Intervals can be grouped into a few categories called steps, skips, and leaps. These categories can help you control how your melody develops within and between sections in a song.

We've looked at tone tendencies in major keys. Now let's see how different tones create tension and expressive effects in minor keys.

Tense and unstable tones in a scale can evoke powerful emotions in our listeners. Let's look at how unstable tones in the major scale create tension and how they can be used for expressive effects.

Every strong and independent melody has another, simpler melody hiding behind it. The ability to identify and play with this skeleton can help you control the way your melodies move over time.

Just as words can be emphasized when speaking, notes can be musically emphasized in a song. Since emphasized notes have greater impact, they shouldn't be wasted.

What matters is how your music sounds. Even if you get the theory wrong, you can still use what you learn. And mistakes can actually be a source for creativity.

There are many techniques for writing melodies, but nothing can substitute for the inner store of melodies you develop as you grow as a songwriter.

Thinking in bars allows you to better understand how structure is built up in songs. This will help you write stronger melodies, and improve melodies that seem to be going nowhere.

The shapeshifting principle says you should treat every step and every idea in your process as provisional and subject to change. Your job is to help your songs become what they're going to be.

'Tension and release' is one of the most powerful tools available to a songwriter. Thinking in terms of a home chord can help you play with tension and release with greater control and purpose.