hitomi's song-writing process [interview with her song-writer]

[nmskalmn]

There's an interview with Ai Uchida at Anime News Network. I never heard of her before, but she's written songs for BoA, hitomi, Kumi Koda, and other j-pop stars.

I'll post some excerpts I thought were interesting:

Excerpts:

Next, working with hitomi, hiro, Koda Kumi, anyone who would really catch casual J-Pop fans' attention (or even someone less well known). Do you have any good stories?
Let's see. I've met all three of those artists and each one is unique, in both personality and in style. As you may know, hitomi always writes her own lyrics. When she asks me to translate something into English, she gives me ideas first, not just sentences. And because her ideas are usually very specific and artistic, it's easy to maintain the "lyrical" quality, even in the translation. hiro is friendly and sweet, and maybe her likable personality overshadows the fact that she executes a lot of direction over each project and song. For example, even when she's not the one recording but there's a guitarist coming into the studio for one of her songs, she'll still come in to oversee it.

Sounds like hitomi has a first-class translator. Can you give an example of how you put her ideas into words?
Well, I don't know if she has a first-class translator but I would agree if you said she has someone who loves to write lyrics. But I have to stress that she makes the job easy for me. Often I am given several of her own English attempts, which is helpful because just a keyword or two is enough to continue in the direction she wants to go. If she records them it's even better, because her tone can be very revealing. Taking these things as well as the rest of the song into consideration, I am usually able to offer a few suggestions for her team to choose from.

And when she just gives me an idea to work off of, I like to listen to the track while also keeping her main lyrics in mind and kind of zone out until I feel like I've hit on something. I often like to imagine that I am scavenging for words that already exist when I write lyrics, and that's the approach I take with translation sometimes, too.

Why don't we talk about a song of which you are particularly proud? Or maybe a good concert story?
I love "Love Angel" (hitomi). Zentaro Watanabe did a beautiful arrangement to that song and I was like.. "Yessss! You got it!!" Concerts are amazing…to hear a song you contributed to being performed by pros with thousands of people grooving to it?! It is out of this world. Each concert, every time, I get goose-bumps and teary-eyed. I feel that a song is something that has a life of its own, so when it's being performed, it's like seeing it alive and kicking and happy.

Read the interview: Sound Decision - Interview with Ai Uchida