Creating Tunes...how to keep each one unique from the one before

[Duane Graves]

I find that what really works for me in terms of practise and enjoyment on my mandolin is to create my own tunes, name them and claim them. I've written 6 now and play them regularly and, you know, their not "Tombstone Junction" or "Rawhide" you understand but they are catchy and fun to play. What I'm finding in doing this is that I am running into what I call 'overlap' where I kind of get the same runs or similar in the next tune that is in the one before it, if I'm being clear. So, I'm wondering if there are some tricks that I can appropriate that will inspire unique patterns that are unique to its own tune only? I'm sure I'm not alone in this and am looking for advice...any ideas out there?—dgg

[PenfoldPendleton]

I use a mandolin scale finder book. Pick a random key and scale, play it awhile (different variations of the scale) and get the feel for it and pretty soon the mood and ideas for a song will materialize. I have written some of my best songs using this random method and they all sound very different from each other.

[Laird]

Arpeggios, back and forth. Pick different sections and let those become themes for new melodies.

[farmerjones]

They really have to have different chord progressions for me not to morph one into the other. Then still putting this A part, with this other B part, essentailly makes yet another whole tune. I considered key, and i don't know. I play lots of stuff in several keys just curious to see how it sounds. But many fiddle tunes with the same melody have different names in different keys. Personally, i think that's a poor way of getting a new tune. But i never had to survive on my royalties.

[Markus]

Arpeggios, back and forth. Pick different sections and let those become themes for new melodies.

The Jazz Mando book has some good exercises working scales in thirds, fourths, and some progressions that get your fingers used to some more novel patterns. Along with arpeggios, they provide a good way to add interest.

I find just jumping up and octave or down an octave [often requiring different scale fingering patterns] can help me find something new to play. If I need to take two breaks on a song, I try to at least start in a different range or area of the fretboard as with each scale-fingering pattern different licks fall under the fingers easier.

I've found in learning fiddle tunes that after around 40 or 50 tunes under your belt - it seems like it's just recycling patterns your fingers already know in different order [and keeping them apart] that is the trick. That's when I learn some more ITM or blues to try and keep my brain engaged while I practice.

[Markus]

farmerjones, I agree about the need for varying chord progressions for me to have two different tunes. It's hard to have just a melody that is so distinct that it cannot be confused with the many songs I've learned over the years.

[JeffD]

I listen to and try out all different kinds of music. Every genre has its cliches, and I need to get away from a particular genre sometimes to get away from the cliches.

With some tango, some klezmer, some nordic, some celtic, some OT, and BG, and a lot of Bach and Teleman all flying aroud in my mental aviary, I never know which pidgeon will come to my finger when I am being creative.

[mandocrucian]

Structurally, fiddle tunes are pretty simple.

Lick A / Lick A resolving to a different chord/ Lick A again/ ending lick.(B) (i.e. Old Joe Clark)

Lick A / Lick A transposed to another chord/ Lick A again / ending lick (B) ("Liberty", "Swallowtail Jig" etc. etc.)

Read music?

1) Play a two-bar phrase backwards. This may (or may not) give you a usable "Lick A" which then you manipulate or transpose. Even if it isn't that great, you can make a few changes of your backwards lick(s) to suit your ear.

2) Turn the music upside down and extract a two-bar lick.

Once you have a "motif" which serves as the basis of one part of your tune, you can alter it by putting it into minor, or a mode. Or you can subtract a note from every four-8th groupings and turni it into a jig. Or you can add an extra quarter note to every measure, and put the thing into 5/4.

Or.....how about alternating bars or 4/4 and 5/4. And then play the next part in 3/4 or 6/8.

While the standard American and Irish fiddle tunes come in 8-bar segments, (or 12-bar for blues), since you are writing the piece, you can do whatever you want in regards to how many measures are in a section. Scandinavian tunes are often assymetric....first part 8 bars (repeated), followed by the B-part which is 6 measures (repeated).

You can always put the 2nd ( or 3rd part) of your tune into relative minor, or have the key modulate up or down a 5th.

It's endless.....

Niles H

You could even look out the window at the birds sitting on the power lines, and use them as notes on a stave. (Like in that PBS commercial)
:)

[jaycat]

The above-mentioned seem basically like mathematical approaches. I write a song when I get an idea for one. Otherwise, no need to add to the millions that are already out there.

[Markus]

You rock, Niles. Those are some interesting ideas to play with, at very least.

[mandocrucian]

The above-mentioned seem basically like mathematical approaches.

You miss the point entirely. The OP was looking for ideas to get out of a repetitive rut.

