#rkcreativity

dua lipa’s album is groovy, full of synths and disco beats, but more importantly, bass. he got hooked on it for that reason, such dominant and important bass lines more of a rarity in popular music these days. he managed to listen to it frequently in the early part of april, but since sungwoon’s enlistment, it felt too happy, like salt in wounds that couldn’t heal fast enough. 

he wrote a song, listened to songs about heartbreak, lamented over failing an audition, likely due to the build up of stress from the month. he tells himself it’s time to move on in all meanings of the phrase, even though he knows it’s easier said than done. he doesn’t know if he’ll ever move on from sungwoon, but he also knows he has a tendency to be dramatic. at least it’ll be more fodder for songs he can write-- songs about heartbreak, songs about being in love forever, songs about not moving on, and then eventually, maybe, songs about moving on too. the part of him that loves songwriting almost looks forward to seeing that evolution. 

he wonders what his life will look like in a year. will he still be heartbroken? will he still be a trainee? will he still have the friends he does now? daniel of a year ago-- daniel who just released an album with his band --couldn’t have imagined his life ending up like this. 

worse. it’s so much worse. why did he ruin all of it? why did he insist they sign up for the mgas? why did he put everything on the line for greed? they didn’t need more fans. he would’ve been happy performing their songs to 30 people in underground clubs if he had to; they all would’ve, he knows. they could’ve promoted their album all summer, and started working on more songs, and released another one in two more years. maybe sungwoon would’ve been so happy with them that he wouldn’t have enlisted. maybe, maybe, maybe.

he wonders if he’ll ever forgive himself for it. he wonders, too, if they’ll ever be friends like they were again. sometimes he hears hyunggu’s voice saying maybe it’s a way of the world saying you need to branch out and not only rely on the same four people for your entire life, and then he remembers all of the people he started relying on leaving, hyunggu included, and it all turns bitter.

sometimes he hears woong’s voice saying god never gives you more than you can handle, too, and he has to believe there’s a reason for it all. he remembers the people that are still here: haknyeon, woong, eunwoo-- some of the most important ones, but not the only ones.

he starts writing lists of things he’s thankful for in the back of his notebook, working back to front. one day, the song lyrics and thank you notes will meet, and maybe they’ll combine into a song of gratitude for everything he still has in his life. he doesn’t want to wallow. he knows he’s done too much of it in the past year. 

somehow, this loss isn’t as bad as the loss of empty enigma, even if it brings the mourning back. maybe it’s because he knew for months, and had time to prepare-- time to love sungwoon knowing that time would run out, four months of loving as hard as he could and giving it the very best he had. that was one thing he could never regret. 

it still hurts, but eventually, he can listen to happy music again, and he falls back into the bass lines of the future nostalgia album. he needs something different, and he had absent minded thoughts of covering a song for this album before, so why not all of them? it’ll just be him on the bass, no vocals, no original rap-- a medley of bass, and that’s all. 

when the camera returned there was a more zoomed in frame on his upper body as he sat with his guitar. he’d done all of his talking in the beginning of the video and as the guitar riff began at his fingertips, the mood began to flow from him, the soft vocalizations registering fully in his chest. he’d adjusted the key and lowered it just enough so that the high notes pushed the top of his range enough for him to take care to execute them. he couldn’t belt them out when they were that delicate but the alterations allowed for him to run them down the scale back into his comfort zone, the airy breathiness and he dampened the potential for pitchiness fitting the soft, lilting atmosphere he had created for the song.

it was the first cover of many to come but he didn’t want to take it too easy. even with the smallest of pushes of his range, he was able to keep his pronunciation clear and add his own stylistic flair to the ends of the notes. short but clear practiced runs and smoothed out endings fitting in the acoustic r&b vibes of the song. when the song breakdown came around, his voice opened and expanded to more fully embrace the mid-timbre warmth of his voice. he didn’t run from the vocalizations, his head bobbing rhythmically as the light protrusion of the vein in his neck appeared intermittently each time the breathy higher notes presented themselves as they took more effort for him. getting to that flightiness was always harder for male vocal cords. they were twice as long and thick as women’s and so it was only natural he’d have to focus more then. regardless, he carried the song with care and didn’t allow for himself to fall away from the atmosphere. it was easy for him to fall into the music he was playing.

