It’s easy giving advice about stuff but much harder to put the advice into practice yourself. So, with that in mind, just to prove that i do write songs, i include a link to some of my recent efforts.

I do write in a lot of styles from R&B, to Jazz – but these are some of my songs that I am singing and suit more of an English Indie kind of vibe.

Anyhow, just to prove that i a practicing songwriter here they are.

Mega Fantastico Melody Generator

FREE GIFT TO THE WORLD!!!!

I want to give you something for free. But I want you to first turn off all those modern expectations you have that make you only appreciate shiny high tech trickery gizmos that do lots of tricks while you just stand and watch. Because the thing I want to give you isn’t like that at all.

So what is it? You may be asking (if you are even remotely interested and haven’t already decided to browse away!)

Well it’s called the MFMG and its a brilliant tool for helping you to steer your way through the mysterious sea of melody creation.  A Sea that can be incredibly difficult to navigate. A Sea that can drown many a sea faring song-writer in shear possibilties. Overwhelming possible choices of combination of the same 12 notes.

I mean did you ever consider him many possible melodies you can write of 14 notes and less?

Well the answer is: 87 billion possible 14-note melodies

and that’s with  NO rhythmic variations and no note repeated! (With notes repeatable, it’s 11,112,006,825,560,ooo (or 11,ooo trillion- any way back to the MFMG).

So how do you narrow down that many choices to just one song? Your song? Well the real secret is to use your heart or your gut or your dick or your mind – depending of course on what it is you are writing. But if you find that all too confusing and you are not in a truly creative state but want to create nevertheless then YOU NEED MY GIFT!

My crappy – low tech gizmo.

Which is where?

Well – you’ve already received it!

It’s in the photo above you!

That scrappy photo of the letters ABCDEFG in green and the other letters of the alphabet in black. That’s my free gift to you.

I hear you say – Big deal!

Well yes it is! Because it’s is a tool that helps you TIE EMOTION TO NOTES.

Yeah HOW?

Using the Mega Fantastico Melody Generator

OK – I want you to Stop for a moment clear away whatever thoughts you are thinking. GO ON _ DO IT!

Now ask yourself this question – quickly and sincerely  – “Which person in all the world will I miss the most when they are gone?”

Don’t worry – there are no correct answers! I just want you to start feeling something. (Please remember music IS emotion!)

Now write down their name.

The name I thought of was  my daughters name, Claire.

Now take a look at my crappy photo and work through the letters of the name you chose. I will now do this with the word C L A I R E to give you an idea of how the MFMG works.

OK, so  C will stay C because it is in green.(Don’t worry you will figure it out)

L will be E because it is in the E column.

A will stay A because it is green too.

I will be B

R will become D (are you getting it?)

and E will stay E again.

Leaving me with the melodic notes of CEABDE.

Now all you need to do is reach for a piano or guitar and play those notes while thinking about the question you  just asked yourself. Namely, what it would be like to lose that person.

Now play the notes  but while you do so open yourself up to the possibilty that you may be about to write the best love song EVER. (NB _ If you don’t allow for that POSSIBILITY then you never will.)

Once you have done that start experimenting with different (DIATONIC – look it up! or check out Melody in Songwriting: Tools and Techniques for Writing Hit Songs In my list of recommended books to find our what DIATONIC means) chords underneath it! And explore both the notes and the question and the name etc…

Now use that musical feeling as a seed that can be grown into whatever you want it to be.

And if you think this is stupid just think that it was good enough for BACH!

GREAT – now start thinking of your own QUESTIONS and ANSWERS and EMOTIONS.

(Examples being RAGE – AWE – WONDER – LUST.)

NOW CREATE _ CREATE _ CREATE!

(And please help me PROMOTE MY SITE. Leave me a comment!)

Did you know Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday”, the song most often recorded by other artists (over 3000 times) was originally titled “Scrambled Egg”?

