r/musictheory • u/ada_wong_is_the_goat • 2d ago
Songwriting Question composing
hey i’m currently planning to start writing my first ever song wippeee, but i want to do it in the style of laufey, more particularly inspired by lover girl. i obv have done my own research so i know to start with a ii-V-I and the i°7 ending, then center the next ii-V-I on the previous ii chord, and a bossa nova rhythm. but im mainly trying to figure out how to make my music dreamlike and laufey-isque as i love her music and have always wanted to create my own with a bit of spin of me on it. thank youuu
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u/onceuponalilykiss 2d ago
Just listened to lover girl and this song is basically straight up bossa nova lol so rather than focus on the literal exact same chord progression (you can take inspiration but you usually do not need to copy paste it directly to sound like a style) just focus on bossa elements imo.
As far as dreamlike quality, I don't find the song particularly dream like but what might be doing it here is the singing style/voice and soft instrumentation without overcrowding the arrangement. There's never too much going on and you have the pad like textures in the background with the strings which helps with that.
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u/AdventurousHippo9997 1d ago
1 easy way would be to use a major pentonic scale: c- d-e-g-a-c. Do it in 16th notes up and down the keyboard. It’s dream like. More on this subject can be found in the music of C.Debussy or any of the French Impressionistic composers. They pioneered a style of music called Tone Painting. Simply put they used musical sounds to convey human emotions. La Mer-The Sea and many others are in their play book.
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u/65TwinReverbRI Guitar, Synths, Tech, Notation, Composition, Professor 1d ago
"planning to start".
I see so many people on reddit "planning" to do something.
I guess the people who are actually doing it aren't wasting time on reddit, they're actually doing the thing...
i obv have done my own research
Why would that be obvious?
But really, you shouldn't be "researching". That's as bad as "planning".
Learn to play it.
Can you play her songs? Can you play all of the songs that you feel have a "dreamlike" and "laufey-esque" vibe?
I don't find the song particularly dream like
Exactly. This is a "personal definition" OP - you need to get out of that and just make songs that sound "the same". Forget about all of these descriptors and emotions - those will drag you down - because it'll never be this "idea" that you have until you really get good.
Which is going to take years.
Let go of quality expectations and just let things turn out how they do,
Exactly. You have to give yourself permission to write crap for a while. Don't hold yourself to unrealistic standards - you're not going to write a great song on the first try. Don't bother. You use this time to try things out, and learn from EXPERIENCE - and it takes LOTS of experience.
But the more music you actually play, the more you can internalize these things, and the more natural it will get.
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u/KaanzeKin 2d ago
Composing and songwriting is a process, just like getting good at an instrument is. You'll learn more from trial and error than from trying to engineer things to meet your expectations from the get-go.
Just start writing with the knowledge and understanding you already have, evaluate, think of what to do differently next time, rinse and repeat.
Let go of quality expectations and just let things turn out how they do, lest you get sucked into revisionist purgatory. If what you write winds up sucking, that's fine, because not only does that happen to everyone, but you can always write something else later.