# Extending Melodies/Transitional Phrases



## Bevo

Hello everyone. Not quite sure how to word what I'm asking here. I know quite a bit about theory, and have been writing music for several years now. My question is not regarding transitioning from one theme to another, it's more about staying in the same theme, but extending it out a little. Now I know it's almost not fair to use an example from one of the best melodists of all time, but this is just from the top of my head 



 If I were writing something like this I could manage creating a melody similar to the beginning, but it's that spot of around 0:30 in that I seem to struggle with. When I write, my phrases tend to simply end once on the dominant, repeat, and then end on the tonic. This, as you can conclude results in some very short themes. I have a really hard time writing phrases like 0:30-0:52. I suppose it's more the leading into that section. I tend to just hear in my head a repeat of the beginning. Maybe it has more to do with harmony, I don't know. Anyways, anyone have any useful techniques to improve this weakness of mine? Thanks. :tiphat:


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## johankillen

What does he do? He changes the voice, from tonic to dominant, extends the beats with some notes, and add a second voice? Have you done an analysis on this piece? 
Do you have some examples of our own themes? Exciting!


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## Bettina

Sequences could help you extend some phrases. Try repeating a section of your melody several times in sequence.


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## Pugg

johankillen said:


> What does he do? He changes the voice, from tonic to dominant, extends the beats with some notes, and add a second voice? Have you done an analysis on this piece?
> Do you have some examples of our own themes? Exciting!


Same questions here.


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## Nate Miller

in composing out an idea in time, think about it in terms intervals that need to be filled in.

if you want to extend a section, then prolong the harmony. By that I mean delay resolution, add chords to your cadence. You know you can add a dominant in front of anything, so set up a sequence of dominants through the circle of 5ths. the possibilities are really endless.

a lot of times when I want to extend an ending, I first resolve to the vi then repeat the last phrase with a resolution finally to the tonic. 

There are lots of ways, but keep the idea of "composing out" in mind and think in terms of filling in intervals


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