using theory to create riffs

[northerndragon]

what techiques can be used to create melodies from the ground up? honestly i hate just playing random arpeggios i want to be able to play whats in my head.

[brainsforbreakfast]

IMO you should start by training your musical hearing if you haven't already. If you can describe the pitches acuratly, you can focus on translating the notes in your head to the notes on your fretboard. Use a major or minor mode to find the notes you seek, and it should pretty much write itself. Just remember, key in this tehnique is recognising pitches.

[guitar_demon]

pick where you wanna start say with an arpeggio, then had in some other chord tones from it and some scale tones with even some non-scale tones(the best place to through these wouldb be like a 7h8h9 where 8 would be the non scale, so you dont stop dead on it but pass by it, which would also be a passing tone) then if you think its to simple go back and through in the passing tones and or neighbor tones to fill it up a bit, these are just some simple things you could do really but its a start