Try taking a 4-8 measure drum pattern and create a melody to it. You’ll be pleasantly surprised how the “rhythm” will shape your melodic elements. Sometimes I sing to them, sometimes I use an instrument. I’ll find a rhythm that attracts me (in my case, I like Latin rhythms) that I play and make up melodies to. Some scoring programs such as Finale also come with drum and percussion patterns you can loop over a period of time. You can get drum or percussion loops (recordings of a measure or so) fee online. With my own songs, I start with a drum or percussion rhythm. If you do not notate your music, make up something and improvise some variations much like a jazz scat singer might do, though it does not have to sound jazzy. You can move a quarter-note a bit left or right – anticipate, suspend. If you can write it down in notation, do so and then try different rhythms. So, how to make a rhythm for a song? What you may want to try is to make up a simple melody. Some popular music has little to no actual melody! How to Write Music With Rhythm Of course, some of this also depends on the style you are working in. Musicians often get into complicated chords and other things, such as “production-recording” and fail to remember that the melody (pitch applied to rhythm), in songwriting is usually the most important element and that the rhythm is what gives the melody its greatest character. The above example is merely to point out something which is: Do not underestimate the power of rhythm to bring character to your music, especially in your melodies. Rhythm can get complicated, but in most popular music, rhythm is in what we call 4/4, 3/4 or 6/8 meter (a simple explanation of meter is: beats in each measure). In general it is rhythm that brings the most character to the music. If you’d like to hear it, there is a video featuring the voice of Morgan Freeman called “The Christmas Scale” that uses this same example. The example on the right is the exact same pitches (tones if you will) but with a different rhythm – that is the only difference! The result is the opening melody of the Christmas carol “Joy to the World”. If you do not read music, the example on the left is a major scale going downward. Rhythm is the basic element of music and in many ways the most important element of music.Ī simple example of how important rhythm is this: Today, I would like to talk about rhythm. Elton John is a case of a composer who does not write lyrics, but writes music to someone else’s pre-existing lyrics. In my case, I have written instrumental songs that lyrics were added later by someone else and I have also created music to pre-existing lyrics. Though many songwriters do both, many others do one or the other and collaborate with someone else. You do not have to be a master of both music and lyrics to be a songwriter.
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