Question How Do Lyricists and Melodists Collaborate?

[mobius017]

This is something I've been wondering about for awhile. I've seen where people come up with lyrics and then collaborate with people who write melodies. And, of course, there could be the other case, too, where a melody exists and a lyricist creates lyrics. How does that work?

The way I think of things, a song's lyrics and melody are related. Even if a lyricist gave the melodist some idea of what mood they had in mind beforehand, there are still variations within the song to consider (e.g., rises/falls of emotion). I'd assume there would have to be some communication back and forth to make the lyrics and melody suit each other....

Part of the reason I ask is to get an idea of the extent to which the lyrics and the melody can be decoupled. For instance, you could think of things as above, where everything is related, but from something like a loops-based perspective, you can also break a song down into discrete, semi-separate parts. I'm wondering how much you can do this with a song's melody/lyrics, because that would correspond to the degree of independence the lyricist and melodist would have.

So, if you're the lyricist/melodist and you've collaborated with someone for the other part of a song, how did that work? Or if anyone else has any other thoughts on the above, those would be helpful, as well.

 

[Kona]

I’ve. Ever done it before, but here’s how I imagine it:
Firstly, mood is established and one makes their part, lyrics or melody.
Then, the other takes that and keeping in mind the rhythm and flow, creates the other part.

I think melody > lyrics would be slightly harder because you have to match syllables a lot too, though you could put two syllables on a note.

It also would be possible that after the process, they come together and decide tweaks on both sides, such as changing synonyms in lyrics, or note lengths in melody.

That’s how I would personally do it at least. Though the process could differ depending on the track they’re working with

 

[inactive]

You can do it however you want. Verdi worked closely with his librettists, while Schubert set music to pre-existing poetry that was not necessarily written with music in mind. On the other hand, Allan Sherman's "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" is set to ballet music that was never intended to have words. And Iron Maiden's Rime of the Ancient Mariner uses new passages mixed with passages straight from the original poem, which can be viewed as a method of actively collaborating with a long-dead poet.

Bringing it back to the world of vocal synthesizers, I have personally set music to existing lyrics without much interaction between myself and the lyricist—they just let me do whatever I want. I have also composed the music beforehand and later asked someone else to write lyrics as they see fit. In fact, if you scour piapro, which is exactly where and how I began collaborating, you'll find many users asking for either words to fit existing music; or, more likely, lyrics posted in the hopes that someone might write music for said lyrics. But there's no correct method, and the degree of interaction between composer and lyricist varies from person to person and situation to situation.

 

[uncreepy]

I personally feel like lyrics aren't THAT important. Me and my twin argue about this. She thinks you have to come up with the lyrics and then the melody, but I think you have to come up with the melody and then the lyrics. (In her defense, she actually comes up with lyrics and tunes by whistling and singing, which I haven't been able to do.)

I have written Japanese lyrics for a couple Vocaloid-related collabs. In each case, the person I worked with already had the notes blocked in, I just had to put in the lyrics (because I wasn't good at theory and didn't know where the words would go or how long the notes should be). The reason I don't think lyrics are important is because of how many times I had to rewrite the same line over and over in order to get it to fit in the available notes. I rewrote the same sentence in many different ways, it surprised me how I had to not be married to an idea. In one case, I was only given a title, so I based the lyrics on the title and the feeling the music gave me. In another case, I was given drawings but no lyrics, so I based it on the art and feelings. In a few cases, I had to translate English lyrics into Japanese (I think of translating as localization, since it can't be literal for songs).

You could argue that these people trusted me (or any other lyrics writer collaborating with a music maker) to make good lyrics. Maybe they aren't able to express themselves through writing or have "nothing to say" to their audience. I assume bands with like 5 people in them help each other come up with melodies and lyrics, they have videos where people like Ed Sheeran just say like "bah bah buh dah" instead of words while composing, they come up with it later.

I have also translated English VSQs from popular Vocaloid songs that were publicly available to download. Because I was practicing, I thought it didn't matter if my translation was "the same" or not, because I thought the big name producers would never reply to me if I asked for clarification on meaning. (I never posted them, even though I liked the translations, though.)

A big inspiration for me is Hikaru Utada, who did both English and Japanese versions of her songs in the Kingdom Hearts OST. Specifically "Simple And Clean" vs "Hikari" and "Sanctuary" vs "Passion", the background music is the same, but the lyrics are quite different (though the overall meaning is similar). There are even remixes where the song has the tempo increased, which makes the song have a different vibe even further.