as he played the last few notes, the song coming to a sweet ending, he brought his hands up as the notes faded and he played at the dance moves for the song whilst repeating the ending of the song. a smile brightened his features as he waved with both hands, a caption appearing at the bottom of the video:

as per usual he was just sat on his couch, ukulele resting in his lap and sunglasses pushed up on his nose despite the fact he was inside and if you checked out the window it was getting dark out. but he didn’t care, this was all part of his ukulele player persona and he wasn’t about to change that. the sunglasses and the weird song picks was what made his channel stand out more from other cover channels, and was probably why he had managed to rack up so many subscribers. well... that was being generous, though 700K was nothing to be laughing at, but there were many other channels out there with more than him. but hey, he wasn’t doing this for the fame, he was doing it for the shits and giggles. 

“yo!” he spoke to the camera set up in front of him, throwing up a quick peace sign with his right hand, “i’m the ukulele guy, this is my channel.” it was a customary greeting and those his usual watchers would be rather familiar with. “sorry for not uploading in awhile, i just got busy. new university and all that. but i saw all you complaining in the comments, wandering where i had gone, why i was uploading to one channel more than the other. so, here i am, so quit your complaining, aight?” he was speaking with a grin before settling back, picking up his ukulele and resting it on his legs. 

it only took a second for him to tune the instrument, just making sure everything was set up properly before he glanced back at the camera. “i assume you’re all familiar with the film frozen? did you know the second one is coming out this year? and this even appeared in kingdom hearts 3, if you happen to be a fan of that game. well, let’s just call this a celebration of that. i’m actually surprised i haven’t covered this song yet. i must be slipping.” 

knowing his rather strange personality and the weird ideas he often got in his head, you really would think he would have done let it go by now. but no, he had gone back through his videos just to check in case he had and completely forgotten the whole event. but no, this was his first time covering the song on this channel. first time for everything. but enough of the talking, this wasn’t a talking channel, it was one for him to play his ukulele and do ukulele covers of songs you really wouldn’t expect to see ukulele covers of. 

so, he simply leaned back to get comfortable before he started to play, fingers plucking at the strings to create the familiar sounds. at first he had just planned this to be an instrumental cover, no singing and none of his usual craziness (besides the sunglasses), but this was jordan and he really couldn’t help himself. as soon as it got to the lyric part of the thing he burst out into song, simply remembering all the lyrics straight from memory and belting them out without a single care in the world. 

and he wasn’t taking the singing very seriously in the slightest, at the first chorus you might equate his singing to howling more than actually singing. while he was probably more than capable of holding a proper note and singing this professionally - he was simply not a professional person and like to completely muck around and take nothing seriously if he could help it. maybe he had so many fans because he had simply deafened them all so they couldn’t tell if he was actually playing well or not. 

but he was playing well, don’t get him wrong there, he was an expert at the ukulele.  a self-appointed expert, but that was beside the point. 

eventually he found himself standing up, fingers swiftly moving across the strings and lyrics still coming strong from his mouth as he moved. it was the last verse, elsa’s powers were flurrying through the air and into the ground, and whatever. and now jordan was propping a leg up on his couch, adjusting slightly so he could bend over and, as he usually did, started to completely rock out to this song, of all songs. and he was still passionately singing all the lyrics like he was at some karaoke and not just standing headbanging over his own coach in his living room. 

“the cold never bothered me anyway,” he finished as he looked dead straight into the camera, not that you could really tell behind his sunglasses. and then he decided to something rather stupid and incredibly dramatic - he threw his ukulele over his shoulder. 

now, at the time that seemed like a fabulous idea, but he instantly regretted it afterwards, the panic that he had broken  his instrument morphing on his face as he quickly spun around, managing to knock over his tripod in the process and sending the camera crashing to the ground. and that was where the video ended, a sideways shot from the floor where his camera had landed and the final words from jordan himself in the distance as he scrambled over the back of his couch, “my ukulele!”