Melodies Not Working Right? Try THIS!

Turn your basic chord voicings into lush accompaniment that leaves room for melody in no time!
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Edited by ‪@ConnorGilks‬
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[@treyxaviermusic]

How do you generally get your chords into MIDI form in your DAW - do you play them in on a MIDI controller, click them in with a mouse, or are you lazy af and buy MIDI chord packs🤣?

[@GitKlar]

I click them in with the mouse, just as everything else with MIDI. I've also got a MIDI-controller, but I'm not using it, cause I'm too lazy to learn the piano.^^ Btw, do you use Pro Tools also for MIDI & orchestrations? And if so, how does it work out for you?

[@treyxaviermusic]

@@GitKlar I use it for everything because it's the only DAW I know hahaha. It works... fine? I know it's not really great for MIDI but I also don't have any frame of reference for how other DAWs do it.

[@saberreiter8569]

clickedi click. But got Big Cubase now, which has some chord tools built in ^^

[@HighEnergyPessimism]

Write on Guitar Pro, import MIDI from same. Easier for me to understand how a chord looks on the fretboard, particularly spread voicings

[@PendelSteven]

Well, I'm still clicking them in, but I am thinking of buying a little MIDI-keyboard since I can play in C / Am and transpose it. And there's Chord Track in Studio One anyhow --> kzbin.info/www/bejne/d5CWdICprsuKp9E

[@AlexRooneyComposer]

I didn't realise I was doing this instinctively until a few months ago. I love having big gaps in the string arrangement where the trumpets and french horn slot in perfectly. I also make sure that everything below C3 is playing in either octaves us unison. No harmonies down there or bad things happen. I also wanna watch Men in Black 2 now. Of all the movies to use for the reference

[@ZethKeeper]

Arrangement is 2/3 of the mixing process. I really started noticing this with my later projects, and especially when transcribing someone like Arjen Lucassen. I try do to very little in the mixing, letting the arrangement do the heavy lifting. However, I still got a lot of room to improve.

[@GtwoManila]

This is really cool! I've been doing this instinctively and after seeing this video it reaffirms that I was on the right track. I've been moving the whole chords up/down an octave but I'm gonna try to split them up and listen to what sounds best.

[@tobyzxcd]

This is incredibly valuable content, this is the unique teaching prowess that is nowhere else on these similar genre youtube tutorials- im looking forward to seeing more of this, this is a genuine service to the musical community

[@niclastname]

Thank you for this! It's something I've "known" about in the back of my mind because it gets mentioned (arrangement being important to a mix), but this is a super understandable and easy way to explain and demonstrate it. Very helpful and appreciated! :)

[@bigkidband5731]

Good stuff, Trey! Never thought about using this method.

[@treyxaviermusic]

Neither did I for a LONG time actually

[@CreativeMindsAudio]

Great way to explain inversions Trey!

[@worksofein6449]

Interesting and useful! Can you do one with a full metal band arrangement? I'm always struggling to get my synth and guitars to work well together.

[@smalllicks]

Great ...if You can do this just with some examples applied on the guitar would be awesome

[@MickH60]

Excellent Trey, simple and effective...

[@jasonmatthew8650]

That was so cool! Really helpful

[@nothingislogical]

Trey over here making “Lofi Beats to Gear Gods To”.

[@treyxaviermusic]

youtube just letting it happen

[@KRayxKodessA]

This was super helpful... never thought of chord arrangement this way. Can you extrapolate to a guitar-centric writing approach?

[@treyxaviermusic]

It works exactly the same, it's just a complete pain in the ass to see how it works on the guitar because of where notes sit on the fretboard is super counterintuitive compared to a keyboard. But the principle is identical. You can approximate it by playing the melody on the guitar and then the chords and seeing where they sit in relation to each other

[@j-starfpv9547]

This is great

[@baconfirre]

This melody would make a really cool TheFatRat style track. Really liked this shorter format/tips style video.

[@inhauscreative]

Lyrics for those chords "Im a Barbie Girl in Xavier's World, It's fantastic and so spastic..." :) Love the channel!

[@schniggedagges74]

Good start, but this way all chords are still moving in parallels. Each chord has the same structure, root, third, fifth or fifth, root, third and so on. There is no need for that. You can rearrange each chord seperatly to avoid all those parallel movements. This way you can have less movement in the chords when there is much movement in the melody or vice versa. Inserting some passing tones in the chords will transform them into real 2nd, 3rd and 4th melody lines.

[@xenonvinc]

cool tipp, keep em coming

[@treyxaviermusic]

You know I will!

[@erikbackstrom3379]

Great video Tray! 😃 Just a question: how do you do this with ”real” instruments? Is there a way to visualize the tones in the daw or do you use your ears to hear that some parts are the same?

[@manoskf]

Dear sir i would like to see that with guitars!

[@TheCrimsonIdol987]

This is literally the whole concept behind voice leading. Great demonstration!

[@ANUBISMETAL]

That melody is unbelievably catchy, and sounds like the Streets of Rage 2 soundtrack.

[@johnmurphy5739]

Man that sounds like a Ghost song !

[@johncourage9424]

Thank you Father Trey, my stringz automatically sound better now 🙏🏼

[@treyxaviermusic]

Achievement unlocked!

[@igorjakobsen1694]

that's nice and all, but how would you actually play it on an instrument? there you suddenly have lot of limitations on how you can physically play a chord (especially if the 2 melodies are played by the same keyboard player)

[@The_PlagueDoctor]

I made a chord progressions but having a hard time knowing what key it’s in. I’m trying to figure out the next chord to add

[@Bacchus67]

I have a songwriting contest entry if you still have this going on let me know

[@edthejester]

Meanwhile here I am competing with both our siger and keys player for frequency range. I feel full range boy should just carve out space for my guitar to sit in.

[@russtycogg324]

New Hotness.

[@threnodymusic552]

I'm not sure revoicing this example helps clean this up all that much. There are a lot of parallel and direct fifths and octaves, and a lot of similar motion moving right into the down beat. The example is going to to be muddy and pedestrian no matter how it is voiced, unless it's played with distorted guitars with scream-o vocals and then it won't matter anymore and you have a hit on your hands.

[@Phantommxr]

How about putting an EZ drummer groove to some ambient guitar - no bass guitar though... totally different video

[@propeller]

honestly I heared no difference. And I'm thinking if listening with a different knowledge colors your opinion of what you hear. Does a general music listener will notice the difference? Is it subconscious? Or will the trained producer hear it because he's looking for stuff like this? It goes with a lot of stuff in producing music. Like fiddeling with the EQ. I see a lot of tutorials where the presenter praises the tiniest tweeks as wonders I can't hear that. And I'm not listening to that over laptop speakers :)

[@mikedervos5974]

What that hell is that?? Where's the guitar?

[@analyticequals]

Nah

[@treyxaviermusic]

oh

[@analyticequals]

@@treyxaviermusic yeah Nah

[@treyxaviermusic]

ah yeah