Maybe you already know that Mr Mc woke up humming the melody after a particularly fruitful dream (song grossed in excess of 50 million) but what is less well known is P M’s habit of using nonsense words to work with while he was developing his melodies! Nonsense noises and phrases that he would replace afterwards with real words after the heat of creativity had died down.

SO THE NEXT TIME YOU GO TO WRITE A SONG TRY IT!

Play your melodies and while you do mouth out ridiculous nonsense! Words that sound half french – half dutch slang – and half  12 Century Japanese (maths was not my strong point). Create emotional sounding words that have no real meaning but somehow fit inside the melody!

Sometimes you can seriously spoil your flow by trying to use both the left and right brain simultaneously – by getting hung up on literal left brain meaning while you are trying to create intuitive  right brain feeling stuff – like  a melody.

(FOR A GREAT BOOK ON RIGHT BRAIN feeling versus LEFT BRAIN thinking and analyzing CHECK THIS OUT! Totally indispensable to today’s modern creatives!)

By allowing the word sounds to APPEAR out of the music – and by finding great word correlations afterwards -  you will be creating a stronger link between the melody and the words. After all – this IS what the great songs are. Musical phrases and lyrical utterances so intrinsically linked that pulling them apart is like committing an act of sacrilege.

Think of some of them – DUm dum Dummer – Old Man River.

Dum D’Dum – Yesterday

Dum Dum – Hey Jude

etc… you get my gist!

GO AND TRY IT – Discretion is  advisable! So make sure you close the door!

THE DORIAN MODE!

Wow what’s that? The Dorian Mode? The Ipcress File – Quantum of Solace! Is that a spy film?

Well, yes actually the DORIAN MODE does have a relationship with the SPY movie genre as a lot of spy theme tunes (plus cool jazz, cool funk, The Doors) have also been written in the dorian mode.

SO WHAT THE HELL IS THE DORIAN MODE?

Mmm… I’m not going to get into diatonic harmony or the history of modes here (that’s not the job of this site) instead I am going to keep it simple and practical.

So – do this! Play a normal major scale in any key! You should be able to do this!

Play it again and listen to it – it’s quite safe isn’t it? and emotionally rather bland? A bit DO RE MI.

Now do one thing! Find the second note of the scale and call that note HOME. That’s where you will be leaving from and returning too. It’s home – just decide it. Whatever the note is.

Now play a scale again – with ALL the same notes of the previous BLAND scale but starting and stopping (an octave higher) at the second note.

DO IT AGAIN.

UP AND DOWN…………………………..but listen!

Listen to the new emotions!

Is that not cool?

Now play the second chord and fifth chord from the original home key. If it was the key of C the second and fifth chords will be D minor and G major. (work it out!!
Now play the notes above the chords and listen to the tension in the notes. Play the sixth note from the scale against the D minor and the 7th note against the G major – listen and enjoy the clash and the resolve.

NOW WRITE A SONG IN THE COOL BLUE DORIAN MODE (which is what you are now playing!) and if you need any inspiration check out the following songs.

• “Along Comes Mary” by The Association^[4]
• “Drunken Sailor“^[5]
• “Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles^[6]
• “Scarborough Fair“^[5]
• “Milestones” by Miles Davis — The composition takes the form aabba with the a sections in G Dorian and the b sections in A Aeolian.^[7]
• “Down in a Hole” by Alice In Chains^{[citation needed]}
• “Riders on the Storm” by The Doors^{[citation needed]}
• “The End” by The Doors^[8]
• “Smoke on the water” by Deep Purple^[8]
• “The Way I Feel” by Gordon Lightfoot^[8]
• “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot^{[9][contradiction]}
• “So What” by Miles Davis Written in D dorian and E? dorian.^[10]

Here’s a nice little trick to make your songs sound more sophisticated.

Find a simple chord pattern. Let’s say G major to F major to C major. Now sing over those chords the notes E (for the G) – E again for the F and an A note for the C chord. You might think this sounds a little vague or that the notes don’t sit so well with the chords. But now try one thing – try to add the notes you are singing TO the chords you are playing. Which means -

Make the G chord a G6
Make the F chord a Fmajor 7th

and make the C chord a C6.

