A two-bar motif can feel complete enough to remember but too short to become a whole piece. The useful question is not “What new melody should come next?” but “What can this idea already do?” A motif contains several features you can work with: its rhythm, melodic contour, intervals, register, phrase ending, and relationship to…
You play back eight bars and every note seems acceptable, yet the melody feels as if it is wandering rather than going somewhere. Nothing is obviously wrong with the scale, tempo, or harmony. The problem may be the shape of the phrase itself. A melody needs more than a sequence of pitches; it also needs…
If you repeat something too many times without any changes it will start to sound predictable. But if you change a repeated melody too much you’ll lose the connection between the two. You have to find that balance between making a recognizable melody and making it sound too predictable. One way to do this is…
Listen to the harmony and melody together. As your ear matures, you’ll begin to sense which chords support the melodic line and which ones obscure it. Often a melody will sound perfectly fine on its own, but certain pitch and/or rhythm combinations will start to sound awkward when supported by a conflicting harmony. A simple…