Exciting Space Documentary Composition for OSX GarageBand - 2.2: Melody Matters!

The next part of the Space Doc Composition for OSX Garageband series, for the 2024/25 Eduqas set brief.

Melody, I've always found, is one of the most difficult aspects to teach in composition! Partly because it is just such a vast topic with a million number of combinations!

Over twenty years, I have devised a system to help those students struggling with the basics of melodic writing, based on making very simple choices:

• does the next note stay the same, go up or go down?
• does it move stepwise or with leaps? 
• how big should the leaps be?

And then, extending the challenge:

• do the notes follow the scale and the chords, if the chords are changing?
• can you use melodic devices, such as sequence, repetition, imitation and decoration?

So, I have put all of these aspects into my next tutorial resources, which is a follow-on from 2.1 The Mysterious Minor!

Here's what you get:

A 26-minute tuition video, differentiated for three different abilities and target levels:

• Amber - compose a melody over a chord,
• Green - develop the melody over changing chords, and use a sequence,
• Blueberry - develop the melody over the harmonic minor chord changes, using melodic devices such as  triadic/arpeggiated movement, melodic inversion and decorations - trills, mordents and turns. 

All these concepts are simply explained and demonstrated! There's also a helpsheet, with DIRT feedback and target-setting incorporated. 

I've even included a synth patch for GarageBand to emulate a lovely sci-fi theramin type sound! You just need to paste it into your Instrument folder in the Audio Music Apps folder!

As ever, purchasers get dedicated support form me, and any updates or refinements for the product's lifetime. 

This series is designed using GarageBand for demonstration, but the aspects of melodic writing could easier by applied to any DAW or composition type!

Thank you! I still have more videos to come and really hope I don't run out of time for this year's composition span!

What next? How about BRAAMS?

Dan