You could also randomly generate a string of digits on a calculator, and use the numbers as scale degrees for some sort of raw material from which you extract a usable motif(s). Even with randomly generated notes....the mind/ear has to figure out how to make something musical from it, either by elimination of pitches, and/or rhythmic phrasing.

My suggestions were for getting away from the familiar cliches, and turning on the creative faucet. Having a pre-set structure is just a focusing aid in manipulating/varying the ideas/motifs which will become the backbone of the tune. (It's akin to using an existing song melody to hang new lyrics to, then putting the new words to a brand new tune. ) Then you keep the stuff you like from those "experiments" and refine or expand from there.

Any time I sit down with an instrument and doodle, if I bothered to record (or notate) some of what I did, I'd have several new "tunes". Once the "grammar" of motivic thinking is ingrained, it's difficult not to make order out of chaos.

NH

(If I want demented chaos, I'll play tunes RHed on my LHed strung mando, fretting everything as if it were normally strung! "Neon meat dreams of a octa-fish, Mascara Snake!")

[EdHanrahan]

The above-mentioned seem basically like mathematical approaches. ...
Yup, that's the complaint about that JS Bach guy. Guessin' HIS music won't never be part o' nuthin'.

(Sorry, couldn't resist!)

[AlanN]

Mike Marshall is a good example of a player who mixes it up - time signatures, keys, chord progressions, grooves. I listen to Gator Strut often on the daily run. I am always struck (lo, these 30 years later) by the varied tunes and feel on that recording. On the original tunes - Giant Hornpipe, Wake Up!, Ybor City, title track - they all are intricately played - time signatures change mid-stream, instrument loudness goes up and down, rhythmic grooves change. All the supporting musicians are in sync with all that, and the tunes come across as *oeuvres*. And I get the feeling that, if he were to perform those tunes today, they would all be different.

Such is Mike :mandosmiley:

[jaycat]

You miss the point entirely.

That's always possible. It's happened before. However, when it comes to writing, I think you either have something to say, or you don't.

[JeffD]

However, when it comes to writing, I think you either have something to say, or you don't.

That's too simple really. Sometimes the thing you have to say emerges though the process of saying it. And that creative process is kind of mysterious. If some kind of somewhat mechanical device can be used to enable us to look at the same old stuff and see something different, I am for it. What ever gets one to seeing some new possability in the old structures.

I look at it as a type of zen slap (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ZenSlap). The slap doesn't do your composing for you, and certainly you have more to say than the slap, but the slap may just get you there.

[jaycat]

Sometimes the thing you have to say emerges though the process of saying it.

I think that's a good point . . . and well stated. Especially applicable to working thru lyrics.


And that creative process is kind of mysterious.

Definitely agree with that!

[Pete Martin]

There is nothing wrong with repetition. It is part of what you hear. For example, there are a LOT of Monroe tunes that use similar if not identical phrases.

Keep in mind not every tune one writes will be a winner. Out of the many hundreds I've written, I regularly play about 50.

[JeffD]

I have developed a good ear, I think, for distinguishing great and good tunes from mediocre. And I have tried and tried, and I have yet to write a tune that holds my interest.

I noodle around a lot and sometimes come up with something of fleeting interest. But my attempts to flesh these ideas out into full tunes has always flopped.

There is a magic there, some magic that I don't understand, but I can recognize when I hear it. And I know: I don't have it.

[Jim]

I find that new lessons,instructional videos and books lead me to create new music. Noodling mindlessly gets me there sometimes too though it is all too easy to forget the piece unless I'm at home & get right up and record the Idea. Getting a new instrument will often help me write something new, I feel many instruments have songs in them just waiting to come out, but this can be expensive creativity.

[swampstomper]

One idea is to take a familiar tune and "modernize" it -- a good example is the composed tune Cherokee Shuffle (A), obviously beginning with the ideas from Lost Indian (D). The key was moved up (from a fiddler/mandolinist's perspective), making it brighter and less moody in the A part, a IV-chord added where it's only implied by one note in the original, the B part of Lost Indian would now be too high so was scrapped in favour of a new B part based on the movement to the IV chord. I'm not saying that's how Tommy Jackson composed it, but I wouldn't be surprised if his creative process was something like that -- after all he would know Lost Indian backwards and forwards, he was working in the more modern 1950's Nashville. (Of course, the name he chose also strongly suggests the influence.)

Another idea is to "minorize" a tune. I have a nice version of MS Sawyer by Ralph Blizzard (old-time fiddler) where he morphs into Dm instead of D for a few verses. It's definitely a different tune! One Sally Goodin variation does it differently, using the relative minor (F#m) instead of the minor with the same root.

I liked the comment "I only play about 50 of Monroe's tunes", implying "well, if he only wrote 50 good tunes how important can he be?" (as a joke I am sure).

HTH