Hi

I'm currently stuck on making melodies. I manage to make nice sounding chord progressions, but my melodies fail. I am able to make melodies but all of them sound uninteresting and unlogical

Some people advise to start with your bass and drums. This way you can build a certain groove and adapt a melody to it.
However some of my inspiring songs are very simple in that area (sidechained root notes, rides on the kick, off-beat clap).

I'm curious what workflow you all have it comes to this!

Cheers!

The biggest thing for melodies is PHRASING. Break your melodies up into phrases, short sections that make up a longer line. The breaks between phrases are where you would take a breath, if you were singing them.

just let it come naturally, and make sure it complements the chords

most of the time for me humming/singing random nonsense with the chords finds a melody hahaha

I work on chords first and then make a melody based off of it.

Pretty much what I do to too. How can create fauna flora without having created the world itself?
The thing is doesn't feel catchy and dancy.

most of the time for me humming/singing random nonsense with the chords finds a melody hahaha

I might consider humming. 

The biggest thing for melodies is PHRASING. Break your melodies up into phrases, short sections that make up a longer line. The breaks between phrases are where you would take a breath, if you were singing them.

This and your link was spot on. Just something I totally overlooked but so important. Little repeated motifs are what make melodies catchy. Being repeated (with harmonic variations) is asking not to be forgotten,. Thanks!

Thanks all for your replies!

Everyone's workflow is of course different, but whistling, humming and singing is working very well for me. Sometimes things just click and I can intuitively write a melody, but at other times, I have to approach things in a more structured way: I think of melodies in terms of rhythmic patterns and melodic phrases, and I try to surprise with one while keeping the other steady. What that means is, different parts of a melody will end up sounding similar to other parts in some ways and fresh in other ways—finding the balance there is a matter of experience, as are most things. I will also frequently write a second part where I can change up a few things (like going up instead of down in a key place), which is not just a way to call back to the original melody (humans like familiarity), but also a way to express different emotions, and to make a chord progression go a longer way.

Here's an example of a melody I wrote that way (skip to 1:54:40 or so):



Another quick tip: look up call-response patterns. Knowing how to use them will improve your melody writing immensely.

Generally you'll want to make a melody as simple as it can be to express the underlying musical phrase. Don't cram in too many notes if it doesn't need them and generally it's not great to have melodies that meander.  A good melody is usually easily singable and has enough space to breathe.  If you can't easily sing your melody -- it probably needs some work.

IMO save the complexity for the harmony or counter melodies, but each individual melodic component or motif benefits from being as simply and concisely expressed as possible.

Thank you all for the replies!!!

I never took in account that a catchy melody should be perfectly hummable.
I checked my older projects and tried humming with my melodies. I had moments were my brain/voice wanted to hum into a certain direction but my melody didn't.do the same.
It caused a very akward moment.

I'm not the best singer but I'll use my voice for my future melodies. A powerful instrument once you realise it.

Thanks again!

I suggest reading this blog post: http://edmprod.com/ultimate-melody-guide/ (The Ultimate Guide to Writing Better and More Memorable Melodies)