# Melodic Examples with Tidal? **URL:** \ **Category:** TidalCycles\ **Tags:** resources\ **Created:** [24 April 2020 23:00 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490 "2020-04-24T23:00:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ben](https://uzu.lurk.org/user_avatar/uzu.lurk.org/ben/32/362_2.png) [@ben](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/ben)\ **Post date:** [24 April 2020 23:00 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490/1 "2020-04-24T23:00:36Z")
Hello, I've been really impressed by what I've seen Tidal can do with rhythm. It seems to open up so many new territories, and in an efficient way no less. I've seen some Kindohm tutorials and it's great to see how he uses it for drums. Are there similar resources pointing to people using Tidal in a melodic/harmonic way? I'd love to hear examples of pitched work in Tidal, if indeed there are people exploring that. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Dan](https://uzu.lurk.org/user_avatar/uzu.lurk.org/dan/32/367_2.png) [@Dan](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/Dan)\ **Post date:** [24 April 2020 23:44 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490/2 "2020-04-24T23:44:59Z")
I'm also interested in the topic and would love to see a lecture/video about it some point! 🙂 Here's an example I recorded some time ago: [https://youtu.be/6YENXMzDe7U](https://youtu.be/6YENXMzDe7U) Here is another: [https://youtu.be/MbCNdB3hfpc](https://youtu.be/MbCNdB3hfpc). They are both quite simple, basically just 1 progression repeated over and over perhaps with a couple of layers, but nothing too complicated in that sense. I'd definitely be interested in learning more about this stuff (playing with chords, melodies etc.). ---
**Author:** ![yaxu](https://uzu.lurk.org/user_avatar/uzu.lurk.org/yaxu/32/2_2.png) [@yaxu](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/yaxu)\ **Post date:** [25 April 2020 09:07 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490/3 "2020-04-25T09:07:50Z")
Yes, this is to come, including scales, chords, canons, arpeggios and rounds! ---
**Author:** ![ben](https://uzu.lurk.org/user_avatar/uzu.lurk.org/ben/32/362_2.png) [@ben](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/ben)\ **Post date:** [25 April 2020 10:50 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490/4 "2020-04-25T10:50:31Z")
Thanks great to hear! I meant more if any examples comes to mind for inspiration, not necessarily instruction at this point. All good if not though. ---
**Author:** ![thedigitalDog](https://uzu.lurk.org/user_avatar/uzu.lurk.org/thedigitaldog/32/130_2.png) [@thedigitalDog](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/thedigitalDog)\ **Post date:** [25 April 2020 11:05 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490/5 "2020-04-25T11:05:18Z")
Thanks, I'm eager to learn those topics ! ---
**Author:** ![nilhartman](https://uzu.lurk.org/user_avatar/uzu.lurk.org/nilhartman/32/957_2.png) [@nilhartman](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/nilhartman)\ **Post date:** [25 April 2020 12:09 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490/6 "2020-04-25T12:09:13Z")
My first, proper jam with Tidal, about a year ago : [https://soundcloud.com/nilhartman/240219-tidalacid2-live](https://soundcloud.com/nilhartman/240219-tidalacid2-live) Took me an hour and a half to compose/performed/record. With "traditional" sequencers, I'd would have needed weeks. The "artwork" is a screenshot of the code, and as you can see it's quite simple to decypher. Hopefully I'm not off-topic here 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![tedthetrumpet](https://uzu.lurk.org/user_avatar/uzu.lurk.org/tedthetrumpet/32/39_2.png) [@tedthetrumpet](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/tedthetrumpet)\ **Post date:** [25 April 2020 14:00 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490/7 "2020-04-25T14:00:53Z")
Very simple four-bar chord sequence and bass line in my second-ever tidal algorave performance: [https://youtu.be/jDl\_ALEq4Zs?t=1014](https://youtu.be/jDl_ALEq4Zs?t=1014) ---
