Add a Melody: First Steps

Start adding a melody to your chords in ChordSong with these simple steps. We assume you already have a short chord progression like the one from Create a Chord Progression: First Steps:

(Note: You don't have to use ChordSong to create your melody. Some people make up a melody by just singing along with their chords.)

First set up ChordSong's melody elements:

Display the melody staff. Use ChordSong's Melody > Show Melody menu command to display the melody staff above your chords, like this:

Turn on Auto Sharps/Flats. This lets ChordSong automatically add sharps or flats to your melody notes to make them chord tones. You will usually want to leave this feature turned on.

Open the Tools window via the Tools > Tool Box menu command if it's not already open. Then click the Melody note tool button ( ).

Enlarge the view via the View > Zoom menu command if you like. This makes it easier to place the mouse in the melody staff where you want it.

Move your mouse pointer around in the melody staff, slowly. ChordSong shows you the "prospective note" which will be created if you click the mouse. This prospective note is sometimes red and sometimes green:

The note turns green when you find a chord tone. A chord tone will almost always sound good. A red note (non-chord-tone) might sound good too, but it takes some music knowledge to know whether it will.

You can just hear a note along with its chord, without adding it to your song, by right-clicking the mouse.

When you have found where you want to place a note, left-click the mouse to "nail the note down".

Note: To clearly see the note you just created, you may need to move the mouse pointer away from it. This is because, after you place a note, ChordSong immediately starts showing you the next "prospective note" at the mouse pointer, and this new prospective note may hide the note you just created.

Go ahead and place several notes, perhaps in some sort of pattern, perhaps like this:

Then click ChordSong's Play button ( ) to hear what you've done. (For an online MIDI rendition click: Several Notes Example.)

Here are some things you can do next:

• Add 2 more measures of chords to your song to make a 4-measure phrase, then add some more melody, and keep going. Remember that lots of repetition is OK; if you study popular songs you'll see how chords and melody repeat (in many interesting patterns) a lot.
  
  
• Create ChordSong files for popular songs. Studying good music is a great way to learn to create your own. And don't worry that it's "stealing"; all good artists learn this way. But of course you can't copy an obvious, recognizable, unique idea from someone else's music and call it your own.
  
  Our Links page lists Web sites where you can find chord-and-lyric charts for many songs. These charts usually don't have timing or melody notes, which leaves plenty of room for you to learn by trial-and-error.