Weiss sat in her home office with her hands pressed against her temples. She stared at all the equipment sitting in the room with no idea what to do with it.
A blank sheet of music was sitting right in front of her, dozens of crumpled pieces of paper similar to that one was sitting on the ground around her. The garbage pail sitting next to her desk was half full with paper as well.
Making music has never been easy for her.
Hell, the one song that she wrote that she actually liked took her months to write. For the most part, she thought that it would come easier to her when her schedule was cleared up more than it was when she was back home with her family.
But, that wasn't the case.
Every time the singer felt like she had something that could work well, she began to second guess herself and ended up scrapping what she had.
She hadn't realized it yet but when she had been writing her lyrics, Weiss had almost started writing the same song twice.
She needed to get something done because she knew she was on the clock. She needed to get something to show to the studios so that they knew that she wasn't working from home and doing nothing.
The alabaster haired girl needed something to be inspired. Inspiration is what she heard always got people through the threshold and bust out a song or get a chapter done in a story in a writer's case.
Weiss looked over at her phone and though for another minute.
She had been doing this for the past hour. She had been wanting to contact Ruby and ask her if someone could come to the apartment and pick her up, or if she should just call up a taxi instead.
She felt like Ruby would be in a meeting or something similar, so that probably ruled her out.
She thought for another moment.
"Screw it." she said as she picked up her phone and called for a taxi.
She grabbed her bag and badge and left her apartment.
The taxi ride didn't take long at all. Within twenty minutes she was walking through the front door of the studio building.
She gave a brief greeting to Brawnz who was sitting behind the desk and then walked down a hallway.
At the moment, she knew of few people that she could ask for help. There was Pyrrha, Velvet and maybe even Neptune if he had any input. Then there was Jaune and the rest of his bandmates. They all could give great advice. If she could find Ruby or even Blake they could give their own input as well.
Even the others pointing her in the direction of new people to meet, that too could make things even better.
Weiss by that point knew where some of them would be in their daily routine.
And the closest one that she knew of was Jaune and the rest of his band.
Turning down another hallway, she came up to a door on her right. One of the many green rooms that were tucked away in the building.
A room where a performer or artist can come and relax. And when it came to Jaune and the others, it was where they hung out at and tried to think of new song ideas. Perfect opportunity for Weiss to get some pointers… she hoped.
Through the small window she spotted the band.
Wrapping her knuckle on the door a couple times, she waited for a response.
Not even two seconds after she knocked, the door opened with the very energetic drummer standing in front of her.
"Heya, Weiss!" She called. "What brings you by?" she asked.
"Hi, Nora. I was actually wondering if I could ask you guys some things."
"Like what?" Jaune asked from inside. Weiss could see that he was sitting at one of the seats with a guitar in his hands.
Weiss walked in and Nora closed the door. "About writing songs." she answered as she glanced around the room, noticing that all the other band members were there.
Coco looked up from a sheet of music that was sitting on a coffee table and placed the pen that was in her hands down. "Great. Maybe you can give us some pointers in the meantime as well."
Weiss felt a pang of disappointment somewhere inside. They too were having trouble writing songs. Did that mean that they would have trouble giving her help.
She quickly dispelled those thoughts, knowing full well that these were professionals sitting in front of her. They had produced multiple albums over the years that they had been performing.
Weiss took a seat at one of their chairs that were sitting around the room.
Jaune strummed a few more chords before placing his guitar onto a stand.
"So, you're having trouble writing songs." he stated the obvious, wondering if the white haired singer was about to ask him for advice.
His question was answered when she spoke up. "Yes. And I wanted to ask how you all typically came up and wrote out your songs."
"Well you're looking at it." Sun said as he was sprawled out on a couch with his guitar laying across him. Every few seconds he would strum a few notes at random.
"I don't quite follow." Weiss said.
"What he means is that we all just sit around talking and spit balling. The first thing that sticks we try to work with" Jaune said, surprising Weiss, as she felt there was supposed to be more involved than how Jaune described it.
