# Melody first or chord progression first???



## Ace the Burn Victim II

Did them great composers like my boy Rimsky Korsakov come up with the melody first, then write around it? Or was it a chord progression first? 

I'm thinking maybe they did it both ways. Not unlike a bi-sexual person.

I just is right now starting to try to compose.


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## nikola

I am amateur composer and when I'm discovering what sounds goog while pressing the keys, most of the time some meaningful stuff comes together. When you play only melody, you actually can't hear how it sounds with chord progression or with some kind of harmony over it. Many different keys while played together make different sounds.


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## david johnson

check out some composer sketch books. https://www.bing.com/images/search?...tchbooks&qpvt=beethoven+sketchbooks&FORM=IGRE


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## Mahlerian

You shouldn't think of divorcing one from the other. The melody and harmony should be intertwined so that one gives rise to the other. In common practice music, melodies usually imply their own harmonic pattern.


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## Ace the Burn Victim II

Thanks everybody. All of the responses were helpful to me.


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## Truckload

Ace the Burn Victim II said:


> Did them great composers like my boy Rimsky Korsakov come up with the melody first, then write around it? Or was it a chord progression first?
> 
> I'm thinking maybe they did it both ways. Not unlike a bi-sexual person.
> 
> I just is right now starting to try to compose.


This question is actually too complex to be answered simply. But in general composers use both methods. Do you compose tonal music or atonal? Do you plan a structure for your work, or just freely compose, like improvisation?

Do you write using motives (fragments) or long melodic lines?

If you want long melodic lines, it is probably best to write the melodic line, then bass line, then fill in harmony. This is the exact method recommended by Fux in his famous book on counterpoint and composition. If you use motives to build themes, good motivic material can be adapted to many harmonic contexts, so once you have your motives, you then want to focus on the harmonic material, and plug in your motives. Hindemith wrote a number of books on harmony and composition and he focuses primarily on harmony based on his own system of harmonic function.

Most famous composers use both methods, sometimes within a single composition. Some composers have provided more evidence about their work methods than others. For example, Tchaikovsky wrote many letters to friends that include comments about his compositions in progress. He also wrote "Guide to the Practical Study of Harmony" which is primarily a textbook about harmony but also includes a few tips for composers. While Tchaikovsky is primarily known as a melodist, his symphonies had a very carefully planned harmonic structure to which he "inserted" his melodic fragments to conform to his harmonic plan.


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## TwoPhotons

"Harmony becomes melody and melody becomes harmony. For me there is no difference between melody and harmony. " - Alexander Scriabin

If you haven't listened to Scriabin before, check out some of his works (e.g. Piano Sonata No.5, or Poem of Ecstasy) and I think you'll see where he was coming from.


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## Ace the Burn Victim II

Thank you Truckload. I plan to write tonal music with a structure. But that's a LONG ways a way... I'm just starting, and don't really know where to begin.  Your feedback was helpful.

And thank you TwoPhotons. I'll check out Scriabin.


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## Truckload

Ace the Burn Victim II said:


> Thank you Truckload. I plan to write tonal music with a structure. But that's a LONG ways a way... I'm just starting, and don't really know where to begin. Your feedback was helpful.
> 
> And thank you TwoPhotons. I'll check out Scriabin.


As someone who has written music myself as a hobby, I can recommend to someone just starting out that you try lots of different work methods and see what appeals to you the most.

Another compositional method is to write a segment of music, then try to reset that segment to different harmonies. This exercise yields interesting results for many composers. I have read but I personally do not know this to be factual, that John Williams likes to use this method when writing his film scores. His approach is to try to blend jazz elements with classical-romantic elements.

Bach reset many pieces by Vivaldi in order to study the craft of composition.

Doing piano transcriptions of orchestral works will give you a feel for how a composer used the orchestra. Mahlerian just recently did an excellent piano transcription of some Mozart which he shared with us in this sub-forum.

Dvorak liked to write in 1 or 2 bar motives, but he experimented with many styles. In his 4th symphony, the second movement is an homage to Wagner with a very obvious imitation of Wagnerian harmony and orchestration.

If you desire to write in a non-tonal manner there are countless methodologies to help, such as tone rows, sets, quartile harmonies, polytonality, and many others.

There are so many possibilities.


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