I have been composing for awhile. Just for fun. And just what happens to be in my head at the time. I am a pianist and a cellist so most things that I write come from that realm of timbre.

One thing I have realized stops me from sharing what I have wrote is the lack of interesting rhythm. Im great at writing a melody, my accompaniments are a bit boring, and overall just about everything I write has a very flat cadence to it. I end up with many melodies that are all notes of the same duration and accompaniment that is a clever arpeggio with no gravity to it.

I also get the sense that my music is just a pinch too slow but if I speed it up my melody doesn't cary for as many bars which bothers me.

Are there any exercises or techniques I might try to get my songs out of this rut? I would love to gain more intuition on how to write more interesting melodies. Has anyone else struggled with this?

I feel like with just a few more passing notes, maybe some clever holds in specific notes in the melody I could get somewhere much better. But when I add these things it stops sounding like the song my brain made me obsessed with writing if that makes sense. I need some sort of system to force me into embellishment.

I also would love to learn how to write good percussion. Melody, harmony, and accompaniment composition came natural to me but I cant even find something I like with a drum machine normally. Nor tell really what my composition is missing due to lack of percussion.