This is a now an easy-to-use template for that key. EDMtip: In Ableton Live, once you’ve written in every note of a scale, you can move them left of the clip so they don’t play, and press the “fold” button. Compare how much of your melody falls on these notes.

Just in case you don’t know, though, here’s what you can do to find out:Ĭount up the major key intervals from the root note, drawing in each note of the scale (so in this example each note of “B Major”).

You’ll probably have an idea of this anyway if it sounds “happy”, it’s probably major, and if it sounds “sad” it’s probably minor. Ii) Next is to determine whether the key of the melody is major or minor. In this example we can see the root note of my key is “B”: You can always copy and paste the separate elements into different sounds afterwards.Ī quick and dirty way of doing it is to write in a repeating single bass note, and loop your melody whilst shifting this bass note up and down until you find the one that sounds best, and most “solid” with your melody. notes that aren’t in the key of the melody, but still sound good) this can be a bit trickier. If you do this exercise with a polyphonic sound like a grand piano, it’s easier to work out all the chords in the same clip as the melody as you can see what’s going on more easily. How: i) You can refer to the Circle of Fifths, or use my “Keys” cheat sheet (download here) and cross-reference the notes in your melody until you find the key, but if you have any “accidentals” in your melody (i.e. Work out what key your melody is in.ĭon’t worry, it’s not too hard! I’ll show you how… I’m using Ableton Live for this example, but you can do it just as easily in any DAW. How to make EDM chords from a melody, step-by-step guide: Step 1.

How to make chords in fl studio