How to Write A Melody For Your Song

You wrote beautiful lyrics but now wandering how to write a melody? Often, the story and message of a song are the most challenging to cultivate. Once you have the lyrical core of your song, the melody and music can be a vessel for meaning.

Here are 4 great tips on how to write a great melody based on existing lyrics:

1. Let your words sing
2. Utilize repetition 
3. Strategically weave in non-lyrical moments
4. Get to work!

Let your words sing

Inside every line, there is a natural lilt and rhythm.

Every-day speech and conversation do not lack pitch! There’s a fascinating and humorous viral internet phenomenon of incredible musicians creating songs out of people’s speech. We’ve written an in-depth guide on How to Use Humor in Songwriting to help you to get started. As a great example, check out the brilliant Erykah Badu put to music by Mono Neon in this funny video:

There are countless others, highly recommended for learning and a good laugh!

In the previous post, we talked about how to write lyrics on top of a melody. To put your lyric to melody, speak each line out loud. Try it quickly, try it slowly. Ask yourself these questions:

• Where does the pitch naturally ascend?
• Where does it naturally descend?
• What words hold the most weight? These are the words that you could hold for longer instead of passing them by quickly.

Then, start to place that general pitch range into something more specific.

• Does your story call for shorter, sharper notes, or long extended vowels? Combination of both?
• What is the mood? Choose a key and mode that will convey it.
• Where are the pauses/rests? Where does the lyric want to breathe & let the music take over?

Pro-tip: Be sure to note stressed and unstressed syllables. This can be a weak spot, especially if you are writing in a language other than your native tongue. Getting the correct emphasis is an important part of crafting your melody. 

As a composer, you’ll have to release your inner critic for this exercise. See if you can abandon what you think it “should be,” and let the lyric sing to you.

Utilize repetition 

Instead of draping your melody over lyrics like a blanket, be open to ways in which the music you’re composing can perfect your original lyrical ideas.

See if your new melody leads you to the desire to repeat certain words or lines.

Some choruses contain just one line repeated over and over, or with an AABA form. Take a listen to Janelle Monae’s funky love anthem Make Me Feel:

That’s just the way you make me feel

That’s just the way you make me feel

So good so good so good so real

That’s just the way you make me feel

Technically, there are only two lines in this chorus “That’s just the way you make me feel,” and “So good so real,” but with the use of repetition and a funky and soulful melody, you get a hit song.

A really simple way to transform your lyric using repetition is used in Leo Kalyan’s track Get Your Love.

The lyric is “Anybody wanna tell me how to get your love love love.” By simply repeating the word “love” three times, he fills out a hit-worthy melody that has millions of views on Youtube.

Pro-tip: Simplicity in songwriting is a good thing. Repetition is a natural way humans learn, remember and attach to material. As a songwriter, a primary intention should be to grab your listener and get your song stuck in their head. This is why the most catchy part of a song has been named the “hook”!

Strategically weave in non-lyrical moments

Having good taste as a songwriter and musician means knowing when to “sit out.”

Where can you weave in a pause in the vocal? Perhaps an instrumental moment will serve the listener, giving them a chance to let your lyrics sink in.

Another songwriting tool is to use an “Oh-Hook”. This is a melody based on “Oh” and “Ah” sounds or any non-lyrical syllable that is satisfying and ear-catching. See our blog 3 Production Tricks to Sell Your Song for more detailed instructions.

Check out this gorgeous song by Laura Mvula which has 12 million streams on Spotify:

The lyric is beautiful:

I’ll fly on the wings of butterfly / high as a treetop and down again / putting my bag down,

taking my shoes off / walk on a carpet of green velvet

Then she employs a non-lyric moment. It is full of harmony and uses a cool vocoder-like production effect on the vowels: “Oh-wah Oh-wah Oh.” She weaves this hook throughout the song and it basically becomes the most memorable part!

Get to work!

How to write a melody? Don’t let your poems or lyrics sit around without giving them the melodies they deserve!

Remember, writing is rewriting. Try having a melody-writing session, set your timer for one hour. Then come back to it the next day, see if the work you did wants to be changed, edited, expanded upon.

Come back as many times as you’d like, and be open to getting feedback from some trusted peers. But don’t dilly dally. Give yourself a goal to finish the song in 2 weeks.

Pro tip: For insightful tips how to use a break to get inspiration, check out our advice on How to Improve your Songwriting by Using Constructive Rest.

Also, if your melody gives new insight into your lyric and a better word or phrasing reveals itself, definitely make changes! It’s all your work after all.

That’s it for today. Which advice do you find the most useful? Let us know in the comments below.