Arrangement II

In this last chapter, I’ll give specific practical tips for designing another melody against an existing melody. This concept is usually called counterpoint: the relationship between two melodies played at the same time.

That’s a vague and broad description. So let’s see some specific implementations of it.

Same distance

This technique is the simplest. It’s very common for doubling (or quadrupling) pop vocals.

Sing the same melody, but offset by a distance (usually a third, fifth or octave)

So grab your melody. Now let it start on some other note, but keep the distances the same. In other words, the whole melody was shifted up or down.

When I say distance, I mean the interval of the scale, not the absolute distance. So if the first two notes are a third apart in your melody, they should also be a third apart in your copy.

Play them at the same time and enjoy.

Different directions

Very early in this course, I said pitch didn’t have many places to go. It could go up, go down or stay the same.

You can exploit that fact here.

If one melody goes up, the other goes down or stays the same. (And vice versa.)

The combined effect is great. It also helps create variation in that second melody, preventing it from being a copy.

Overflow notes

This is my personal name for the concept: overflow notes It’s not an official one :p

I also mentioned, early in this course, that you could combine many pitches as long as there is distance between them.

This means that you can add notes above your main melody pretty much anywhere on the scale. (And maybe even outside of the scale.) These are officially named by continuing to count beyond the octave: 9th, 11th, 13th, etcetera.

When you have a melody above the leading one, I’d usually recommend this.

• Either play the same melody, but up by an entire octave
• Or play a melody that mostly uses these overflow notes.

It will create surprising harmonies and sounds against the main melody. Not all of it will be great: experiment and improve.

The hardest counterpoint

These are all simple techniques: follow some simple rules to create a second melody that plays with the first.

They will be all you need in most cases. But if you are ready for more, you can create different (and more complicated) patterns.

You would start from completely different melodies.

Then, you try to manipulate them in such a way that …

• Sometimes they combine. (They play the same note, they strengthen each other.)
• Sometimes they vary, and one of them takes the spotlight for a time.

They’re like yin and yang: sometimes they come together, sometimes they are apart.

This is hard. You’ll most likely end up making the melodies similar—or just applying the simple ideas above in alternating fashion—to make it all work.

But when it does work, it’s very rewarding. You can get beautiful harmonies and pieces, with a richness and flavor you won’t find anywhere else.