"Do you try to work with the vocals or the instrumental first?" Weiss asked.
"Whichever spitball sticks to the wall better." Coco responded. "But, more than often the instrumental will develop faster than the vocals so, I guess we would typically go with a more instrumental approach."
"Well when you're working with the vocals, how do you write them? Where does the inspiration for them come from?" Weiss asked.
"It's basically what you said last week when you first got here." Sun said. "Punk bands rant about how shit their lives were through their songs. Granted that's typically the stereotypical way to look at it, but, you get points for trying.
"Also, from what I heard from your audition tape from Vytal Idol, our genres are on separate ends of the spectrum."
Weiss felt confused. What did he mean by that? Weiss would freely admit that her younger years were never the best. She poured a lot of emotion from those times into her first song, which is the one that she performed at the audition.
"Another thing, Weiss." Jaune said. "A song can literally be about anything. For some it won't feel as good as one that you write with more of an emotional attachment. Other times they can be jokes. Like… Sun's favorite song that he wrote."
"Dude, that song is great and you fuckin' know it."
"Sun, it's pretty bad." Nora said. "It's funny, but it's bad."
"I still don't find it funny." Coco said, crossing her arms and groaning at the memory of when Sun first showed them his song.
"What song?" Weiss asked, partially nervous and almost feeling regret when she finished her question.
"A song that Sun wrote. It's called "Family Reunion".
"How can a song about a family reunion be bad." Weiss thought for a moment. "Well if you hate your family it could be bad." she grimaced.
"No Weiss, you don't understand." Jaune said. "It's a song that he wrote when he was drunk and is completely proud of it."
"It was like one of those epiphany things, I told you." Sun replied as he sat up with his guitar still in hand.
"Sun, please, don't." Coco begged, hoping he would listen to reason.
"Too late, you guys brought this upon yourselves."
Family Reunion - Blink 182
Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits, fart, turd, and twat!
Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits, fart, turd, and twat!
Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits, fart, turd, and twat!
Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits, fart, turd, and twat!
I fucked your mom!
Weiss stood there in stunned silence, her mouth hung agape.
She looked at the rest of the bandmates. And their expressions represented the three wise monkeys; hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil.
Coco had her hands over her ears.
Jaune had his hands over his eyes.
And Nora had her hands cupping over her mouth.
"What?" Sun said. "You know that song is what made that album sell well." his proud smirk spoke volumes, ones that Weiss could never understand.
Weiss' eyes widened in shock, feeling there was no way that song would ever end up on an album "It's on an album?"
"It's on the album of all the songs that were rejected for the main album. Ya'know, ones that didn't make the cut." Coco said.
"I can see why it didn't make the cut."
"Shut up." Sun said as he went back to laying down on the couch.
"I'm sorry you had to see that." Jaune apologized to Weiss.
"No, it's fine. I just hope to never hear that song again.
"We thought the last time was the last." Coco mentioned.
"Yeah… anyway." Jaune continued. "With the matter of writing songs, in my opinion, it's all about the mindset and opinion of the artist. What should your lyrics mean to you? Should they matter to you or not? For most artists, the answer is simple. Yes."
"The entire song can be something meaningful to your life, or it can be an inside joke that you have with someone close to you." Nora added with a smile as she plopped down on one of the chairs.
"Everyone has their own style. All you gotta do is find your own and then expand on it. Choose a genre of music that you want to go with. It's alright to go into others so long as you have the means of doing so. Pick a tempo that you feel comfortable with and then expand. We may sound like we're saying it's like the easiest thing in the world, but it's not. All we have is experience."
"Okay, I can work off some of that." Weiss said as she was jotting down some notes.
"Do you have any more questions?" Coco asked.
"One more, does writing the songs as a team tend to help you?" she asked.
"Yes." Jaune said bluntly. "When you're working with a team you can ask them if the idea that you had is good or bad and you'll be expecting them to tell the truth because if they lie to you, say if the idea is bad and they tell you it's good, it can affect all of you in the end of the process when other people think the song is bad."
"Yeah that's the most of it." Coco agreed, nodding her head.
