I'm not a fan of that sort of punky, heavy, tinny stuff. I like a nice melody.
I've always been jealous of rappers, because they can fit so many words into a song and tell a story with lots of details. But when you're a songwriter, you have to fit the words to the melody and you can't fit as much in. I'm just a big fan of storytelling.
I used to - my earliest memory of waking up with a melody in my head was, you know, 8, 9, 10. I've always heard kind of melodies in my head.
When I'm writing, I'm focusing more on just the basic melody and the lyrics.
One day, I went to buy something for my dad at the shops, and I heard a song by Nat King Cole called 'Stardust Melody.' It was like I went into a trance or something. I forgot all about my dad sending me to the shop. When I got home, I explained to him what happened. I thought I was going to get a whipping, but he understood.
I'd love to have the time to learn to sing opera properly rather than bellowing half-formed fragments of melody in exuberant moments.
When I come up with a melody in my head, it could be anywhere: in the shower, on the plane, in bed - often when I'm on the go. I'll record it on my phone with my own voice, humming. When I get to the studio, I check which melodies work.
The genius of a folk melody or story is not the feeling that it's original but quite the opposite - the feeling that it has existed all along.
The word that I constantly hear out of women is 'fear.' It's almost like a background melody. Women have excellent degrees and experience, but we are afraid we aren't good enough because we have such high expectations.
With iPhones, nobody has an excuse for writer's block. If you're at Whole Foods getting your green tea extract and you have a melody, you just drop it into your voice memo and save it for later.
I think dissonance in music makes you think. It isn't, 'Oh, that's a pretty melody I can whistle.' You have to sit down and listen to tell it apart from other things.
'Dawn (Go Away)' is a sad lyric, but the melody is so happy and fun.
Both Springsteen and Michael Jackson, who had these huge productions, could always scale them back down to just a song and a melody. All of that influences me. I also try to be a fictional writer, and sometimes I get close, but the things that resonate the most with me - and with everyone else - is what's real.
In a certain way, it's the sound of the words, the inflection and the way the song is sung and the way it fits the melody and the way the syllables are on the tongue that has as much of the meaning as the actual, literal words.
The clarinet is not so dominant in Israeli music as it is in klezmer. I heard klezmer when I was growing up, but for some reason I avoided it. I listened to Louis Armstrong instead. But the sense of melody is the connection between jazz and klezmer.
I guess I'd like people to be able to forget a lot of things and just enjoy the beauty of harmony and melody for a moment.
Sometimes I get a lyric, and the lyric, you know, comes off the page, and goes into my brain and comes out with a melody. Other times, I may create a melody first.
The Italians are very unmusical. If I go to a Protestant church in London or Amsterdam or listen to a black choir, I hear four-part harmony. Italians could never do that. In Italy, we all have to sing the melody because we cannot harmonise.
I've been kind of listening to the composer Britten and his rendition of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.' The opening track is a choral section where all the weird fairies, who are played by kids in the production, sing. It's a crazy opening melody and chord sequence - really amazing.
'Despacito' started with a melody hook that I had with my guitar only. The beat for this track came after I wrote the lyrics, which I wrote as if I was writing a ballad.
I liken movies to playing a piano: Sometimes you're playing the chords and different notes with unresolved cadences and playing all major chords that are all over the place, and you're enjoying yourself with a great, simple melody.
'Something More' is a song that I wrote not necessarily about country radio, more so about a lot of songs that were being pitched to me. I wrote that after song after song after song was just the same song, just a different melody, so I was just looking for something more to put on the record.
Personal relationships are usually my biggest inspirations for writing my songs. The best way for me to write a song is to visualise the story in my head, and I start humming a melody, and before you know it, a song is born.
When I first started making music, I was all about wordplay and how fast I could rap, but over the years, I've really gained an appreciation for melody. What's cool is that when you're singing, you have to be concise, and when you're rapping, you have the opportunity to be really detailed with your lyrics.
You can't read to yourself. It's your inner ear that hears a poem. If you hear a poet read his own work, it becomes very exciting. The melody is a great part of it.
I know melody. I know rhythm; I know bass guitar; I know the piano. I know everything about music that helps build the music that go along with creating the whole art form, you know what I'm saying?
I would imagine that most of my writing is done spontaneously. I had no intention of writing, and then I'll just walk through the house, and I'll hear this melody, and I'll turn on the tape players and go back to it later on. Some days I'll get 3-5 songs a day.
Once I discovered music and that you don't need to just use words but can add a growl to the melody, that releases so much more. I never want to make music for any other reason.
Innovating something that is familiar. That's the general approach, and that's what I want to do with the melody as well. It should ring true - you should like every melody sequence without knowing what's happening next.
I never think about rhythm versus melody; I've always just played to what's in my head.
Sometimes I can sit at my computer and find a cool sound, or a new synth patch, and get super-inspired by that and make a track based on that sound. But the piano is where I find the inspiration and come up with the melody.
A good song has to have a great melody, and the lyrics have to touch my heart. Now, if it's just a little toe-tapper, got to make me feel good somehow or another, or when I sing it I can't make you feel good.
Only having one melody instrument in play at a time meant that we could improvise more in our practices.
I think I need the demons in order to write, but the demons have gone. It bothers me a lot. I've tried and tried, but I just can't seem to find a melody.
I try to focus on the melodies and try to make everything else minimal. The melody and the lyrics are most important to me.
I taught myself to play the guitar by listening to Paul Simon records, working it out note by note. He is an incredibly intelligent musician. He's not someone who has a natural outpouring of melody like McCartney or Dylan, who are just terribly prolific with musical ideas.