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A colleague of mine was once asked what music was. His reply was, “Anything written with musical intent.” In context, his answer made sense, considering that the conversation the group of us were having was concerning John Cage’s 4’33″, a piece of music written for any instrument, the main instruction being that the player was not to actually play the instrument at all, for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. (Yes, there are several YouTube videos of various “performances”, like this one from the BBC, that you can “listen to”).

But considering that the title of that piece of music included a timing – 4 minutes and 33 seconds – my colleague amended his answer to be, “Anything written with musical intent, that takes time.“

This may seem to be straying somewhat from the topic of songwriting, but in fact that last bit, that music “takes time”, is an important feature of all music. When we write music, we’re creating a musical journey that occupies an audience, and requires us to hold their attention for a specified period of time.

But simply “taking time” won’t do in songwriting. Whether we’re aware of it or not, it’s the power of opposite ideas that generates interest in the world of pop music. Creating opposites within a song feels natural, and will go a long way to getting listeners to come back to your song.

Enticing an audience to want to listen to your song over and over again – that’s probably the trickiest part of songwriting. In the case of 4’33″, it’s the novelty and cheekiness of the performance that audiences find beguiling. But in songwriting, it’s usually the power of opposite ideas that pulls listeners in.

Most great songs will place opposites near each other: a soft part here, a loud part there… that sort of thing. And it doesn’t just apply to pop songs. Symphonies, concertos, jazz ballads, Classical string quartets… they all make great use of the juxtaposition of contrasting elements to produce listener interest.

Besides placing something quiet near something noisy, what other “opposites” should you be thinking of as you write your next song? Here’s a quick list:

1. Melodic range: There is a natural tendency to have lower melodies of the verse followed by higher ones in the chorus.
2. Melodic shapes: Look at the short melodic motifs that comprise the verse of your song, and try creating melodic ideas for the chorus that reverse the direction. An example I like to give is clearly demonstrated in Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me“, which has downward-moving shapes at the beginning of the verse, followed by upward-moving ones in the pre-chorus.
3. Melodic rhythms: We’re usually concentrating on the notes of a melody, but the rhythm of your melody is a vital part of song energy. The general rule is to use shorter rhythmic values in the verse, and longer ones in the chorus. That way, you’re generating energy with the quick notes, and allowing longer notes to accompany the more emotive words of the chorus.
4. Harmonies: There are several ways to use the concept of “opposite” when it comes to your chord choices: 1) Try mainly minor chords for your verse, major for your chorus; 2) Create a chord progression that sounds good both forwards and backwards. Then try one direction for the verse, the other for the chorus. 3) Create a verse progression that uses a downward-moving bass line, and one that uses an upward-moving bass line for the chorus.
5. Instrumentation: There can sometimes be a dangerous “sameness” if you use the same instrument played the same way for the entirety of a song. Try adding instruments in a chorus, or play them in a different way in various sections of your song. (i.e., finger style in one part, strummed in another)

A song without contrasts is a tough sell. Even if all you do is create a quiet section, followed by a louder one, you’re demonstrating the power of opposites, and that concept goes a long way to creating hit songs.

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Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website.
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In the last blog post I wrote about one of the most common problems I saw in young songwriters, which was a serious flaw in the sense of structure and form of their music. I mentioned that the main symptom of bad structure is a song that seems to have no climactic moment; no obvious point to where the song energy is building. A badly-written melody can be both a cause and a symptom of bad song structure. Just as song energy needs to feel that it’s got a purpose and a direction, good melodies need to have a goal.

But with melodies, there’s more at stake than simply giving it a high point. Melodies almost always need a crucial ingredient to keep them from sounding like they’re wandering aimlessly: they need repetition.

Most listeners are not aware that many of the world’s best melodies are made up of small repeating cells, or motifs, that get strung together to form a longer melody. A brilliant current example is Adele’s “Set Fire to the Rain.” The verse melody is 16 bars long, but in fact it’s merely a 4-bar melody that gets played 4 times, each repetition an almost-exact replica of that original 4-bar fragment.

The climactic moment occurs at the beginning of the chorus, where the high point of the melody occurs. There’s a 2-bar melodic cell that then moves downward twice. These are not literal repetitions: each time the melody moves down it gets modified, but we hear a strong similarity between each iteration of the fragment.

With very little new material, she’s able to create an entire verse and chorus melody.

