What Makes a Great Melody? - Music Composition

What makes a great melody? What makes a catchy melody? How do you write a good melody? This music composition lesson offers seven top tips on how to write a great melody. We take a look through one of the greatest melodies ever written to illustrate how these tips apply. When writing a melody there are a number of important things to consider in relation to structure, planning keys cadences and modulations, shaping a melody and balancing conjunct with disjunct movement, and adding expressive detail. This video unpacks the key areas then explores Beethoven’s melody writing in his famous “Fur Elise”.

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🕘 Timestamps
0:00 - Introduction to what makes a great melody
0:55 - Planning and structure
5:40 - Keys and modulation
7:11 - Harmonic interest
10:25 - Design the main ideas
11:53 - Conjunct and disjunct movement
13:30 - Voice leading
14:40 - Expressive detail
15:26 - Examples in Beethoven's Fur Elise

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[seanocean]

Absolutely phenomenal.. not only do you go through your points for 20 minutes without messing up a word, you also not skip a beat when playing a piece from sight reading. You’re such a masterful teacher. Thank you. :)

[beverlypalmer]

I will always think of this lesson now every time I play fur elise. Thank you for a wonderful lesson!

[Limbiclesion]

Haunted by the genius of that simple but amazing key progression In Fur Elise. 🙏🙏🏿👍🦄

[frankspears]

I usually either think of a melody in my head or it arises from a chord sequence. I then refine it after listening to it.

[dkoraytuncel]

This is very good teaching. Before I came accross the Music Matters channel I have thought that I would never really undertand music theory. Thanks a lot

[mistral-unizion-music]

Very interesting video and lesson.
I love that you mix both giving tips with examples AND analysing a well known music peice.
Please keep this formula for more of the same type of content! I love it!
As for melody, I just finished a new track and watching this video afterward, I notice the things I got instinctively correct and the ones I could improve. I usually go on with a melody I have in my head and figure out the harmony afterward but keeping in mind a structure is a tip I will apply from now on, as well as all the other ones in this video.
Very helpful. Keep it up Gareth!
Thanks

[iXNomad]

A great melody is the one that you hear once and remember forever...

[Tom-Studios]

Wow. So 90 % plane and 10 % inspiration. Thank you very much for sharing this.

[LohPro]

one thing that has really helped me, is connecting music to speaking. music tells a story or makes a statement, same as when we speak or converse. naturally, when we speak, we take pauses (to reflect or think of what to say next), we sometimes linger on or either get straight to the point. we have commas, colons, dashes, question & exclamation marks. in music, this would equate to cadences, melodic lines intentionally working in & around a scale, etc.

another way i like to think about it is... if we were to converse about music only, not about the weather, a vacation we just took, our job, etc.... that would be like writing melodic lines where the notes intently fall on the "right" beats, rather than having just any old note land anywhere. it would sound dysfunctional. so, if we were to converse about music only, we keep the talk music-related & not get off-topic, or allow the conversation to become dysfunctional.

[patrickmerrick]

I enjoy music composition as a past time.I find your video very encouraging.As you mentioned many of the difficulties that I have encountered. And ways to think more clearly as how to progress with a composition.

[Proghead]

Very good advice! The planning stages are the least intuitive at first but it helps so much to think of the big picture more and more. As someone with ADHD and a million thoughts/possibilities, this helps to stay focused.

[iwright]

Thank you Gareth, your lessons (& Beethoven’s) are very much appreciated . 👍

[pegasovagante]

A very helpful video.
Sometimes one might also think of pitch and of the melodic line as a whole: where are the highest notes? Where are the lowest? How far apart are they? Of course you try to keep in mind the strengths and limitations of the voice or instrument you're writing for.

[maxjohn]

Helpful as always - thank you! When you said, at the beginning, that you'd use a famous piece at the end, I was hoping you might use the slow movement from Beethoven's 5th piano concerto - just the opening orchestral section. What a beautiful melody that is... I'm glad you went for Beethoven anyway! :)

[Visual]

Best video ever on explaining melody 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[CarlosMartinez-grrp]

Great lesson ! Other teachers tend to avoid discussing melody and leave it to the muses. I like this balanced approach.

[rebanelson]

That was an excellent lesson. I'm not likely to write a great melody any time soon but this helps me to understand what makes those great pieces of music so great!

[profsjp]

Really interesting and insightful enabling inspiration through planning and structure.

[johnlorraine]

Awesome descriptive narration while the music is progressing.