Analyzing "glitter ✩‧₊˚" by lexicat (Geometry Dash) | Basterd's LFA (Layman-Friendly Analysis)

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Next up, we have Glitter by Lexiat. This is featured in Geometry Dash is my understanding. Once again, everybody, this is a bastard ZFA, a lame unfriendly analysis. I'm a professionally trained musician, a composer, and my objective here is to explain things in a way so that you don't have to be one to understand what is happening here musically. So, if you like the sound of that, make sure you're following the channel, subscribe to the channel, whatever you use, like the video, share, leave a comment, turn on notifications, become a member. Once again, everybody, don't forget to join the Discord server.

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[00:01:15]Let's do this. All right, glitter. Let's go.

[00:01:29]Okay. So, we start with a first synth doing a very quick um pickup uh measure.

[00:01:39]Then we start with the rest of the band.

[00:01:41]We have our chord synth. We have our bass, our drums, the drums giving the drum beat, the bass with the baseline.

[00:01:48]We have another synth up there. The one that did the pickup uh the pickup there giving us a bit of a melody with rhythm.

[00:01:56]Not very consistent. There's a very long melody that we're doing which I believe would contain our initial motif. Motif being the smallest version of your musical idea, the seed, the essence which everything else comes from. Um let me just think. No, I think the pickup line might have been enough of the motive and then it just starts developing immediately. So, what is a pickup? A pickup? Pickup uh pick uh pickup uh usually is for pickup measure.

[00:02:25]There's uh pickups for the guitars, this kind of stuff, but I'm talking about a pickup measure or a pickup bar. Now, for this, let me break down what this kind of stuff is. When you have music, you have three uh main components. You have melody, you have harmony, and you have rhythm. Melody being the individual horizontal lines of music. Uh counterpoint, that kind of stuff.

[00:02:47]Harmony by far the most complicated, the notes that you have available, the scales you get out of that, the chords you get out of that, the relationship between them. I mean, you can just keep extrapolating. And then you have rhythm.

[00:02:57]Rhythm being the use of time. How fast, how slow things happen, when they when do they happen, uh that kind of stuff.

[00:03:05]Then rhythm, time, is it subdivided into bars or measures? These bars or measures, the same term by the way, are then determined by a time signature uh plus tempo mark or BPM. BPM is beats per minute. So, let me break this down. Usually, how does this work? When you have then a bar, you have two numbers. Upper number, lower number. Upper number is going to be the number of beats in a bar. Lower number is going to be the type of beats that you're going to be counting based on. So in American English it's pretty easy to remember which one is which.

[00:03:40]Whole notes are represented by number one half notes number two quarter notes number four eighth notes number eight 16th notes number 16 so on and so forth.

[00:03:51]One one whole note contains two half notes one half note contains two quarter notes one quarter note contains two eighth notes etc etc. So a 44 bar would be a bar that contains four quarter notes in it. We count based on the quarter notes and it is four quarter notes or any equivalent amount of of time within this space. And you just count numbers, right? 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4.

[00:04:19]Now, a pickup bar or measure is an incomplete measure before the start of the rest of the music. What does this mean? It means that you're going to be counting. Let's say we have a 44 pickup measure and it's going to be the last two beats of a four bar. So you can start counting 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 then it starts with everything. Let's give an example, right? Let's say we have um this melody over here.

[00:04:52]If we were to do that is going to be C to D to E, right? Like say C to D to E.

[00:04:57]So, we have uh at the start of the bar, if we were to do this in a regular 44 bar, uh we would be having uh over here the notes C to D to E over here. And let's say that we're going to have the chord C major playing on the on the first beat of the bar. So, what would it what would this be like? So, in this case, 1 2 3 4. We're going to just count this as a half note for now. So, we're not counting the last one. So, we have this 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4. But if we were to change things around and move the melody and displace it two beats earlier to make it a pickup, but the chord is still played on the first note or the first uh beat of the bar, then what we're going to have is we're going to have C to D to E over here. But the chord C major is going to still be in the first beat. So we go from this 1 2 3 4 to now being this 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4. So it creates a little bit of a head start for the melody or whichever parts you want it to be in the um in the pickup bar which is what we did over here. Then we moved on to develop that melody further. And it's a little bit difficult to tell where Lexiat is taking this. So let's see where it goes.