Repetition has been a key ingredient for many great melodies in pop history. Here’s a short list of songs to check out that have long melodies that feature short melodic fragments that get repeated many times. Each song uses repetition in a different way – sometimes using literal repeats, sometimes approximate repeats, sometimes repeating ideas but starting on a  different note, and so on. But in each case longer melodies are created by stringing together shorter ones:

• Fire and Rain (James Taylor)
• Higher Ground (Stevie Wonder)
• Hotel California (The Eagles)
• What I Am (Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians)
• Walking on the Sun (Smash Mouth)

So what do we learn from this? The most important point is that repetition gives structure to an otherwise wandering melody. Repetition allows listeners to easily remember what they’ve heard. And in hit song writing, where the hook can be a crucial part of the appeal, repetition is vital.

As you begin work on your next melody, write a short 1- or 2-bar melody. Then see if you can string those fragments together into a longer melody. Sometimes it works to use the same chord progression as a harmonization for each repetition, as with “Set Fire to the Rain.” But sometimes you can repeat the fragment with different chords underneath, like “Higher Ground.”

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Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website.
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Back in 2003 I started doing research into pop music in preparation for writing “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting.” At that time, I had a number of students in my theory classes at Dalhousie University who were songwriters. They were keen to show me the songs they were working on, and I was very interested to help them. In fact, my desire to help them improve is what led to me writing my text on songwriting.

To help me organize the book, I made a list of the seven most common errors I was seeing in the songs that my students were writing. Right at the top of the list, I wrote what I considered to be the most common error: the form of the song is confusing.

The form, or structure, of a song is something that listeners don’t often take overt notice of. That’s because structure does its work from the background. It supports the more noticeable elements such as melody, lyrics and harmonies. Architects know that a building needs a solid structure. And they also know that when the structure is solid, it’s not often what you notice. Structure stays in the background, while attractive design elements grab the attention.

To many, a song’s structure refers to how you’ve organized verses and choruses. That’s true, but there’s more to it than that. Just as tall buildings rise to a point, a song needs to have a similar focal point, what we call the climactic moment. Check out this list and see if your songs are being weakened by faulty song structure.

1. Songs usually need a climactic moment. Climactic moments are easy to create when you write in a verse-chorus form, because choruses tend to naturally grab more attention. But if your song is sectional without being verse-chorus (i.e., if you’ve written a song that’s in ABC… form, where there are no choruses as such), you still need to think about where to put a climactic moment.
2. Structure is strengthened when you build energy upward. Listeners need to perceive a gradual building of energy as it leads up to the climactic moment. That building of energy can come purely from the lyric, but needs to come from something.
3. A song can have more than one climactic moment. But in cases where there are several “big moments”, there needs to be one that seems to take precedence. Buildings can have several peaks, but the one in the middle often rises higher. So too in music. A good example is “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, where the end of each refrain represents a noticeable climactic moment, but the one at the end of the final refrain is bigger than all the others.
4. The biggest climactic moment needs to be nearer the end than the beginning of a song. Listeners need to feel that even though they’ve just heard something big, something bigger is coming. It keeps them listening.
5. Repetition is a crucial part of solid song structure. Nothing strengthens a song like providing something that the audience has heard already. Too much repetition is boring, but no repetition of musical ideas leaves people feeling like they’re on a wandering journey with no goal. So in and around a song’s climactic moment, allow for the repetition of melodies and motifs.

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Sometimes a song will become a hit to the surprise of the writers, performers and producers. But so-called “sleeper hits” – songs that rise to hit status unexpectedly – are actually not all that common. Suffice it to say, songs are usually greater than the sum of their parts, and so it can be a little bit unpredictable to determine which songs will become hits. But producers usually know which songs are going to grab listener attention. And it usually has to do with the hook.

But it’s not so simple, or else the instruction would be: just write a good hook and you’ve got a good song. The problem is that a catchy hook has a way of dumbing a song down, and so you need to be careful.

So in what way does a hook dumb a song down? It’s probably a poor choice of words, because it doesn’t have much to do with the song being poorly written. But a great hook has a way of making other aspects of a song fade into the background a bit, while the hook stands out and grabs all the attention. It can appear that songs with good hooks don’t have a lot else going for it – sometimes an unfair judgment.

A hook will tend to grab attention whether the rest of the song is great or not. And in fact, a catchy hook can come across as being inappropriate for that reason. Many songs are really fine works on their own, without the need for an attention-seeking hook.

