here I’ll give tips and tricks to aspiring songwriters and
composers.
This week, I’ll be talking about solo instrument composition. In most cases, for example
orchestral strings, wind instruments, bass instruments and voice, harmonic accompaniment
isn’t available on your instrument. Composing something interesting and challenging is quite
frankly a difficult task.
In the Baroque era, J.S. Bach solved this issue by having a piece that had the single line
suggest chord progressions through the use of arpeggios, great leaps to bass notes, sequence
and melodic fill runs between to suggest a transition between these harmonic motifs. This is
particularly noticeable in Bach’s Cello Suites and Partita No.2.
These ideas don’t necessarily have to adhere to a Baroque style. Charlie Parker’s Ornithology
and The Beatles’ Elenor Rigby both feature melodies that lend themselves to the same solo
melodic techniques. For example, in the Beatles example, notice the sequencing over the
“Wearing a face…” to suggest melodic progression. Also keep an eye on the “Where do they…”
line, where despite a static upper string accompaniment, McCartney uses the melody to suggest
a further chord progression.
These techniques aren’t the only way to write a solo melody. An urban legend goes that one
day Steve Vai was sitting around his house listening to the hundreds of demos to make it to his
desk by no name guitarists that looked to be signed by his record label.
Exclaiming that not one of them had an ear for melody or form and were caught up showing flash, he nearly threw out his
stereo system until at the last second, Johnny A. came on, whom he immediately signed and
went on to have a #1 instrumental hit.
Now, the idea of a focus on song form and melody in solo music isn’t necessarily a new idea.
After all, most drum solos are at their heart, rhythmic motifs repeating with quick fill runs to
punctuate the different ideas. See Peter Criss’s early drum solos(usually during God of Thunder
live) where rhythmic ideas and a bit of a jazz touch characterize how he differentiates the form of
his song.
Likewise old Delta Blues musicians didn’t always play strict rhythm guitar while performing
solo. Their call and response format, though technically two melodic instruments, created one
melodic line.
One way to do this musically is to use a rondo form. Having a strong, solid melodic and
rhythmic idea to return to over and over again while giving yourself a set period of time(or bars
for the more musically inclined) can give the audience a solid feel for melodic content while you
introduce different melodic ideas and are even free to have “solo”(nonmelody.
Showing off) sections without losing them.
In my own personal composition, I use these techniques whenever I can. Even though I work a
lot in multi instrumental fields, a lot of times I use a sort of polyphonic compositional technique
and think of each line as a single melodic idea as opposed to a strict harmonic structure. These
kinds of ideas can help anyone when they’re caught in writer’s block.