[00:06:35]Oh, it's because there's two lines of melody. Okay. So there's a second line of melody. We have one of them giving us some arpeggios, some descending arpeggios from the top. uh arpeggio of course being when you play a chord one note at a time for example uh here is C major here is arpeggiated and the ones we're getting are this kind of we're getting that kind of thing so we're having that and then we are getting a second one in between that is giving us a little bit of counterpoint counterpoint being the study of melodies I said how they are how they develop how they interact with one another usually in the context of having two or more at the same time. And right now we are seeing that between the um the synth giving us those chords and the one doing the other thing. Let's see where this goes.

[00:07:30]Yeah, that melody in between is actually being developing the motive.

[00:07:37]And >> okay, so we have a brief moment of just the uh baseline and um the thank you for the uh thank you for the sub. Appreciate for the membership. Appreciate it. Okay, so we bring um a vocal.

[00:08:03]We have two layers of vocals and like a guy and a girl and we have them singing.

[00:08:11]So, turns out at the end of the day we are dealing with a song. Songs uh of course we call everything a song cuz it's simpler. But there is a categorical a categorical distinction between uh songs and instrumental screen uh instrumentals or pieces or uh tracks. Right? So a song is going to have lyrics. is going to have vocals and these vocals and lyrics are going to be the driving force of a majority of the music. Whereas instrumental music, you're going to need a little bit more for anything else. So, we're having um this kind of stuff happening and we have now switched over to the form to the structure of a song. Unlike with instrumental music, the structure of a song is a little bit more easy to determine. Why? because we have two main building blocks particularly with contemporary music. Uh you have the verse and you have the chorus. Verse is going to be your baseline level of intensity. Uh I call it that's what I call the floor level of intensity. Your chorus is going to be the climax, the ceiling level of intensity. So your verse, you're probably going to hold back on your melodies a little bit.

[00:09:21]You're going to do a lot more text through them. You're going to hold back in general. Whereas the chorus is when you want to go all out. So, what does this mean? So far, for the first bit, we had an intro going back and forth between the different melodies, establishing the motif, the main melody, and now we are in verse number one. We are still using that melodic motif with the vocals. And we're now just going through verse. Let's see where this goes.

[00:09:54]>> I do think this uh the vocals sound out autotuned. the the vocals sound autotuned. I am not entirely opposed to that. Um the important bit is that we have mainly the bass and the drums.

[00:10:10]Mainly the bass and the drums. So let's see where it goes.

[00:10:17]Oh, now we included the rest of the uh >> Okay, now we included the other two since one of them is just playing chords, holding down the chords, while the other one is playing the arpeggios of it. A little bit more chimey. So, let's see where this goes.

[00:10:34]>> It sound like you're listening to the radio. Yes, the vocals are also distorted. The vocals have a little bit of distortion. So it seems there's a little bit of like um maybe some pitch correction or pitch shifting like autotune that kind of stuff. And we are also getting a um a bit of distortion on the vocals. We're also having uh two vocals. Let me hear a bit more. I keep calling you.

[00:11:06]>> So yeah, every once in a while, every once in a while, we are getting a second layer of vocals as you can hear, giving us that very beautiful harmonization, right? So, um, harmonization, harmonization being count, uh, excuse me, uh, counterpoint, uh, parallel motion in thirds or sixths.

[00:11:30]Let me break this down, shall we? So, counterpoint, as we said, study of melodies, how they are, how they develop, how they interact with one another. Counterpoint can be measured in many ways. One of which is parallel motion. Parallel motion means that there's two or more melodies doing the same thing at the same time, just from a different starting point or from a separate interval. The in an interval is the distance between notes. So, how do you establish an interval? It's there's many ways of counting this. Uh the easiest and simplest one is that you take a scale. So let's take C major for example because is the easiest one. The easiest one C D E F G A B. Uh then you take a point of reference. Let's take C because we're in the key of C major. And that point of reference is going to be your root or your first. Then you count basically you have root. Up a second is D. Up a third is E. Up a fourth is F. Up a fifth is G. Up a sixth A. Up a seventh B. and then up an octave you have C. So octave root to octave that is the range of the note repeating itself. Uh you can go upwards or downwards. So same as downwards C down a second B down a third A down a fourth G down a fifth F down a sixth E down a seventh D and then back to C. So parallel motion in thirds or sixths, which means your first melody is going to start in C in this case. And then your second melody would have to start on E or A because E is a third above. A is a third below, E is a sixth below and A is a sixth above. So you take that and you take you can take any middle like let's say let's say we have this. If we then do um harmonization up a third, if we do down a third, sorry, if we do up a sixth, down a sixth. So, which one should you pick for your music?