**Author:** ![szalwiarz](https://uzu.lurk.org/user_avatar/uzu.lurk.org/szalwiarz/32/51_2.png) [@szalwiarz](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/szalwiarz)\ **Post date:** [25 April 2020 19:47 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490/8 "2020-04-25T19:47:43Z")
I would say for that it can be a little tough to progress with a melody further once you figure out something analogical to ```haskell d1 $ stut' 3 (1/12) (|+ note "<5 7>") $ s "superpiano" ``` which obviously will sound kind of "right" by ear and you might even know what to do with it, but then how do you manage to _pattern out the melody that you have in your head, but so it still works inside of the function_, tricky, huh? What I would highly recommend is fiddling around with patterning out note changes with functions such as mentioned above **stutWith** or **plyWith** (it isn't in the docs I think but [here's a video of Kindohm explaining it out](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59w_ne9jeI8) which is worth checking out if you haven't seen it), **striate/striate'** can be really interesting for coming up with funky harmonic stuff/textures, also what you see in @nilhartman's example is a probably really good way of executing code if you have the melody sort of ready before hand or want a _specific_ pattern/progression and then modify it afterwards. Also, don't be afraid of longer samples, whole sequences can be very nicely chopped up and then reassembled (here's [here's a video by @yaxu on bite/chew, slice/splice functions](https://club.tidalcycles.org/t/bite-chew-slice-and-splice/179) which will surely come handy), apart from these, **sustain** and **begin** are your best friends. If you ie. don't really want to striate a 30s sample into 3072 bits each of them 1/12 of the length of the whole sample (worth trying when it's one of those cold early mornings during spring) then apply some function to it, it can be quite an inspiring method to make a recording of yourself hitting a two-three note sequence on your favourite synth (can be with a little pause inbetween). Load it up, mess around with it (again, if anyone asked me what's fun I'd say **striate** ), and if you don't like what happens with the two other notes at some point you can just cut the sustain off and you're left with only the base note. Tidy. If you have any hardware or a bunch of favourite VSTs, obviously using midi is a very good idea as well, although after writing a bit of code I usually end up recording stuff that looks like this: ![70823071_1990161021087407_8321366533179703296_n](https://club.tidalcycles.org/uploads/default/original/1X/917eefbaaae0da4d95ae5ec1dd59917a984580cd.png) [Here's a more or less melodic tidal session I had done the other day.](https://soundcloud.com/slodkie_nadzienie/grzyb2-mix-2) **tl;dr try to make a trance record then change the sample** ---
**Author:** ![kindohm](https://uzu.lurk.org/user_avatar/uzu.lurk.org/kindohm/32/395_2.png) [@kindohm](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/kindohm)\ **Post date:** [26 April 2020 14:55 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490/9 "2020-04-26T14:55:15Z")
I just learned about `snowball` yesterday, which blew my mind: [https://tidalcycles.org/index.php/snowball](https://tidalcycles.org/index.php/snowball) Example straight from the documentation: ```auto d1 $ note (scale "minor" $ snowball 4 (+) (slow 2) $ (run 3)) # sound "gtr" # gain 0.9 ``` ---
**Author:** ![vin](https://uzu.lurk.org/user_avatar/uzu.lurk.org/vin/32/27_2.png) [@vin](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/vin)\ **Post date:** [28 April 2020 05:17 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490/10 "2020-04-28T05:17:12Z")
Oh god that got fun quickly. Thank you for that! ---
**Author:** ![cleary](https://uzu.lurk.org/user_avatar/uzu.lurk.org/cleary/32/177_2.png) [@cleary](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/cleary)\ **Post date:** [3 May 2020 22:47 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490/11 "2020-05-03T22:47:49Z")
I've spent the morning investigating the builtin sc synths and trying to build something harmonic using a basic ii-V-I chord sequence, humanising it, varying it etc: https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=false&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F812884459&show_artwork=true&maxheight=166 Melodic investigations on top of this are next - this thread looks like it has enough to keep me going for a few days at least - thanks! ---
**Author:** ![torotumbo](https://uzu.lurk.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/aca169/32.png) [@torotumbo](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/torotumbo)\ **Post date:** [3 May 2020 23:10 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490/12 "2020-05-03T23:10:55Z")
I made some music with math functions and perlin noise, based in the code of a fellow coder from argentina. I upload it but with hydra visuals so the code is unable, if it interest you i could search it or something. ---