"Alright, thank you." Weiss said as she recapped her pen.
"Did any of that actually help?" Sun asked as he strummed another few strings on his guitar.
"I think that could help a lot actually." Weiss said as she clicked her pen.
"That's actually surprising." Sun said. "I've never been the greatest at writing songs-"
"I can see that."
"-but, I have tried to get a lot of advice over the years. Even from these three. Just remember that everyone has different ways of doing things. Just be ready for you not being able to write a song instantly whenever you get back to it."
"I don't expect it to be easy." Weiss said. "Like I said, I'm going to be going to other people to ask advice from them, maybe at the end of the day I'll have a good idea for what I'm going to do."
Sun shrugged. "Whatever floats your boat."
"Do you guys have any ideas of where I should go to next or anyone that I should go to that I haven't met yet?"
"Well, for starters, I would go with Pyrrha." Jaune suggested. "She's at most times a one person show. She writes all of her songs by herself and is writing them every night at home."
"Alright. I planned to go to her, but now I definitely will. Anybody else in mind?"
"We could throw her in the direction of Ren." Nora suggested.
"Who's that?" Weiss asked.
"A friend of mine. He works here as a classical instrument expert. If it had dust on it or it was buried away in some pit, he's probably played it. He also helps out on a lot of writing for random artists in the company whenever they need help."
Weiss noticed out of the corner of her eye that Jaune had a smug grin the entire time Nora was talking.
The next few minutes Jaune and the others gave her a few other ideas on who to visit while also weaving in a few more bits of advice while doing so.
She thanked them for their time and left the room, making sure that the door was fully closed on her way out.
Back inside the room where Weiss had just left, the band began to slowly get back into the swing of things. That was until Sun opened his mouth again.
"The industry is going to eat her alive." he said, not thinking about what he said before saying it, even if it was blunt.
"Sun!" Jaune called.
"Hey man, I'm just saying what we're all thinking." he said. "There are so many things that she is doing wrong. There is a reason that Vytal Idol has you write your own songs as you go through the competition. It's to avoid stoppages like this."
"I have to agree with him." Coco said. "She had only done one song throughout her years of singing. If she's going to want to make it here, she needs to realize that you need an incredible ability to write great songs fast. Because if the fans aren't happy with your work, then your producer isn't going to be happy, and if they're not happy, your bank account isn't going to be happy."
"I think she's got what it takes." Jaune said, wanting to defend Weiss with her being new to the field. But he knew that was why Sun was saying this, because she's new.
"I think so too." Nora spoke up. "I think she's taking the right steps into working her way through this situation. Most would just sit at home watching TV trying to find inspiration that way."
"She's got a long way to go," Jaune admitted, "but I think that she can do it in the long run."
"Do you think she'll come back for some more help at all?" Coco questioned.
"Hard to tell. When we were in school, she would never ask anyone but teachers for help on material."
"Maybe this time around she sees us as the teachers?" Nora suggested.
"Us? Teachers?" Jaune didn't see it that way.
"Yeah! I think Coco would make an excellent teacher. She has a lot of know-how and would look good in the stereotypical teachers outfit!" She said. "Ya'know, a tight skirt, a nice blouse, glasses, tied up hair."
Suns mind began to wander with the new image in his head, and he suddenly began to quickly drink from a water bottle while the wall to his side looked quite interesting.
"The hell are you thinking, Wukong!?" Coco shouted in anger.
"Nothing, ma'am! I mean, Coco!" Sun straightened up, fearing the bassist.
"You were just thinking of me in some sexy teacher foreplay, weren't you!" she accused the monkey faunus. She began to stand up, her hand reaching for her trademark handbag.
Sun dropped the empty water bottle and looked at Coco with a semi-red face. "H-hell no! Why would I do that?" He quickly slapped his guitar down into its case and closed the locks on it. "Well guys, practice was great see you all tomorrow, BYE!" he ran out the door without another word.
"Dumbass." Coco said as she watched the smoke trail that Sun left in his wake.
