There are so many different ways to approach composing a melody. Sometimes we generate ideas using an instrument, or we come up with a chord progression and improvise over the top. For some students, they need a structure to start with, and they can then create a melody more easily. This scaffolded approach will help students to go from Chords to Melody using Soundtrap.
This blog will not only consider how you can go from chords to melody, but also how to use the assignment feature within Soundtrap. this will allow you to create a chord progression that students can then use to build their own melody. Chords to Melody is a Sound Advice for Soundtrap blog designed to help with the teaching of melody.
Start with knowledge
This term I start with teaching students what chords, triads and progressions are. We look at and listen to harmony, considering how chords are created, and what it means to be in a key. This knowledge is crucial, and I use guitars and listening work to help them understand. They can play the chords on the guitar, but they aren’t “learning the guitar” as such. They are learning to recognise major and minor chords, as well as learning what a chord progression is.
My advice therefore is to start with musical knowledge as a building block for this work. You will then be giving the students a chord progression that they will use to create a melody. This chords progression could begin on paper or in a score writing piece of software such as Sibelius.
Chord Progressions
Chord progressions is something that students should be aware of before starting on this project. There are various ways of approaching this. I start with the knowledge and then apply this to the guitar work. They learn the chords and we create a standard progression of I V vi IV. They learn to understand the use of Roman numerals and then move to Sibelius to create a chord progression and a baseline.
Once they have this progression we export the MIDI to Soundtrap and they can then start to alter the instruments and add a drum beat. This whole process not only embeds the progressions in their mind, but teaches them some important processed using DAWs.
Here is the chord progression I V vi IV in Soundtrap with a bass-line.
If you are unfamiliar with how to use Soundtrap for MIDI or how to work with the Piano roll then please see this blog for advice. Note that in each bar I have 4 crotchet beats for each chord. This is important for the melody writing process.
Sharing an assignment
It is a good idea to provide students with the chord progression so they can dive straight in to the “chords to melody” process that I will outline below. This is simple and easy to do in Soundtrap. Once you have created a chord progression, save it to your own Soundtrap. Once saved you can choose to create an assignment by clicking on the button in the top right hand corder of the page.
You now want to select to use a template for your assignment rather than start with a blank one. You then select the chord progression project and share it with a student group. They will then all be able to open this assignment via the messages on the left hand side of their soundtrap.
This will create their own unique copy of the chord progression that they can begin to edit. You will be able to see this student project in a folder on your home screen, allowing you to listen and mark.
That process may sound complicated, but it is really easy to create a project and share it as an assignment.
Melody by numbers
You will all be familiar with the idea of painting by numbers. Whilst maybe not the most creative exercise, you do end up with a painting, learning about colour along the way. This process is a little bit like that, and students are going to create a melody through a specific process.
But again, we must start with knowledge, and this time we need to consider what makes a melody “work”. Playing students some chords with a melody over the top can quickly establish what “sounds good”. Then, play a melody that does not fit with the chords and ask them why it doesn’t.
This will begin to establish an understanding of how harmony and melody work together. They are then going to get the chance to create a melody that will definitely fit with the chords, and this is where the “melody by numbers” idea comes in. But just to avoid confusion, we aren’t using numbers, its just my way of explaining that this is a scaffolded approach to melody writing, the starting point for a wider exploration of composing a tune.
Leave one note
So we have chords and we want to turn them into a melody. So the first step in Soundtrap is to copy the “piano” chords to a solo instrument, maybe an electric guitar or trumpet. We now have 3 notes making up a chord on each beat, 2 notes too many if we are writing a melody. The process is simple, students have to delete two notes from each beat, leaving just one note on each beat, thus creating a melody line.
You can see that I have started this process in the image above. You will of course realise that this melody will therefore only be using notes of the chord and they are all crotchets. But, this is a starting point for students and they can then develop this melody from there. What they have is a framework that they can edit and alter.
Change the Rhythm
Once they have just one note on every beat of the bar, they can start to think about the rhythm of the melody. This is easy for them to adjust in the piano room. They can simply click and drag one of the MIDI signals and either lengthen or shorten the note. They can also copy notes and therefore start to devleop their melody. In the image below you can see that the rhythm has been altered.
Passing notes
Now that we have a melody that fits our chords and is rhythmically interesting, we can think about what passing notes are and how to add them. This can be taught from the front, but then students can experiment by clicking them into the piano roll. It will be visually clear where passing notes might be best placed on the melody, and they can always delete them. This part of the process is potentially going to demand more of the students, but will also be a listening and creative process. They can make mistakes, delete what doesn’t work and just experiment with what sounds good. It is however important that the understand why something doesn’t sound “good”.
Here you can see I have added some passing notes to my melody:
Chords to Melody
This chords to melody process is a fairly simple one, but it is a great starting point for students. Scaffolding composition in this way can be really helpful. Moreover, it is an introduction to how melodies are crafted around harmony. Students will hopefully be able to build on this and develop a melody over the chords that is unique and successful.
More advanced students may wish to create a more advanced chord progression. They may also create a longer melody over 8 bars. There is no end to the process, but at least they all start from the same stage. And don’t forget that they can continue their work at home or own their mobile device.
I hope that you enjoy turning chords to melody and find Soundtrap a useful DAW to complete this process.