Melody First.

Yesterday I brought up the point that melody can come from just playing a chord. When a person creates a melody from an already existing chord, they are able to use whatever part of the scale they would like over it, as long as it sounds good with their ears of course. I think there is yet another way that is just becoming clearer to me, and that is to come up with the melody first.

If you are like everyone, there has been times when you just can't get a melody out of your head. It could be "Like a Virgin" by Madonna. It could be "Wonderwall" by Oasis [this is a great song to sing if you have a different song in your head!]. The point is that the melody is so memorable that you could sing it in the car at the drop-of-a-hat. I have a huge gut feeling that these very singable melodies came first, before there were any chords created for the song.

Try this out:

Take the phrase, "I want to be a lover, I want to be discovered," and hum it in your mind. Randomly put pitches to them. Randomly give one word emphasis over another. After you are singing the same thing over and over, then see if you can put some chords to it.

If you do this, comment back and tell me about your experience!!!