"Oh, hello, Weiss." Pyrrha said after she opened her door, revealing the white haired singer.
"Hey, Pyrrha. I was wondering if I could ask your help with something." Weiss requested.
"Of course, what do you need?" she asked, letting the shorter girl inside.
As Weiss walked in, she sighed and needed to just tell her what she needed help with. "Well, I've been having trouble-"
"Getting inspiration for songs?" Pyrrha asked, finishing the white haired girls sentence for her.
Weiss stopped momentarily, slightly off put by Pyrrha's insight. "Yes, actually." she replied. "How did you know?"
"It's what all new artists have to face." Pyrrha explained to her. "It comes to some a lot easier than others."
"Well, in this case, I'm getting the feeling that I am one of the latter." Weiss said as she sat down on one of the chairs in the room.
"I'm sure that is all just in your head and not in your heart." Pyrrha explained.
"What do you mean by that?" Weiss questioned, slightly confused by how she worded that.
"It's simple actually, whatever you may think in your mind might not correlate to what you think with your heart. Does your heart tell you that you can still write songs?" she inquired, wanting to try and delve deeper into how her colleague felt.
Weiss slightly nodded. "Of course, it is what I've wanted to do since I was a child but never truly had the… I guess you could say confidence or opportunity to do up until recently.' Weiss couldn't help but jot down the words that Pyrrha just spoke to her, feeling that it was some pretty solid advice.
"Well then don't listen to the voice in your head and listen to the voice in your heart." Pyrrha said.
"That's… really good advice, Pyrrha. Thank you." Weiss said, feeling a bit more confident.
Pyrrha couldn't help but laugh a little at her words. "Don't thank me, thank my mother. She's one of the wisest people that I know and she was one of the first people to encourage me to chase my dreams."
"As she should." Weiss said. "She's your mother after all."
"Well, my father didn't support me at first. But he was only worried about me. He had heard stories about how the music world can eat people alive and change them. So he was only looking out for me when he didn't support what I was doing. But now, he's practically my number one fan." Pyrrha smiled at the memory.
It was Weiss' turn to laugh, trying hard to get the image of a man, who in her mind was Pyrrha's father, waving around a giant flag with her face on it.
"That is great advice and all," Weiss continued, "but how do you go through the process of writing a song?" Weiss asked her.
"I'm a storytelling artist, if you haven't listen to my music."
"Which I have." Weiss confirmed.
"Okay. Think of me as somewhere along the lines of a writer for a book but with music. With the themes and tones of the scores that I write I can set the scene and then with lyrics I tell the story in a way that leaves either an open ended story or one with closure. And then if a song I write gets a music video production I can make it an even greater story. There are some artists out there that turn entire albums into a linear story throughout the songs and having a different tone in all of them."
"But you've written so many songs. How do you come up with so many ideas?" Weiss inquired.
"Reading and watching other stories and getting inspiration for something similar is a good way to do it. I'm sure you know, but inspiration can be found either in a high value blockbuster movie or a simple late night news broadcast."
"But isn't that plagerism?" Weiss wondered.
"Of course not," Pyrrha denied, "plagiarism would imply that I completely copied someone's idea. Whereas inspiration for an idea implies that I got an idea from something and then built off of it."
"Well... That seems... Simple." Weiss replied, a bit unsure about it at first, but after thinking about it, she couldn't help but agree with the scarlet haired singer. "That's one of the things that we learn in school writing classes. And well, any class that we have to write an essay for."
"Right." Pyrrha agreed. "But if you can make a song out of a story, then you will know that it will be a good one. The story doesn't even have to resemble you or your past. You can make up characters and tell stories with them."
"So, like an opera?" Weiss guessed.
"Exactly like an opera. But it doesn't have to be the classical opera style. There are plenty of good examples with rock groups making rock operas."
Weiss jotted down a few more notes.
"What I'm trying to really get at, Weiss, is not to think on one sense of style the entire time when making songs. Feel free to experiment. Tell stories that people would love to play through their speakers on loop for hours a day."
