Much has been made of the recent success of Adele – her powerful singing, throwback soulfulness, old school production, emotional directness…

All true, but what struck me right away about her songs was the length and legato quality of her melodies – unusual in an era where singing (particularly on strongly rhythmic songs) is more likely to be done in sharp bursts and short phrases.

It seems to me that in her melodies she’s blending the freer, more flowing, and less predictable elements of modern songwriting with timeless long-note melodic singing – and combining them in songs with classic structure.

To develop melodies that are less predictable and use longer phrases (and notes), it’s interesting to listen more closely to two of Adele’s songs – Rolling In The Deep and Someone Like You.

Listen to these recordings a few (more) times while keeping in mind the following points.  Singing and playing the songs helps too.

Both songs, although extremely different, are structurally almost identical and build their melodies in very similar ways.

Both have melodies that are not particularly complex note-wise, but how they keep rolling and building in unpredictable ways, not pausing where one would normally expect them to, or not pausing at all, contributes a lot to the tension, drama, and emotion of the songs and the recordings.

Rolling In The Deep

The Verse is 8 bars – one 4 bar section (consisting of 2 phrases with a one beat pause between them – after the word ‘soul’ for instance) that’s repeated.  (The song starts with a double Verse.)

In the 8 bar Pre-Chorus the melody phrases are twice as long – two 4 bar phrases with only slight pauses in the melody.

Also note that in each 4 Bar phrase the rhythm of the melody accelerates, building from 1/4 notes into 1/8 notes, while the melody itself stays around a few notes, building an urgency which explodes into the Chorus – where again the melody is almost continuous (and higher).

Someone Like You

The basic melody of the Verse is simple – again two 4 bar phrases.  In this case there’s a rest on the downbeat of each bar.  The melody starts with 5 notes, but she puts in nice variations as it develops.  (Again this starts with a double Verse.)

The Pre-Chorus melody is continuous – no break at all until the end of the section. This song goes higher and has a wider range than the other one, but the Chorus is also one long (higher) melody.

This one has a Bridge, which is also one long melody phrase with no break.

To sing and write songs like this, it does help to be an awesome singer and to only have to breathe very occasionally!

But even if you don’t sing like Adele you can use some of these approaches to create songs with melodies that have longer phrases and notes and are more rhythmically interesting, and less predictable and ‘boxy’, than you might have otherwise written.