You can take people through an emotional journey just through music without words. Think of the OSTs for video games, where it's a sad song or a battle song. There are even songs with lyrics in fake languages, you can even have parts where real lyrics are played backwards, or you can have something like a half English and half Japanese song (so most listeners won't be able to understand the entire song). And people can enjoy songs in real languages they don't understand (like someone who only speaks English listening to Kpop), you can still feel the meaning in how they sing words or how the music sounds. That's why I don't think lyrics are THAT important. That being said, I will immediately stop listening to a song if the lyrics are dumb and make me cringe. ^^;

In the grand scheme of things, it probably doesn't matter. It depends on each person, their situation, their skills. Can they write music or not? Can they write lyrics alone? Do they need a translation by someone else? Does it matter to the creator if the lyrics are deep or just fun? That kind of thing. The creative process vs the end result for consumers , I guess.

 

[razelberii]

And, of course, there could be the other case, too, where a melody exists and a lyricist creates lyrics.

This is the method I did when I created lyrics for songs I wrote lyrics for in a collaboration (excluding Invisible Being).

For those I was collaborating with, they would share with me the melody or near-finished song. I would listen and write lyrics based on this. The limitation of matching the word to the beat I believe helped me in some way. I believe it allowed my creativity to focus in certain points rather than worrying about too much or too little or what would be just right. I just had to match with the melody, and make sure the lyrics flowed well, things such as this.

There are many methods you can do I believe when it comes to this. In my own time, when I create music (which is not often, but I compose in my head, in a sense), sometimes I create some lyrics first, sometimes I create a composition first.

Continuing from before, I would take my time when writing lyrics. Get a good draft, look over some things, and get feedback in what way I can from the one I'm collaborating with. It helps to hear the words in the song as well, as listening can help one decide if it flows well.
With the limited melody, that doesn't mean a syllable per note. You may be able to find ways to extend a word into more than one pitch, or add another pitch to make a verse more unique from before. Things such as this. It's worth experimenting and communicating if possible.

These are only my thoughts, however! I wanted to at least share my thoughts, it's definitely a good subject to discuss

 

[mobius017]

Firstly, mood is established and one makes their part, lyrics or melody.

Then, the other takes that and keeping in mind the rhythm and flow, creates the other part.


I think melody > lyrics would be slightly harder because you have to match syllables a lot too, though you could put two syllables on a note.


It also would be possible that after the process, they come together and decide tweaks on both sides, such as changing synonyms in lyrics, or note lengths in melody.

This sounds the most like what I've done in the past. Typically, I'll write the lyrics first, and then try to come up with an instrumental afterwards. I think that's mostly based on my background. When I have an idea for a song, I try to figure out if I have enough to say about it to fill a few minutes, and then lyrics naturally come out of that (So that I don't forget what I want to say.). But if I had a more dominantly musical background, I imagine musical phrases might be what occurred to me, and then I'd be trying to find something for a vocalist to do.

In fact, if you scour piapro, which is exactly where and how I began collaborating, you'll find many users asking for either words to fit existing music; or, more likely, lyrics posted in the hopes that someone might write music for said lyrics.

I've seen people post lyrics like that. That's one of the features I like best about Piapro; different kinds of artists all get to contribute their stuff, and even if any one person can't do everything, it's possible for everyone to make something and see their contribution get mixed together into a final product.

I personally feel like lyrics aren't THAT important. Me and my twin argue about this. She thinks you have to come up with the lyrics and then the melody, but I think you have to come up with the melody and then the lyrics. (In her defense, she actually comes up with lyrics and tunes by whistling and singing, which I haven't been able to do.)

Reminds me of a line from the animated version of "101 Dalmatians." One of the owners of the dalmatian family is a songwriter, and he says to his wife at one point, "Melody first, my dear, and then the lyrics." I assume that at least some of the Disney songwriters shared that opinion and that that was the basis for that line of dialogue....


It's obvious people address the lyric/melody relationship in lots of different ways for lots of different reasons, and maybe even differently at different times!

The reason I don't think lyrics are important is because of how many times I had to rewrite the same line over and over in order to get it to fit in the available notes. I rewrote the same sentence in many different ways, it surprised me how I had to not be married to an idea.

That makes sense. Words can be really flexible (or you could maybe describe it as "imprecise.") that way. Sometimes it's almost kind of scary how many different ways you can work them around, sometimes meaning the same thing and sometimes not.

In one case, I was only given a title, so I based the lyrics on the title and the feeling the music gave me.

That sounds like fun! Would you mind sharing a link to the song?

A big inspiration for me is Hikaru Utada, who did both English and Japanese versions of her songs in the Kingdom Hearts OST. Specifically "Simple And Clean" vs "Hikari" and "Sanctuary" vs "Passion", the background music is the same, but the lyrics are quite different (though the overall meaning is similar). There are even remixes where the song has the tempo increased, which makes the song have a different vibe even further.

You might enjoy the different versions of "Weight of the World" from Nier: Automata. This song has English, Japanese, French (I think.), and a few other versions.

