Melody Structure Blocks

Melody structure is everywhere, it’s obvious but how many songwriters or listeners notice or understand it? Music must be memorable to the listener. The main guideline to do that is retpeat, repeat, repeat.

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Repeat between bars, bars in a line (I call these line blocks), between line blocks in a verse or chorus and between verses (verse block), chorus (chorus block) and bridge (bridge block).

Thinking of melody structure in blocks will help you build tunes that listeners can and will remember. Give listeners the chance to hear the same blocks over and over again in a song. This allows them to really remember it.

All the great songwriters repeat, repeat, repeat. It’s the real secret of writing music that people can’t get out of their heads.

Most people can’t sing a range of more than one and a half octaves. So writing individual notes within that range reaches the widest audience. Don’t worry, within that range are infinite pieces of music still to be written. Click here to work on building the melody in a bar.

Wayne Chase's book, How Music Really Works give the detailed researched behind this concept of melody structure.

The guideline of twos applies to blocks, (don’t do anything more than twice without introducing some variety). Once you do that you can immediately go back to your same block again. Simple interesting tunes are more memorable than complex ones.

Thinking in terms of melody structure blocks will help write melodies that listeners will remember. Each block contains one unique piece of melody. I give this block a weight of 1. How to weight a song is set out below.

Most great songs have no more than three or four distinct line blocks. Great songs also use line blocks in a predictable way. That means a song’s weighted score should not be more than 4.

If you apply this weighting to your songs and get a score higher than 4 you should consider simplifying it.

One last thing that great songs do within blocks is sometimes provide a minor change after that block has been repeated several times. For example, vary the end of a line block slightly before it moves into a chorus block.

I call this a varied line block and give .5 extra weighted value. This makes a varied line block worth 1.5 of unique melody.

Here’s another amazing secret. Raising the pitch slightly of a line block meets the guideline of twos. That means you can use the shape of the same line block with all notes raised one pitch higher.

This provides enough change for the ear that it counts as a change but uses the same relative melody. Then go back to the prior line block right after it and you haven’t introduced a new block.

I call this a raised line block. It counts as a regular line block.

Do you see where this goes? Write a verse only using one regular line block and a lifted line block. You end up with an entire verse with a weighted value of 1. You can use this same concept in a chorus or bridge block.

Sound crazy? Crazy as a fox! Sometimes you can use a varied line block and your verse, chorus or bridge block with end up with a weight of 1.5. That’s how you write a song and keep the music weighted value under 4.

Here’s an example of how a verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge song looks with a total block value of only 4. The first and second verses are identical to each other as are the three choruses. There are other types of song structures.

The total Verse block value is 1. The total Chorus block value is 1.5. The total bridge block value is 1.5. I've numbered the unique melody structure blocks so the block structure of this song is obvious.

FIRST VERSE

• Line block 1
• Line block 1
• Raised Line block 1
• Line block 1

FIRST CHORUS

• Line block 2
• Line block 2
• Raised line block 2
• Varied line block 2

SECOND VERSE

• Line block 1
• Line block 1
• Raised Line block 1
• Line block 1

SECOND CHORUS

• Line block 2
• Line block 2
• Raised line block 2
• Varied line block 2

BRIDGE

• Line block 3
• Varied line block 3

THIRD CHORUS

• Line block 2
• Line block 2
• Raised line block 2
• Varied line block 2
• Varied line block 2

If you want to use a varied line block in the verse block, find a way to reduce the weighted value of the bridge block. Try using a line block and a raised line block in the bridge.

Usually you will want to leave the varied line block in the chorus to give it that extra zip around your hook line. However there are a few choruses out there that only use a line block and its corresponding raised line block.

I challenge you to listen to some great songs whose popularity has stood the test of time. You will find this simple melody structure block system used again and again. Try re-listening to some Beatles music.