But hooks do tend to be a requirement of most songs that become Billboard hits. And there’s a clear reason for that. Hits are all about sales first, songwriting quality second. That’s not to say that a hit song can’t be both, and often is. But making sales (or getting online clicks) requires people coming back. And people won’t come back if there isn’t something that pulls them back.

That something is usually the hook. It can be the song title, (“Born in the USA”, “Moves Like Jagger”), a background instrumental lick (“Smoke on the Water”), or anything else that grabs attention. For that reason a hook needs to be short, easy to remember, and catchy.

And it’s a vital part of hit song writing.

If your aim is to write and ultimately market your music as something with hit potential, the hook serves that need by being immediately attractive and memorable. It’s like trying to improve a boring house that you’re trying to sell. One way to do it is to simply make improvements to the house, which people may or may not notice right away. The other way is to put a 20-foot-high fountain in the front yard. Instant gratification that helps you ignore (at least temporarily) the quality of the house.

Remember the two most important aspects of any hook: keep it short, and make it catchy. And if you can weave the hook into the title of your song, so much the better.

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Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website.
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If you’ve been writing songs for a while, you’ll notice something about chord progressions: they all tend to point to one particular chord as being the harmonic goal. That harmonic goal is the key of your song. So if your song is in G major, the chord progressions are going to move away from and toward G. It’s not unlike all the little walks you take during a normal day: they take you away from and toward your house. Just as your house will be the ultimate goal of most of your walks, the G chord is the harmonic goal of most of your progressions.

If that progression is relatively simple, and clearly revolves around G major, it’s considered a strong progression. If it wanders a bit, maybe strays off the beaten track a little, we call that a “fragile” progression. And it’s important to know when to use each type of progression.

Strong progressions are the most common type you’ll find in pop music. That’s because it’s in keeping with the style to not venture too far afield with your chord choices. Pop music usually has a noticeable groove, and chords that move in predictable ways are an important part of that groove.

Fragile progressions, when we do find them, are more likely to show up in the verse and in the bridge – the short section that optionally appears after the second chorus.

As mentioned, a fragile progression is one that tends to wander a bit, and makes the harmonic goal a little bit ambiguous. They can be very charming, but at the same time a little harmonically vague, in the sense that the key of the song is not being strongly indicated.

Here’s an example of a strong progression in the key of G major, a progression that makes it very clear that G is the harmonic goal:

STRONG: G  Em  C  D7  G [CLICK to listen in a new browser window]

Here’s an example of a fragile progression, where the harmonic goal is a little less obvious:

FRAGILE: G  D  F  C  Am  Bb  C  D  G [CLICK to listen]

As you can see, the fragile progression does one thing that the strong progression does: it starts and ends on G. But the fragile one takes a little side-journey that makes C sound like the tonic for a short while, before making G the clear objective.

Fragile progressions are arguably more interesting, because of the harmonic side-journey. But be careful how you use them. You can leave listeners feeling a little lost if your music is overrun with fragile progressions.

Not all songs need fragile progressions, and in fact many hit pop songs use primarily strong progressions. “We Found Love“, by Calvin Harris (performed by Rihanna) uses the same progression (and melody) for the verse and the chorus: Ebm  Cb  Gb  Db/Ab.

Adele’s hit, “Set Fire to the Rain,” uses this as a verse progression: Dm  F  C  Gm, and a similar one as a chorus: Dm  C  Gm  Dm  C. Both progressions are relatively strong progression. The only aspect of the verse progression that is vague is the purposeful ambiguity between major and minor: is the key D minor or F major? But the chords stay within that relative major/minor relationship.

A couple of reminders regarding the use of strong/fragile chord progressions:

1. One way a progression is fragile is if it strays away from the original key a bit (as in the fragile example I used above). So in those cases remember that you need time to get the progression back to the original key.
2. In songs that use fragile progressions, it feels right to follow fragile with strong, and not the other way around. So verses can use fragile progressions, but should then be followed up by strong progressions in the chorus.

One way to introduce a sense of “fragility” in a progression is to use chord inversions (slash chords). So you can take a strong progression like G  Am  C  D7  G, and put one or two of the chords in an inversion: G  Am/C  C  D7/C  G/B

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Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website.
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Verses differ from choruses in several ways. It’s easy to notice things like melodic range: we know that chorus melodies tend to be higher in pitch than verse melodies. We also know that verse lyrics will tend to be descriptive of people and situations, while choruses tend to allow a more emotional response. The difference also extends to rhythm, particularly as it relates to melody and background instrumentation. Verses (especially first verses) will benefit from more complexity such as syncopation (off-beats) and other rhythmic devices, allowing the chorus to settle in and make the basic beat more obvious.

