Writing Melodies/Chord Progressions/etc.

[RZSparkle]

This might be yet another n00b question but..... whatever, sigh

How exactly do you all write melodies, chord progressions, baselines, and all the other individual "components" in a song? Again, I often seem to have problems with writing melodies myself, as often or not, they just "don't work." I mean, I've read a lot of the "theory tips" that explain some of the "rules" that help you with this sort of stuff, but even then, just getting an idea down seems to be the most difficult part of the process.

Also, which are you supposed to get down first. The chord progression, or the melody itself?

[Versilaryan]

For me, it's almost the chord progression first. Very rarely do I come up with a melody and fit a progression to it.

Usually, what I end up doing is repeating the chord progression and improvise melodies over it until I find one that I like. Or, if there are lyrics, I sometimes write those first and then just sing them over the background until something pops.

I almost always write the chord progression and the drums first, followed by the bassline and the melody. Though, of course, it always depends on what I'm writing.

[Random111223]

http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=54823
Read this.

I usually start with the chords aswell, it's easy to build a song that way (imo).

edit: also an obviously effective way is to pick a scale and create a bassline out of the scale's notes, then build chords on top of it

[bartekko]

By slamming your head on a keyboard you might come up with a good house hook, but If you want to make something like Beyond Her Garden or Shadow Of A Flower or <Insert any chiptune here> or <insert anything melody-based classical song>, You'll have to set down, and start arranging notes and tweaking them to sound awesome.