[00:13:35]That is entirely up to the individual piece. Sometimes it will be better to do parallel thirds above. Sometimes it will be better to do parallel sixth down. Sometimes it just depends on the sound that you are getting in. I welcome today. How you doing? So we are having that happening right now. We're doing some parallel motion to add a couple a bit of extra adornment to the voices every once in a while. Now we are moving to the next part. This could be either a break or a pre chorus. Pre chorus if verse is your floor, chorus is your ceiling, then the pre chorus is going to be the connective tissue between the two. Call it a wall, call it a staircase, call it a ladder, whatever you will, but it is whatever is going to make the journey between the two a little bit more uh easy and smooth. Let's see where this goes.

[00:14:29]>> Mhm. Okay. Yeah.

[00:14:33]So, we had a quick pre chorus, very, very short, basically just uh repeating one last line of the verse. And now we are in our first chorus. You can feel the chorus is already a lot more upbeat than the other one um than the rest of this. We are going to have more climactic melodies. We go back a couple of seconds. Let's hear this. Right.

[00:14:57]>> Those pickup lines. Nice. Pick up measure.

[00:15:06]my mind.

[00:15:12]>> So, you can hear now that it's a lot more upbeat. It's a lot upbeat. Upbeat just means that it's a lot it feels a lot more like the beat is gone up.

[00:15:23]That's basically more upbeat. Something more upbeat means that it's a little bit more energetic usually. Um, it's a casual expression. Uh it's a casual expression because upbeat is also used to describe like somebody's personality kind of thing. Um so yes, you can you can hear it. We're having the melody similar melody to the previous one, but everything else is a lot more uh more active and everything.

[00:15:52]For example, the chimes are a lot more noticeable. The rest of the sins are more noticeable. And I love the YouTube chat learning why you don't gamble. Look at that. Yeah. Well, that's why you don't That's why you don't gamble.

[00:16:07]That's why you don't gamble. Like the option is going to be there. You live in a world now where gambling is inevitable. Like it's not it's it's everywhere. That doesn't mean it's inevitable. It's your choice not to gamble. Anyway, let's see how this goes.

[00:16:32]the drums a little bit there.

[00:16:35]>> So, yeah, it looks like we might be using the same exact melody. Um, I don't know about the lyrics. I haven't been paying attention to the lyrics, but it seems like we've been using the same melody and uh 10 points or you ask, you'll get them in 10 minutes. As long as you're watching, you get points. Um, so you have we're having the um this I think we're having the same melody and the the differences is entirely on the instrumentation around it. So the melody that we are getting from this cuz now we are in our first uh I think we're in verse number two, a more downbeat kind of thing. And right now what we've been basically doing is that the melody we've been using on the vocals is doing an ostenato. Ostenato means that you're repeating the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over again with minimal to no repetition.

[00:17:31]Ostenatos are very often observed in in songs where you have a lot of text to go through and you're just going to use the same little melody to develop the text because then while the melody is doing an ostinado, the lyrics themselves are not. So very useful to do that. And right now it seems like we've just done the oinado and we're just doing the same melody with everything around it. So even though we are following the structure of a song, we're still using the same melody for everything. Usually this wouldn't work, but the changes around have been so significant and so not abrupt, but so um how would I say substantial that it really isn't mattering how much. And speaking of substantial, I have now substantial the Patreon. That's right.

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[00:19:43]Thank you to those who have already joined the Patreon particularly real nemesis and French guy. So yeah, patreon.com/jamesrarbastard linked in the description. And uh back to the back to the song we go. Let's see where our second verse goes.

[00:20:05]>> So we go back to primarily the baseline such as we did in the first verse, but we do have some slight drum changes over here. We do have a drums over here. And we do have the other synth playing the chords. Like the other synth is still playing the chords around. Uh this time a little bit more um audible than the first time. Let's see where this goes.

[00:20:32]>> Sounds like a This sounds like a very aggressive lowfi. Yeah, it sounds like a very aggressive lowfi. It's not Yeah, that's that's a good way to put it.

[00:20:40]Sounds like an like a more like not not hard style. Not quite hard style, but it's like a very it's like heavy lowfi.

[00:20:47]I like this. It's really good.

[00:20:54]>> Hardcore. That might be a way to put it.

[00:20:58]>> Continuing that same melody.

[00:21:01]We bring >> and now we're getting them saying the thing but we are having this thing said during the pre chorus number two. Now the first pre chorus and the second pre chorus are quite different which is one of the freedoms that you get in the pre chorus. It doesn't have to be the same exact thing. As long as you are building up towards the chorus you're going to be fine. Uh we could also call this one uh maybe not the pre chorus but the bridge.

[00:21:32]Uh we could also call this a bridge. Uh the bridge of course verse is going to be your floor level uh intensity. The chorus ceiling level. Bridge would be basement level. An absolute contrast compared to everything else you've done.

