Jehannum

I'm curious as to whether everyone has this ability or not:

When you hear a melody or riff can you imagine a complementary melody. Not simply a harmonisation but a consonant melodic line of varying degrees of independence?

My guess is everyone can do it.

KYmonster

Do you mean like, a counterpart to the riff that you just heard? I do that all the time, actually, that is how I write a lot of the stuff I do, I just listen to music and come up with counterpart riffs.

Jehannum

Yes, a complementary line that doesn't follow the original exactly but which may ornament it or be an almost separate melody in its own right. I suspect everyone does this but I'm curious to know.

food1010

That would be a counter melody and no, not everyone does this.

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Artemis Entreri

This.

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billytalent77

Why would you assume everyone can do this?

AeolianWolf

it depends on the amount of training -- just like any other musical skill.

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primusfan

i think that's one way to write. it's kind of how i do it.

i really suspect that CAKE/john mccrea operates in that way when he/they write music. i read an interview where he talked about writing for the trumpet as if it were another voice in the band. for some reason that clicked something in my head and now i hear so much of what they do as simply interactive single note melodies between the bass, guitar, trumpet, voice, etc. it's always been that way, i just never really recognized it as such. james brown is very much about the same kind of thing.

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jthm_guitarist

I can do this..

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20Tigers

I've always done this for as long as i can remember.

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Si
Explaining Modes part 1
Explaining Modes part 2 (continued)

Jehannum

Because I've done it since childhood without much conscious effort and have had no musical training. For this reason I assumed it was an innate ability that all humans have. My asking the question in the first place, however, should give an indication that I was uncertain of this assumption and wished to test it.