Stepwise Rule for Better Melodies

Learn how to avoid this common fault many songwriters & producers make in their melodies!
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0:00​ Introduction
1:12 Musical Faults
2:10 The Fault
3:29 The Fix
4:06 The Rule
4:43 The Example
5:02 The Djend


THE FAULT

Right, first things first. We intentionally use the word “fault” in this context, because music is an art, so technically there can’t be any mistakes. But, and it’s a big but, there can definitely be faults, as faults are weaknesses. And unfortunately, when songwriters and producers compose by ear, their music ends up with many faults!

For the record, though, it’s not their fault. It’s the fault of our current music education system that focuses on classical and jazz, which are irrelevant for most songwriters and producers. This means they struggle finding resources to learn relevant music theory, which often results in them composing music by ear instead. This is a huge problem in the music world, and it was the inspiration for us launching Hack Music Theory back in 2016, so songwriters and producers could finally have a place to learn theory that’s actually relevant to the music they make!

Now, let’s get back to that melody. So, what is the theory fault here? Well, it contains more than three stepwise notes from the scale. In the beginning of the melody, it goes: E, D, C, B. And in the middle of the melody, it goes: E, D, C, B, A.

We refer to this as the “practising scales” fault, because whenever a melody goes stepwise through the scale (up or down), it literally sounds like the producer accidentally hit the Record button while they were practising their scales.

This fault is extremely common, as songwriters and producers who compose by ear don’t have the confidence that theory gives you to experiment, so they tend to play it safe and stick with a lot of stepwise movements. You see, our ears will always be led by musical gravity to the predictable note, like resolving the 7 up to the 8. Boring! If we wanna make cool music that stands out, we need to use theory!

And by the way, if you were wondering, our example is in the key of A minor, which is all the white notes from A to A, and the tempo is 100 BPM.


THE FIX

You know what’s interesting? Now that you’re aware of this fault, you’ll start noticing it everywhere. It really is sad how common it is! But, there’s a super easy hack to fix this fault. All you have to do is change a note (or two) in each scale segment, to break up that stepwise movement.

In our example, we only had to change one note in each segment to fix this fault. After this tweak, our melody now has no more than three stepwise notes, which is the maximum you want. It’s truly amazing how changing just one note can have such a massive impact on a melody!


THE RULE

So to conclude, our Stepwise Melody Rule is to have no more than three stepwise notes in your melodies (unless for some good reason, you really really want that).

Lastly, if you need more help writing melodies, then simply use our Melody Checklist, which tells you exactly what to do and what not to do in your melodies. The Melody Checklist can be found in our Songwriting & Producing PDF (link above).


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ABOUT
Hack Music Theory is the fast, easy and fun way to make music. Taught by award-winning music lecturer Ray Harmony, and his protégé wife Kate. Ray has been teaching music theory for 25 years, and along the way he's made music with Serj Tankian (System Of A Down), Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine), and many more!

COPYRIGHT & CREDITS
© 2021 Revolution Harmony
Revolution Harmony is Ray Harmony & Kate Harmony
Script & all music in video by Revolution Harmony
Book promo filmed & edited by Maurits Nienhuis
All stock footage courtesy of Pexels