Now play and sing the whole thing again…

Not only have you tied the melody to the song BUT you have given a dull and gaudy primary colour chord progression a more nuances paint job!

Try working the other way as well by singing the extension notes in a chord sequence and seeing where it takes you MELODICALLY>
For some AWESOME chord progressions check out the following book.

Finding inspiration to write a song is an attitude that starts by  allowing for the possibility, that inspiration might be in the room with you RIGHT NOW.

It’s no good thinking that I will be inspired or creative at ‘such and such a place’ or with these musicians. That’s not the way it works. And you can’t keep putting off the moment!

Instead start hunting around for inspiration WHERE YOU ARE, RIGHT NOW – because believe me, it’s here. RIGHT NOW. Try taking a second look at some of the people, places or things you take for granted, that are around you. Not only will you DEFINITELY find inspiration but it will also make the HUMDRUM things seem that much more significant.

Most of us live our lives on auto pilot. STOP IT. Wake up. Inspiration is all around you – you are the problem that needs fixing – so start looking.

A really good idea is to sometimes work WITHOUT  the GUITAR. I know this sounds like a radical suggestion but it DOES work. Remember you are NOT writing a nice chord progression (which is only harmony)  you are writing something that will stick in someones head – A MELODY. You CANNOT remember a chord (never mind 5) BUT you can remember a sequence of notes – a MELODY – a TUNE!

So what to do? Well it’s simple enough. Try this…

Firstly, sit in front of a recording device. Then try to reconnect with what it is you want to sing about (this is CRUCIAL!!) – find the emotion… THEN.. lose yourself in THAT emotion (emotion’s – can be conflicting). Think about the situation – play the movie in your head. Don’t – I say – DO NOT – try to write a song!!! Songs are ONLY vehicles for emotion – they are HTML code – they are not the THING IN THEMSELVES. Emotion

and Feeling IS>>>

So once you are gone – lost in bliss – or angst – or saucy lustful vibes (don’t worry the imagination is your number 1 TOOL) . Once you are LOST – start singing. Start singing. And PLEASE REMEMBER TO ENJOY YOUR MISTAKES!!!!

That is most important!

After wards you can listen back to the recording for any nuggets. Sift them out from the turds (don’t worry there will plenty of them too – but there has to be – please remember! “You can’t get nuggets without turds”).

Once you have found your – random, odd little, nuggety bit – that defies all traditional SING-OVER-A-CHORD progression horizontal conventions – THEN start to harmonize it – or build up a track beneath it!

For more tips on great melody writing click here.

Click Here!

That’s some question.

What kind of song?

A sea shanty? A tone poem? Two-step?

I’m not gonna even try to second guess which sub-genre you are into instead I am just gonna post up some random posts and links that you can dip into whereever and whenever you feel like!

After all songwriting is NOT logical!

If it were it would be the men in the suits writing the great songs not ta bunch of unreliable freaks and weirdos the men with suits secretly hate!
So, without going into too much detail I have split this blog up into a whole schlock of different sections to get you going…

Things such as THEORY OF MUSIC which is NOT boring at all!  but a fantastico colouring box that is getting nailed-down these days.

I will also posting some MUSIC THEORY VIDEOS and stuff about modes. DID YOU KNOW THE 1960′s was the age of the MIXOLYDIAN MODE? Bet you didn’t.

What else will you see here? Mmmm… Stuff on WRITING LYRICS, great ones.

How to write a love song… Music Keys… Music ideas… Song Ideas… Rhyming and rapping…

How to write ORIGINAL SONGS.

How to compose… Songwriting software – what is good and what is not so good! some book reviews and recommendations..

In a NUT SHELL I am here to get you INSPIRED!

Which is what it is all about!!!!

After all WE don’t write the GREAT songs they get written despite us – somehow or another.

All we have to do is keep our EGO’s out of the way! And out they come… HIT after HIT