Taking your song from 'Meh' to MEGA HIT!

1. Introduction: Taking your song from 'Meh' to Mega Hit!: Hi, everyone. I'm Clare Dove. I've been working professionally in the industry for over 15 years now. I've worked with countless artists, both new and established, including Artful Dodger, Iris Gold, and the Girl Group Flo. Alongside working with artists, I write and sing a lot of music for sync and library. I've created library music for every major music label in the world, including Sony, EMI, and Universal, and have landed countless sync projects for clients such as Netflix and Fox Sports. I've also created multiple vocal sample packs that have been used by tens of thousands of music makers across the world. And I particularly love hearing where these turn up. Now we've got all of that out of the way. Let's get into today's workshop. One of the most common things that comes up is songwriters fearing that their song and specifically their top line, that's the melody and lyric line or the song part starts to become boring. The tricky part is they know some of it works, but don't know which parts to change or how. In this workshop, you will discover three easy top line techniques to keep your song exciting and engaging from start to finish. We'll look at how to notice the signs of when your song is starting to get stuck in one place and, of course, ways to tackle it. We'll be focusing predominantly on applying this to top line melodies, but it's absolutely applicable to all instruments and musical genres. 2. Step 1: Analysing Your Song: Step one is to analyze your melody. Let's have a listen to an example demo that I've made. About enough. Soon as things get tough, you're pushing me. From. Always quick to leave until you're missing me. Seems we got a lot of work to do. I keep trying to fight it. Hard to deny loving what it is to be So I guess I'll have to miss you. Guess I'll have to miss you. I'll just have to miss you instead. So I guess I'll have to miss you. Guess I'll have to miss you. I'll just have to miss you instead I like how it starts, and I really love that melody, but after a while, I feel like it starts to get a little boring. When I take a closer listen, I realize that as I move from verse to pre to chorus, I'm actually still using a lot of the same notes. So for our verse, we're singing, da da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, for the pre chorus. Da da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, that same note. Then in the chorus, I've gone to Durata ta, da, da, da da, da. So my note range is actually really small, and I keep coming back to that. Dare denote. My rhythmic phrasing is also pretty similar in each section. Dera. Wait. Data, wait. Or in the chorus. Da da der. Wait, Dara data space. 3. Step 2: Note Range: Step two is to explore our note range. I'm really going to focus on this first. For now, I'm going to keep the verse as it is and focus on the pre chorus and chorus. This time, when I try out melodies, I'm going to try and avoid the note range that I used in the verse. Always quick to leave until you're missing me. Seems we've got a lot of work to do. I keep trying to fight you. Hard to deny this loving what it used to be so I guess I'll have to miss you. Guess I'll have to miss you. I'll decep to miss you and stay. So I guess I have to miss you. Guess I have to miss you. I'll decep to miss you and stay As you can see, already, that's making a huge difference to the song. We want to utilize the full extent of our range as much as possible when we approach our melodies. This keeps each section feeling new and interesting and helps to build the momentum of the song. 4. Step 3: Rhythm & Phrasing: Step three is to focus on phrasing. I noticed this element often gets overlooked by writers, but it's just as important as our melody and lyrics. Let's listen again to the original phrasing of my demo. About enough. Soon as things get tough and keep trying to fare it. Hard nice. So, guesser, love to miss you. Guesser, love to miss you. I've fallen into a comfortable phrasing pattern really early on, and then I've not really moved on from it much. Each line tends to start on the first beat of the bar and then have a space at the end. Da da, da, da, da, space. One, two, three, space. After a while, this definitely starts to feel a little bit boring. So now I'm going to focus on this element and see how it can transform the song. Always quick to leave until you're missing me. Seems we've got a lot of work to do. I keep trying to fight to fight it. Hard to keep denying all of this. Love W s. So what guess I'll have to miss you, miss you. Guess I'll have to miss you, miss you. Guess I'll have to miss you, Miss you. Miss you instead. Now that the song has a wider range of notes and the phrasing varies throughout each section, it's so much more interesting to listen to and has more life and energy. So to recap, our three steps are, first, analyze the current melody, then start to explore a wider melody range, then experiment with changing the phrasing. You can also play with swapping two and three around and changing the phrasing first. 5. Class Project: Putting it in to Practice!: I'm sure you'll agree that making those changes can totally transform a song. Hopefully, you can also now better identify when a song has started to plateau and know how to solve it. I want you to put all of this into practice, so I'm challenging you to write four unique melodies, paying special attention to the notes and phrasing you use. Step one, Start by recording a loop of simple chords on your preferred instrument or just sing a capella to a metronome if that's more your style. Step two, improvise new melodies over the top. Don't worry about the lyrics. Just focus on the melody and phrasing and use these elements to make each idea totally unique. Step three, see how many you can come up with. I'm challenging you to do four. But if you find yourself on a role, keep going. Thanks for joining me today. I hope you found all of this useful. Good luck and have fun writing.