Lots of songs do this, and current hit “Not Over You“, written by Gavin DeGraw and Ryan Tedder, is a good model. The structure of the song is a basic verse-chorus-bridge design, with a simple piano-percussion accompaniment, so it’s easy to analyze and hear what’s going on.

The piano intro alternates between on-the-beat and off-the-beat articulations:

Because the left hand plays in rhythmic unison (i.e., the same rhythm) with the right, it’s not easily clear where the beat is.

When the vocal line begins, you notice that the syncopations continue, with an alternation between on-the-beat and off-the-beat rhythmic cells. And the first vocal line ends on the weak part of beat 3, further veiling the rhythm. In other words, there’s a purposeful attempt to make the rhythmic patterns and groove of the song a bit ambiguous:

As I mentioned, this kind of thing is not uncommon at all in verses. Ambiguity (what I’ve often called “fragility”) works well in verses, because it goes hand-in-hand with the recounting of a story.

Choruses, however, usually need to solidify. In the case of rhythm you have two choices: 1) either allow the syncopated rhythms to be replaced with a strongly on-the-beat melody; or 2) continue with a chorus melody where syncopation is an important motif, but accompany it with strong on-the-beat backing accompaniment.

In the case of “Not Over You”, they opt for the second approach. Syncopation remains an important rhythmic idea, but everything becomes much more rhythmically solid with the introduction of a strong half-note pseudo-bass drum effect that makes it absolutely clear where the beat lies.

For verse 2, rhythmic syncopation remains an important structural tool for the melody, but the bass drum remains, strengthening the underlying rhythmic structure. It works well: songs should generally move from fragile to strong.

This concept of rhythmic treatment can be a tricky one, because we usually want words to come out in a very natural way. Forcing words into unnatural rhythmic patterns can compromise their effect on listeners, and your lyric’s emotional potential.

So be certain that any rhythmic ideas you use allow you to pulse words in a natural way. Experimenting with a bit of rhythmic ambiguity in the verse can be a great way to increase the emotional impact of your chorus.

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Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website.
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The key that you choose for your song has more to do with your (or your performer’s) vocal range than anything else. That original key choice is a whole topic that requires considerable thought. There’s a notion that you should choose a key that allows your voice to reach all melody notes easily. But good performers know that you sometimes want to sing in the highest range possible, even if it means straining to get those notes out. But that’s an entirely different topic. What we want to look at right now is how to change key in the middle of a song, and why you’d do it.

Putting a key change within your song will usually dramatically alter song energy. Listeners get used to a key, and even though most of your audience doesn’t really know much about music, they know enough to know when chords belong, and when they don’t.

In other words, most people can say that “something just happened” when a key changes, even though they can’t usually say what it was.

So you can use that awareness to your advantage. Changing key can bring a song to life. But it can be done well or badly, so check out the following 7 tips for doing key changes:

1. Changing from minor to major. This is a common musical device, involving writing a verse in a minor key, and then switching to relative major for the chorus. The minor to major shift has the advantage of brightening the overall mood of a song. ADVICE: Use the bVII of the minor to make the change to major. Example: From the key of A minor to C major: Am  G  Am  Dm  Em  Am  G___||C  G  C  F…
2. Changing from major to minor. This is less common, because switching to minor can tend to feel like a bit of a downer. But in songs that have considerable instrumental energy it can put a desirable edge on the feel of a song. ADVICE: It can work to do a switch to the relative minor (i.e., switching from C major to A minor), but it can also add the energy you’re likely looking for by doing a switch to the parallel minor (i.e., from C major to C minor). Example: Relative Minor: C  F  G  Em  Am  G  Em___ || Am  G  Am… or Parallel Minor: C  F  G  Am  D7  F  G||Cm  Gm  Cm… 
3. Moving key up by a semitone or whole tone. Be careful with this one, because it can sound tired and trite very quickly. Many listeners interpret this kind of modulation as a cheap way to get an energy boost. ADVICE: It’s relatively easy to make this modulation work: simply end a progression with the dominant chord (the V-chord) of whatever key you want to move to. Example: Semitone modulation: C  F  G  C  Ab  ||Db  Gb  Ab… Whole tone modulation: C  F  G  C  A7  ||D  G  A…
4. Avoid downward modulations. It’s not that they can’t work, but they’re definitely trickier. ADVICE: Try sliding into the new lower key at an unexpected moment, like in the mid-point of a progression. Example: C  Am  Dm  F  Gb7  F  C/E  F7  ||Bb  Eb  Bb…
5. Modulations that build energy should be accompanied by an intensifying lyric. We know that all aspects of a song need to work together. The energy that comes with upward key changes can sound odd and out-of-place if the lyric doesn’t intensify. ADVICE: Lyrics need to ride the energy wave created by a key change.
6. Most modulations feel more natural at structurally important places. In other words, it’s hard to make sense of a modulation that happens near the beginning of a verse. ADVICE: The most common places for key changes are at the change between verse and chorus, or in final repeats of a chorus.
7. Most songs don’t need a key change. And in fact, since key changes result in rather distinctive moments, they can sound predictable and hackneyed if used too often. ADVICE: Look for other ways to boost song energy, like intensifying instrumentation, moving the melody line higher, and increasing volume.

