Jaelights

Slooping dupes over here

Succinct transbien musician behind Lorelei and the Ghost.
Bring me your finest Yuris!





Music Links:
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@Jaelights
SoundCloud:
https://soundcloud.com/jaelights
BandCamp:
https://jaelights.bandcamp.com/



Writing:
https://www.wattpad.com/user/Jaelights



Business Email if you want music:
loreleiandtheghost@gmail.com



Profile Pic by @nomnomnami


Easily the most nerve wracking part for me. Especially when I sit down and stare at the melody all laid out in Synth V and I think to myself, "well, this is as good as I can reasonably make the melody...how do I not screw it up with stupid lyrics?"

And it's funny... Lyrics grow kind of like plants in my opinion. At first you're just kinda looking at some brown mulch. You know there's supposed to be a flower in that pot but right now it's just dirt and prolly some highly processed shit (I think people call that fertilizer) and you just have no idea what's going to come up.

Then it hits you... as I'm staring at this pot (ie., listening to the music repeatedly, maybe writing little phrases here and there)...suddenly you think: I could totally see a tulip in there!! I want to see a tulip in there. In fact, I can't image anything else ever even being in there!

So you put a bulb in and you water it with some lyrical thoughts and..... the flower just flows right out of that seed. You cease to be writing words for the sake of words and suddenly you're writing words for the sake of a concept, of the concept you know is supposed to be there.

So my song just kinda blooms I think.

I started with nothing (this time as always) and, after listening to the song + melody for the umpteenth time, had this character pop to mind. She was sad, she just wanted a break from the world. I decided to name her Lucy (because "Lucy felt called out" fit really well into the first line, so I rolled with it). I thought, Lucy, if you're having a bad day, well, this song is NuDisco, so how about we go to a club, eh? I know this cool DJ (well, I can make one up, it's my own world in my own head) and she's gonna get you feeling better.

I became very emotional involved with Lucy. I think that's important when writing characters. If you don't care what happens to them, how will there be any emotional honesty when you write about them? I cared about Lucy, I knew we were going to a club with a good DJ, I was gonna write stuff to help her feel better.

That was the seed. And once it started growing the words came easily.

Eventually you'll need to prune words you don't need, swap out ideas from one place to another, refine your verbage, etc etc. But that's the easy part. That's just making the idea pretty. Making worlds pretty is pretty easy pretty much all the pretty time (unless you're me and write sentences like that but...eh).

Yeah, the seed itself is always the hardest part to me....and the one part that I have no idea how to explain exactly where it comes from. All I can really say is this: You just gotta sit down, with the melody in front of you and ask yourself, through whatever means works for you, what in the heck is this music about? If you do it long enough, a seed will appear and life will be great :D


(But, as a matter of practicality, if you sit there for a couple hours and nothing happens...I mean, try again another day. To much staring will just wear you out.)


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in reply to @Jaelights's post:

I have on a few occasions but it never really worked for me :/. That’s not to say it can’t work though, I have friends who start with the words and it amazes me how focused their compositions are as a result!

I think it depends on how you mentally process music. I started as a drummer and bassist, so I tend to think rhythm first. I would assume, though it’s just a guess, that if you come at it as a writer/vocalist you would probably do lyrics first.

Either way, there comes a point when you have to cross the border between backing the vocals and the vocals themselves…. It’s the tough part, imo.