And people can enjoy songs in real languages they don't understand (like someone who only speaks English listening to Kpop), you can still feel the meaning in how they sing words or how the music sounds.

*Raises hand*

The limitation of matching the word to the beat I believe helped me in some way.

That makes sense. You would think that creativity would benefit most from having a completely blank space in which to work, but I've also seen where constraints can be helpful, too, as they provide starting points.



Having said all that, another question: what are everyone's thoughts on the relationship between vocals and the song's backing track(s)? I'd think they might be related in at least a few ways:

1. Different parts of the song would need to match up (e.g., if the instrumental is meant to change between the verse/chorus/bridge/etc., then it needs to fit the timing of the appearances of those things).
2. The backing track should match the song's overall mood or the mood of its parts.
3. The backing track should be of an appropriate volume and tonal range to ensure that the vocalist can be heard clearly, if there is one.

I imagine #2 is more of an "it depends" scenario than the others, but probably all of them can vary from song to song in some way. Any thoughts?

 

[uncreepy]

My fragmented replies:

The song I was only given a title for
The song I was only given art for

That's funny about the 101 Dalmations thing!

I didn't know that Nier: Automata had multi-language songs. I DID know that the first game has 4 versions of "Ashes of Dreams" (New: English, Aratanaru: Japanese, Nouveau: French, and Nuadhaich: Gaelic). Thanks for recommending "Weight of the World" to me. ^v^

For the new question:
1. I agree.

2. I think generally the background music should match the vibe of the song, but there are exceptions (ex: sounds happy but lyrics are sad > first example that came to my mind).
I can't not think of the video where Stevie T played happy guitar songs with the wrong lyrics (aka black metal lyrics as acoustic songs)

(He's also done videos about switching songs from major to minor (ex: TV show themes) and it sounds so wonked up. I guess context of the song really matters, if it's an upbeat song with the purpose of cheering people up, you wouldn't want it to be in a depressing key.)

3. I personally like being able to hear the vocalist the best out of the song. Of course, when the singer stops singing, a different "instrument" has to take its place as the loudest melody maker, though (ex: guitar).
Some genres seem to not care about vocal clarity, though. I think it's an aesthetic? I noticed it for more electronic-y music, but I think of as "recorded on a potato" music. Such as something like "Rhythm And Balance", but especially goth music (ex: anything by The Sisters of Mercy).

 

[mobius017]

The song I was only given art for

The tuning and guitar sound really pretty! You certainly got a lot of ideas out of only 1/a few snippets of art! Good job!

The song I was only given a title for

I really like this song, too. The lyrics match up well with the beat/melody, and the song sounds fun--bet it was enjoyable to work on!

Thanks for sharing the songs you worked on!

I didn't know that Nier: Automata had multi-language songs. I DID know that the first game has 4 versions of "Ashes of Dreams" (New: English, Aratanaru: Japanese, Nouveau: French, and Nuadhaich: Gaelic). Thanks for recommending "Weight of the World" to me. ^v^

NP!

2. I think generally the background music should match the vibe of the song, but there are exceptions (ex: sounds happy but lyrics are sad > first example that came to my mind).
I can't not think of the video where Stevie T played happy guitar songs with the wrong lyrics (aka black metal lyrics as acoustic songs)

(He's also done videos about switching songs from major to minor (ex: TV show themes) and it sounds so wonked up. I guess context of the song really matters, if it's an upbeat song with the purpose of cheering people up, you wouldn't want it to be in a depressing key.)

I've seen a lot of people say that many Vocaloid songs are like that (They sound cheerful, but deal with lots of heavy/painful/depressing things.). Personally, I prefer it when the music and subject matter matches, but I can appreciate the aesthetic of juxtaposing the lighter music with heavier themes. I mean, to an extent, "Himitsu Keisatsu" and "This is the Happiness and Peace of Mind Committee" are both kind of like that, and I enjoy both of those.

That Stevie T video is hilarious!

3. I personally like being able to hear the vocalist the best out of the song. Of course, when the singer stops singing, a different "instrument" has to take its place as the loudest melody maker, though (ex: guitar).
Some genres seem to not care about vocal clarity, though. I think it's an aesthetic? I noticed it for more electronic-y music, but I think of as "recorded on a potato" music. Such as something like "Rhythm And Balance", but especially goth music (ex: anything by The Sisters of Mercy).

Could be an aesthetic. At least some heavy metal seems to me to be like that, too--you can probably hear that there's a voice, but the volume of the guitars/drums/etc. is just as important. And even if you can hear the voice, its clarity doesn't seem to be necessarily top-of-mind, either.

I didn't even immediately notice that there WAS a voice in "Rhythm And Balance" for a few seconds! It's almost more like a background instrument.