10 types of melodies you should know about

You’re likely to explore a wide variety of melody types over the span of your music production journey.

However, few of us ever take a moment to stop and think about the larger categories that the majority of our favorite tunes fall into. In the tutorial video above, we take a look at ten types of melodies that you should be familiar with as a musician. With each entry, we break down compositional themes like contour, scale, range, and rhythm, and also examine how sound design plays a role in our perception of melodies using Arturia’s Pigments 3. After watching the video, you should be equipped with more knowledge and intentionality for the next time you open up your DAW and decide to lay down a new melody.

If you enjoyed the drum sounds used in the video, you can download the Collection of sounds here. If you want to dive deeper into the fundamental building blocks of melodies from a music theory perspective, you can also check out our in-depth introduction to melody.

Which melody type do you find yourself gravitating towards the most? What topics in music theory or production would you like to see us cover on our YouTube channel next? Let us know in the comments below.


Try Pigments 3 for free, and then Rent-to-Own the synth for $9.99/mo until you own it outright:

May 17, 2021

Nick Chen Content Marketing @ Splice. Nick Chen is a producer, performer, and educator under the aliases "nickthechen" and "Enix."