The melody is the aspect of your song that will immediately excite or bore your audience. It doesn’t take long to recognize that a tune is emulative, repetitive, lacking in creativity or just plain boring. Is there a way to learn to write great melodies? I’m not sure. I was asked recently if songwriting was gifting or training. It’s a good question, one without an easy answer. My reply was that it’s like seeing natural physical coordination in a child and knowing how that gift might be trained for football, baseball or gymnastics. I suppose my answer is that writing great songs is both a gift and a learned skill.
Too many aspiring songwriters rely on their natural musical gift and are lazy about increasing their skill or putting much work into songwriting. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating; writing great songs is work and you’ll only get better by learning about it and exercising your musical muscles. If you have a knack for a melody, you, too, can be George Gershwin! Are you willing to put the time and effort in that he did to get where he got? Read More