**Author:** ![FlashBlaze](https://uzu.lurk.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/4af34b/32.png) [@FlashBlaze](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/FlashBlaze)\ **Post date:** [5 May 2020 03:15 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490/13 "2020-05-05T03:15:21Z")
This sounds amazing! Can I look at the code or a snippet? ---
**Author:** ![cleary](https://uzu.lurk.org/user_avatar/uzu.lurk.org/cleary/32/177_2.png) [@cleary](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/cleary)\ **Post date:** [5 May 2020 19:40 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490/14 "2020-05-05T19:40:51Z")
Hey thanks! I did a screen recording as well, there's a link in the soundcloud comment too: [![](https://club.tidalcycles.org/uploads/default/original/1X/18edc8340debe8c05253867f2a073b5ea91a3fee.jpeg "tidalcycles: synth vs sample") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR2pW7l6GME) Hope you find something useful there 🙂 ...and please excuse the part where I forgot I was recording for 4 extra minutes of silence 😛 ---
**Author:** ![bcgreen](https://uzu.lurk.org/user_avatar/uzu.lurk.org/bcgreen/32/763_2.png) [@bcgreen](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/bcgreen)\ **Post date:** [7 May 2020 05:14 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490/15 "2020-05-07T05:14:39Z")
This is really nice--- thanks for sharing! ---
**Author:** ![nuntxaku](https://uzu.lurk.org/user_avatar/uzu.lurk.org/nuntxaku/32/1205_2.png) [@nuntxaku](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/nuntxaku)\ **Post date:** [13 May 2020 16:57 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490/16 "2020-05-13T16:57:10Z")
Hi Dan nice example. I've tryed to copy it in my atom, but I can't understand the sintax you are using and it doesn't run in my Tidal... for exemple d1 $ s (e "\<3 7 5 2\>" 8 "superchip") --number 8 seems not be correct (but it works for you!! so, obviously it's correct!!) What are you doing??? Thanx and congratulations. ---
**Author:** ![Dan](https://uzu.lurk.org/user_avatar/uzu.lurk.org/dan/32/367_2.png) [@Dan](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/Dan)\ **Post date:** [13 May 2020 17:26 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490/17 "2020-05-13T17:26:06Z")
Hey thank you! And hmm good question... to be honest it was a while ago and now that looks quite confusing indeed 😂 Looks like I was playing with Euclidean rhythms though. I guess the syntax have changed now (making it easier). You should be able to rewrite the original code ```haskell d1 $ s (e "<3 7 5 2>" 8 "superchip") ``` with ```haskell d1 $ s "superchip(<3 7 5 2>, 8)" ``` There's a video about Euclidean rhythms [here](https://club.tidalcycles.org/t/week-1-lesson-5-mini-notation-part-3/449) I hope it helps! ---
**Author:** ![nuntxaku](https://uzu.lurk.org/user_avatar/uzu.lurk.org/nuntxaku/32/1205_2.png) [@nuntxaku](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/nuntxaku)\ **Post date:** [13 May 2020 17:41 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490/18 "2020-05-13T17:41:19Z")
Ahh ok! It's old syntax. Thank you and good luck. ---
**Author:** ![yaxu](https://uzu.lurk.org/user_avatar/uzu.lurk.org/yaxu/32/2_2.png) [@yaxu](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/yaxu)\ **Post date:** [13 May 2020 19:41 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490/19 "2020-05-13T19:41:03Z")
Yes it's still there but `e` got renamed to `euclid` in version 1.0. ---
**Author:** ![heavy.lifting](https://uzu.lurk.org/user_avatar/uzu.lurk.org/heavy.lifting/32/150_2.png) [@heavy.lifting](https://uzu.lurk.org/u/heavy.lifting)\ **Post date:** [14 May 2020 14:38 UTC](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490/20 "2020-05-14T14:38:40Z")
Shameless plug but my last album [Thanks for Watching](http://www.panyrosasdiscos.net/pyr279-heavy-lifting-thanks-for-watching/) was sequenced entirely with Tidal and I think it's pretty melodic. I used MIDI to program hardware synths (Waldorf Rocket, Roland MGS 64, Kawai PHm, Boss DR-202) - everything was recorded in three long jams (probs like 15 hours total) and then edited down. The code was pretty simple - I just uploaded my file [here](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Vu6q4ywytKJkyK9A08kvCIMydlFFKOBK) if you want to take a look. Obviously I was changing stuff as I went so this isn't absolutely everything, but should give you an idea of the kind of structures I was using. [Next page](https://uzu.lurk.org/t/melodic-examples-with-tidal/490.md?page=2)