"Do you think I was overthinking it?" Weiss asked, feeling a little embarrassed.
"A little." Pyrrha admitted, noticing the slight blush on the white haired singer's cheeks. "But that is all in the process of creating. You can overthink things, and then find yourself in a rut as your try to think of ideas. You came here to create songs, Weiss. Are you gonna start your new chapter of life with a large rut."
Weiss smiled at Pyrrha. Here was this idol who had been in the industry for years and Weiss had not met until a week ago and she was now giving Weiss advice so that she could spring forth her new career.
"You're right… Thanks, Pyrrha. I need to not overthink things and make sure that I keep my head in the right place. I'm here to do what I've wanted to do for years."
"I'm glad Ruby got to you and gave you the offer then. She is someone who loves to give shots to people that most would think wouldn't last long in the industry. Then when the first album of the artist comes out they're more than likely hitting top ten on the sell charts."
"Is she really that good at scouting?" Weiss asked.
"Her, and her mother, from what I hear, have an ability to see the worth of people far before the worth grows." Pyrrha answered.
Weiss looked at Pyrrha, slightly confused at Pyrrha's wording.
"What I mean is that they have an ability to see someone's potential when it comes to their musical talents." The scarlet singer explained.
"I guess it happens when you're experienced in the industry for a while."
"But Ruby had it down maybe a year after she took over. She could see the potential in so many different people. She saw a guy playing guitar on a street corner when walking around Atlas during a business trip and when she heard him playing she decided to chat with him and eventually gave him her card. Now, he's here on patch and is now a world class guitar player."
"So what you're saying is that she saw my potential?" Weiss asked, feeling a new sense of confidence growing in her.
"Of course. That's what she and the other scouts do. They look for the potential in others. You wouldn't be here now if she didn't see anything."
Weiss nodded. "Thanks, Pyrrha." Weiss said once more.
"Did you get enough of an idea of what to do now?" Pyrrha asked as she grabbed a water bottle from the fridge in the green room they were in.
"Yes I did." Weiss said as she stood up from her seat. "I think I may go to someone named Ren on another day in order to get some advice with blending in the instrumentals." Weiss mentioned.
"Ren's a good guy. Definitely the right person to go to. How'd you hear about him?' Pyrrha asked as she uncapped the bottle and took a drink.
"Nora recommended him to me when I went to them. She said that he could help me out in some way."
"Well he most certainly will. He gave me a bit of advice in the past before I even came to Rose Records. I knew Jaune, Jaune knew Nora, Nora knew Ren."
"I'll be going to him in a few days so hopefully I can have something ready to show him and maybe also think of a type of style to go along with it."
"Well, don't let me keep you any longer. Go write some hits." Pyrrha smiled sweetly
"I will. Again, thank you so much Pyrrha." Weiss said.
"I'm glad that I could help." the red haired girl responded.
Weiss waved Pyrrha goodbye as she left the room that they were in.
She quickly pulled out her phone and called the same taxi service to bring her there.
Within the hour, she was back at the apartment complex.
She made sure to put on something a little more homey. A pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt felt perfect.
She sat down in her new home studio and pulled out the notes that she had jotted down earlier.
A stack of blank music sheets sat off to the side of her desk.
Quickly grabbing one of the sheets, she took a deep breath and let her heart take over.
Welp
I uh... I don't have much to say other than College eats time.
More than I thought it would.
I have been writing this chapter of the course of a few months. Working between class work, losses of inspiration and just times where I just don't have the motivation to write.
And as for the people who also read Life Lessons, I have some rather sad news.
NO, it's not cancelled.
The chapter that I am writing for it is going to be scrapped and completely reworked. The reason being that the chapter (At over 5000 words) is just plain crap. I would not want to post the chapter in the direction that it is going right now.
So I hope that the people who also read that can bare with me.
In regards to this chapter though. I hope that you all enjoyed the chapter!
I would like to give a shout out to my friend Shadow Nightblade for giving me some help with a bit of the wording and execution in the chapter.
Have a great night everyone and I'll you all in the next one!