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Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website.
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If you’re like most songwriters, you’ve probably got a ton of musical bits that don’t have a home yet. Snippets of melody, a great bit of lyric, a chorus with nothing else… that kind of thing. And it’s frustrating, because those fragments of music probably arose from moments of great musical inspiration, and then – nothing. It’s important not to obsess about this sort of thing, because it’s normal for people in the songwriting field to have bits of ideas that haven’t come together yet into a fully-fledged song. But there are things you can do to increase your musical output and make it more likely that the songs you start will get finished.

I’ve mentioned this list of ideas before, but I like to remind songwriters of it every now and then, because it’s very important. The five items on the list relate to a vital quality that all songwriters need: discipline.

The sooner you can organize your creative life, and make songwriting something that you do regularly, and not just when you feel inspired, the easier music composition will be for you. And though I’ve mentioned this list several times before, it’s a good idea to check it every now and then, and make sure that you’re incorporating the ideas here into your daily life.

So check out these 5 important ways that successful songwriters keep the creative juices flowing:

1. Create a dedicated writing time. Designating a certain time of the day as your time to write is probably the most important step to instilling discipline into your creative life. It doesn’t matter what time of day, but be sure that it’s a time that you don’t have to negotiate on with others. And be certain it’s a time that you can stick to for at least 5 out of 7 days a week.
2. Make songwriting games and short creative tasks a regular part of your writing regimen. I’ve offered some ideas before about how this might work. These kinds of games are a great way to stay creative when you’re suffering through writer’s block, but it can and should be a small part of your daily writing practice. Why not start every writing session with a short writing challenge before moving on to the song you’re currently working on.
3. Keep a recording device or note pad with you to record any musical ideas that pop into your mind. You really never know when songwriting ideas will occur to you, such is the nature of the creative mind. It’s frustrating when you think of something, but have no way of preserving it for your writing session later on.
4. Never throw out failed music. Some musical ideas can seem rather lame, but that doesn’t mean that they’re useless. Quite often, music that just doesn’t work just needs to be reworked or put away for a while before you figure out how to use it.
5. Make listening a regular part of your life, even (or particularly) music that you don’t normally like. If all you do is listen to the music that comes from your favourite genre, you miss out on opportunities to expand your musical mind. Music that comes from other styles has a different sound, a different approach. It will surprise you how inspiring it can be to listen to music that sounds different from what you’re used to. Inspiring, and often exciting.

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Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website.
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When songwriters go looking for a “killer” progression, what they’re really looking for is something that’s unique, and something that really clicks with the melody. But uniqueness can sometimes, or often, lead to shaky progressions. Whether we like it or not, what makes progressions work is a good dose of predictability. It’s OK to have moments where strange, unpredictable things happen, but strong progressions that are mainly predictable are the ones that really grab attention.

For many songwriters, however, all they’re looking for is something that they know works. Every time. Check out the following chord progression tips & tricks. They’ll give you a basic idea for why good progressions work, and how to fix bad ones.

