /scale concept. I do not dispute the rest of what you have written, but please if you are going to say things like you can only have one key - at least say why and how and why this is not an absolute, but a great rule of thumb.......

as for studying this stuff, check out the tutes in my sig
Click to expand...


Thanks for the referral I'll check it out right now actually. :)

I think you misunderstood what I said. You can borrow notes and chords from other keys but that doesn't mean that when you do. you are in two keys at the same time.

I'm here to learn in the first place so If you can prove to me why I'm wrong I'll change my mind immediately.

So you ask why can't there be more than two keys going on at once?

The key of a song is determined by its Tonal Center. There can't be more than two tonal centers going on at the same time. Sure you can have a song that is written in A minor but just because its notes are relative to C major doesn't mean that you're in both keys at the same time. The tonal center of the song can change through modulation but thats just establishing a new tonal center such as changing from C major to F Major. You can borrow chords from the parallel minor which would be C Minor but that doesn't mean that there are two keys going on at the same time.

Why is this absolute?

There can only be one tonal center going on at the same time. You can't have two tonal centers happening at once. Sure you can borrow notes or chords from different keys which imply a change in the tonal center but if your in the Key of C major and you played a C Major > Eb Major > CMajor you are still in the key of C even though that Eb major was borrowed from parallel C Minor.

EDIT: Nevermind. Just discovered the existence of Polytonality. I admit that I'm wrong I apologize.
 
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You understand my point - polytonality, however is a very specialised form of hamronic argument and needs to be prepared at all sorts of levels to even begin to work.

For those looking for some insight into waht it can sound like, find Stravinksy's Rite of Spring (le Sacre du primtemps) or anything by Charles Ives and some material by Darius milhaud. Dave Brubeck and other jazz artists of the 40's and 50's who studied with Milhaud and Stravisnky (I studied under a student of Milhaud who one day when ill, sent him and Brubeck around to Stravinsky's place without telling them who they were seeing; they were very pleasantly surprised when they realised), use polytonality in a limited manner in their later jazz work..

At any rate, polytonality is why you can have more than one key, but it does not mean that you abandon all sense of tonality, rather you are working in two or more key centres at once.

I'll do up a better tute on it for next week......
 
Wooow! Thanks to everyone!
First, thanks to bandcoach for the useful links, faved!

I know a lot of songs that use this method (they're not masterpiece...). Here's a MIDI of Always and forever from Splash. The song itself is very simple, the melody even simplier. The fact is: the piano part is played in minor (A minor in this case) and the melody in major (C). They're relative scales (from what I know), since they share the same notes but start on different notes. IIRC the relative minor is the sixth degree of the major. Anyway there are only small parts of the song where you can hear both melodies at same time.

I hope I explained well my point. I'd like not to go in the harmony part and whatever, since I'm an amateur I try to do my best with the actual knowledge. Sometimes I do some chords progression, but I like to start a melody without a "harmony under it"...

PS: Sorry for the bad english, and thank again you both =)

MIDI: mediafire (DOT) com/download.php?6470uxondakotyq
 
I hate having to tell you this, but the melody and the piece are both in C major - the chord progression is Am-F-C-G (vi-IV-I-V)

I've highlighted the parts of the melody that are based within each chord to illustrate what I have just written

[mp3]http://www.bandcoach.org/fp/audio/splashAAF.mp3[/mp3]

splashAAF.png


You seem to have decided that each line is a separate horizontal entity and ignored the possibility of any vertical alignment or confluence:

Listening to the extract it is clear that there is a chord progression in play and that the melody and accompaniment are both referencing the same chord progression
 
Totally missed that a chord progression hasn't to start on the first chord...
Many thanks Bandcoach!

Now I have another view on lots of pieces, lol ^^
Thank you
 
splash and boosterz had a similar song structure which was common on ea back in those days. 16-32 bar intro with some cheesy vocal, break it down into a quiet pad or bell arpeggio then you had an octaving style bassline over the main offbeat bass which usually followed the chord progression.
for the sounds boosterz used reason and splash used FL with plugins like z3ta, fm7, sytrus and vanguard.
 
most hands up producers i knew went to other genres, look up justin corza and morty simmons on facebook. that old splash sound has kinda died out though
 
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