[00:21:45]That then makes the journey over back to the chorus that much more pronounced.

[00:21:51]Amay, welcome today. How you doing, man?

[00:21:52]So yeah, let's see where this goes.

[00:21:56]Yeah, I think bridge bridge.

[00:22:03]>> Yeah, there we go.

[00:22:05]>> And then chorus. Yep.

[00:22:08]Chorus number two.

[00:22:15]>> John, I think so. Yeah.

[00:22:17]>> Like we've been using the same exact melody and probably looping the same vocal track. Um, and it's been entirely the instrumentation.

[00:22:27]It has been like this goes to show that you that this is possible. Like I wouldn't be surprised if Lexiat wanted to be like, "Oh yeah, we're going to just um see if we can pull this off kind of thing." So, let's see where this goes.

[00:22:47]me and you baby.

[00:22:54]>> And I think this time around there's one more synth giving us some counter arpeggios in the middle. It's a little bit difficult to hear because we have the chime giving us those very lovely descending arpeggios, but then we have another one in the middle right now just going up and down somewhat erratically.

[00:23:13]Uh, rhythm wise, let's see where this goes.

[00:23:23]>> And we do a pitch shift as a direct modulation. You hear how everything kind of just bumps up um kind of like just bump a step. Uh, and now we're introducing the solo. We're bringing in a solo over here. So modulation is when you go from one set of chords or one key signature to a different set of chords or a different key signature. It is a transition between key signatures. The one we just did is called direct modulation. Usually modulation is something that you want to smoothen between the two key signatures because sometimes it can be a little bit too abrupt the the change. However, this one direct modulation just means we were in one key signature and now we're in the new one. As you just heard, we basically just slid up into the next um next one.

[00:24:09]And now, let me hear a bit more cuz I think we have Okay. Yeah. And now we have the synth back, giving us basically a solo version of the main motif. So, we bring in a solo. When you're making music, you want to keep a careful balance between what is familiar and what is new. Too much familiarity, too much repetitation, too much of the same thing, you risk boring the listener, they tune out. Too much new material too quickly, you risk overwhelming the listener, they tune out. There is one universal exception.

[00:24:39]No matter the style or genre, which is solos. You bring in a solo and as long as it sounds cool enough or if it's enough, you can get away with almost anything, which means the rule of familiarity and and new material become a little bit more laxed. So yeah, we're having that. Let's see where this goes.

[00:24:59]And after this, >> we're now in the outro, >> which is uh >> bridge plus chorus.

[00:25:11]There we go.

[00:25:14]We finish the And we go for the chords.

[00:25:17]One more run of the chords.

[00:25:22]Nice.

[00:25:24]One more run of the chords. and and we end it with a half cadence. So yeah, we do an outro with a bridge which is a combination of both the bridge and the chorus. So vocally it's the bridge but the rest of the chords were the rest of the background was the chorus and then we end with a half cadence. So cadence right when you're making music you're doing one of two things. You're building tension or you're resolving that tension point in between we call the cadence. Now a half cadence half cadence. So cadence in general resolution building expectation and meeting that expectation. Half cadence is building that tension that expectation and intentionally not resolving it which gives you extra momentum so that you can resolve in the following section resolve in the following piece or so that you can loop back to whichever spot you want. In this case that is what we hear happening. And with that there you have it. That was Glitter by Lexicat. This is featured in Geometry Dash is my understanding. That was very fascinating. Like I was not expecting a song cuz this this qualifies as a song where every section was the same vocals and somehow made it work. Absolutely wild. Absolutely wild. Very creative work by Lexiat there. So really good stuff. There you go. Glitter by Lexiat featured in Geometry Dash is my understanding. Once again everybody, this has been a bastard ZFA, a lame unfriendly analysis. I'm a professionally trained musician, a composer. And my objective here has been to explain things in a way so that you don't have to be one to understand what's happened here musically. So if you're watching this on the YouTube video archive thing, thank you for watching. Make sure you're following the channel, subscribe to the channel, whatever you use, like the video, share, leave a comment, turn on notifications, become a member. Once again everybody, don't forget to join the Discord server.

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[00:29:14]Thank you again for 700 subscribers. I really do appreciate it. And um yes, what happened there? I don't have a script is what happened. Uh lately we've been playing through Limbus company. We played through just shapes and beats.

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[00:29:37]Glitter lexica geometry dash. Man, that was awesome. Really good stuff, man.

[00:29:43]Really good stuff. But uh yeah, let's move on. This one.