1. Your song’s chord progressions will usually need to have an obvious harmonic goal. In other words, if your song is in A major, the chords will work together to make the A chord sound like the tonic.
2. The strongest progressions use chords whose roots are a 4th or 5th apart, and strongly indicate the key of your song. That’s why the circle of fifths progression is so strong, and so often used by composers of all types of music.
3. So-called “fragile” progressions are ones where the intended key is not clearly indicated by the chords you’ve chosen. For example, if your verse is harmonized by moving back and forth between Em and Dm, it’s not really obvious what the key might be (C major? E minor? A minor (aeolian mode?), etc.) Fragile progressions are by no means bad. In fact, they can be quite lovely. But fragile verse progressions are best followed up with stronger chorus progressions.
4. Predictability in chords is not a negative quality. It’s why they’re called progressions, and not successions. Especially in pop song genres where you want to build a large audience base, you want your chords to be mainly predictable (strong), with only occasional moments of surprise.
5. The tonic chord is usually the most common chord in a progression. The V-chord is next in popularity, then the IV-, vi- and ii-chords. The iii-chord and the vii-chord are usually least used.
6. A melody that uses only the notes of a major or minor scale can be harmonized by using the I-, IV- and V-chords. In other words, if your song is in A major, and the notes you sing all come from that scale (A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G#), the melody can be harmonized with the A, D and E chords.
7. To make a chord progression more creative, consider diatonic chord substitutions as a first option, altered chords as a second option. In other words, if you want a more creative option to a standard I-IV-V-I progression, try substituting the given chords with others from your chosen key. So try I-ii-V-I, I-ii-iii-I, etc. If that doesn’t work for you, try some altered chords (i.e., chords that require sharp or flat adjustments: I-bVII-V-I, I-iv(minor)-V-I, etc.
8. Avoid consecutive chords where the melody note is the same as the bass note. In other words, if your melody starts with the three notes A-C#-E, avoid using I-iii-V (A  C#m  E) as your progression.
9. Create chord progressions that allow the bass line to move independent of the melody. It feels natural to hear bass lines moving in contrary motion to the melody, but here are 2 other options: bass line moving obliquely (i.e., the melody repeats the same note while the bass moves) and in similar direction (i.e., both bass and melody moving in the same direction, but by a different interval.
10. Use chord inversions (“slash chords”) to smooth out a jumpy bass line, or to add “interest” to a boring progression. Don’t simply throw chord inversions into the progression with no good reason for them. Inversions work best if there’s a reason. And the best reasons are to fill in a leap (i.e., change C  G  Am to C  G/B  Am), or to add interest by avoiding the same chord over and over again (i.e., change C  C  C  F to C  C/E  C  F)

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Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website.
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There’s nothing like succeeding in writing an “ear worm” – a melody that grabs hold of a listener and won’t let go. It’s very hard to define why some melodies do that to us, why some melodies just seem to go around and around in our brains. It can annoy us, but most of the time it’s because we thoroughly enjoy that melody on some level. Good song melodies don’t need to be ear worms, but they do need to be memorable.

So what makes a melody easy for the average listener to remember? There are several characteristics. Check out the following list and see if your melodies are making the grade.

1. Good melodies usually have a shape that explores a low and high range. For sure, it’s possible to name great song melodies that dwell around two or three notes, but those are in the minority. Most song melodies, to be memorable, need a shape, something that distinguishes it easily from other songs. Think of the melody for “A Thousand Years“, by Christina Perri, the verse and chorus of which shows beautiful contour.
2. Chorus melodies are usually written to be higher in pitch than verses. The reason for this is that song energy needs to increase as a song moves from the start of a verse to the end of a chorus. Melodic range is a strong generator of song energy/momentum.
3. Memorable melodies consist mainly of stepwise motion, with only occasional leaps. When melodies move by step (i.e., from one letter name to an adjacent letter name), it’s easy for singers to learn and perform. Occasional leaps are great for injecting melodic interest. Again, “A Thousand Years” is a great example.
4. Melodies that are too “leapy” can be hard to sing and hard to remember. Having said that, be sure not to always default to easy melodies. There are great melodies that are not necessarily easy to sing. And a recent example might be “Moves Like Jagger”, who’s principle hook (the whistle-like melody at the beginning) is quite difficult to perform accurately. But in most cases, you’ll want to avoid too many leaps.
5. Good melodies will incorporate a motif. A motif is a short “idea”, a melodic shape that’s easy to sing, and can be added to itself to create a longer melody. A present-day example would be Bruno Mars’ “It Will Rain.” Most listeners won’t be consciously aware that the melody is comprised of an alternating up-and-down motif (“If you ever leave me, baby…”) That motif provides a kind of musical glue that helps the listener make sense of the melody, and keeps it from simply being a wandering of notes that move higher and lower indiscriminately.

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Written by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website.
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