Originally Posted by MaggaraMarine

If you hear a pop song in your head, then write a pop song. It doesn't need to be metal or whatever. You can start developing the idea and the simple pop song might turn out to be a great pop song. It's good to be able to write different styles.

I know what you mean by mixing genres. Sometimes you feel that "this part needs a bit more reggae." You just need to find out what makes a song sound like reggae. You might have some kind of sound (maybe a song) in your head but you can't get it out of your guitar because you don't know how reggae bands play. Listen what drums, bass and guitar (and other instruments) do in a reggae song (or whatever the style is).

Originally Posted by MaggaraMarine

.... It doesn't need to be metal or whatever.......

Originally Posted by AlanHB

It's the same as all other harmony. Surround yourself with skulls and candles if it helps.

Originally Posted by CryogenicHusk

Besides the miles.b ear trainer, I've tried to make it a habit to try figure out things from my ear with my fingers as is constantly suggested here. I've done it with happy birthday, and a couple of nursery rhymes, as well as whatever I hear in my head at that moment. Problem is sometimes I want to work on something original, and just keep hearing bits of other people's melodies or solos, which isn't that bad... the real problem is when sometimes I don't hear anything AT ALL.

What I try to do in such situations is I loop 1 or more chords on guitar pro and see if my ear comes up with a melody and sometimes it works. It works sometimes but it's been happening more and more often that nothing works (not even 1 simple chord). Even when playing the loop, I can't hear anything... like my ear decides to focus on the chord(s) but doesn't want to come up with a melody. Sometimes it just wants to add more chords to the progression or something, like I loop a simple E major and instead of hearing a short melody in E major in my head, my brain insists on instead thinking about other chords that can follow it, and then maybe that same progression in another key. Like I completely lose control of my own ear when what I just want to hear a simple melody.

I think being able to hear SOMETHING (even if it's not that great, anything counts to me, just like the many failed attempts to create the light bulb) whenever I feel like it/need to, will be essential in the long run when trying to improvise. How do I train myself to do this? Is it a relaxation thing? Do I just let it go and accept that maybe I'm not very inspired at that particular moment/day and put the guitar down or practice/learn a song written by somebody else? Or is there a way to just close my eyes and do something with my mind so that I can let those melodies start surfacing like some sort of meditation, lol?

tl;dr - It has happened fairly often lately that I hear nothing in my ear: no melodies original or already existent. I wanna know if others ran into this and how they overcame it...

Originally Posted by 91RG350

What is this "not metal" you speak of.....?

TS... dont tie yourself to a genre...just let whatever comes out come out...if its poppy...then its poppy...etc...

Originally Posted by Jehannum

Going back to your original question, which I thought was interesting.

You have a chord progression and you want a melody for it. You seem to have had the experience where a melody just has come to you seemingly out of nowhere. It's a question of making this ability work when you want it to.

All I'm going to suggest is that it looks to me like you're being too passive about the process. When a melody comes to me it's almost like an argument with the chord progression underneath. I'm not saying it sounds angry or anything - just that it might pull the opposite way to the progression, or have a different rhythm, or something like that.

So when you make a melody you've got to accept that it won't follow the chords in every aspect. In fact, there's nothing worse I can imagine than just playing chord tones in a solo: "Oh dear, the chord has changed. I can only use F# A and C now".

Your melody might fight against the harmony (not necessarily with dissonance). Maybe you just have to push for it a little more aggressively.

Originally Posted by CryogenicHusk

Not too interested in metal as of late... But yeah, I will just stop aiming at writing a song in x genre. Instead I'll write whatever comes out. I guess that's the perk of not being in a band at the moment and just writing for myself.

On a side note: what if I were in a band, and they played a particular style, but I just can't seem to come up with something that fits, how would you get out of that writers block to basically force yourself to write something that fits? This happened with 1 or 2 songs I wrote with my last band. We kind of scrapped the cause they didn't sound similar at all to anything else we had...



Yeah, sometimes I play a chord progression and just hear the melody singing in the background, and it usually isn't limited to just chord tones. I'm perfectly content with that. Problem is sometimes I don't hear anything, but now I know there's plenty other things to work on to make the progression mine without being limited to melody.