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Gurnumsbug wrote:"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." - Albert Einstein

Tricky question, I don't think it's something you can ever get a full answer to. I think one of the biggest helps, which a few other people have mentioned, is enjoying a large spectrum of musical influences. To add to this, I believe you should let those different genres and tastes organically add to your creative output in the same way perspectives you gain as you learn about new things gradually add to who you are as a person, altering the things you wear, the conversations you have and the places you go to. This happens in a way that is natural, subconscious and instinctive. I think developing a musical identity is essentially the same. Don't try to develop a musical identity, instead let your developing tastes and the technical skills you are learning allow your style to find you.

I know this answer can be seen as a little annoying and philosophically aloof but I believe it's about the most accurate way of thinking about it. something that may really help this process is making yourself stop thinking about music as music, but more as a collection of sounds. Try and develop a mental image of sound as an experience and picture a tune as a forging of audible textures and frequencies in a way that communicates some aspect of the creators emotional existence. This really dissolves the preconceptions of genre definition and helps you to find inspiration and influence in sound everywhere, not just the noises that are pieced together to form your favorite tunes of your favorite genre. Trying to adhere to this orderless law of sound, as opposed to music and genre definition, will create much more mental space that your creativity will fill out in to, allowing your uniqueness as a person to appear in your tunes as you allow your entire waking experience to inspire you musically, where personal things, noises you like, motifs that strike you, or just moments, will find their way into your music in some way, rather than a pigeon holed funnel of limited inspiration be your guiding force. I think Genre, not just any, but the concept of genre, restricts the musical mind with all it's little laws and quasi right way of doing things in regard to whatever genre the musical mind is inspired by.

Experiment with sound, as sound, applying loosely to the rules of your genre and make music that sounds good to you, over time, given you spend a lot of energy on personal emotional exploration, with sound as the medium of expression, your style will begin to emerge. Though this takes time, so your biggest tool is patience and effort, if not a healthy dose of being honest with yourself and a little soul searching along the way.

I feel I'm getting to a pretty good point of having my own style, this is the general thought process I've developed on this and what I've spoken about are the things I've realized I've done to get to that point.

Peace.

Turnipish Thoughts wrote:Tricky question, I don't think it's something you can ever get a full answer to. I think one of the biggest helps, which a few other people have mentioned, is enjoying a large spectrum of musical influences. To add to this, I believe you should let those different genres and tastes organically add to your creative output in the same way perspectives you gain as you learn about new things gradually add to who you are as a person, altering the things you wear, the conversations you have and the places you go to. This happens in a way that is natural, subconscious and instinctive. I think developing a musical identity is essentially the same. Don't try to develop a musical identity, instead let your developing tastes and the technical skills you are learning allow your style to find you.

I know this answer can be seen as a little annoying and philosophically aloof but I believe it's about the most accurate way of thinking about it. something that may really help this process is making yourself stop thinking about music as music, but more as a collection of sounds. Try and develop a mental image of sound as an experience and picture a tune as a forging of audible textures and frequencies in a way that communicates some aspect of the creators emotional existence. This really dissolves the preconceptions of genre definition and helps you to find inspiration and influence in sound everywhere, not just the noises that are pieced together to form your favorite tunes of your favorite genre. Trying to adhere to this orderless law of sound, as opposed to music and genre definition, will create much more mental space that your creativity will fill out in to, allowing your uniqueness as a person to appear in your tunes as you allow your entire waking experience to inspire you musically, where personal things, noises you like, motifs that strike you, or just moments, will find their way into your music in some way, rather than a pigeon holed funnel of limited inspiration be your guiding force. I think Genre, not just any, but the concept of genre, restricts the musical mind with all it's little laws and quasi right way of doing things in regard to whatever genre the musical mind is inspired by.

Experiment with sound, as sound, applying loosely to the rules of your genre and make music that sounds good to you, over time, given you spend a lot of energy on personal emotional exploration, with sound as the medium of expression, your style will begin to emerge. Though this takes time, so your biggest tool is patience and effort, if not a healthy dose of being honest with yourself and a little soul searching along the way.

I feel I'm getting to a pretty good point of having my own style, this is the general thought process I've developed on this and what I've spoken about are the things I've realized I've done to get to that point.

Peace.

This was really really helpful to read, and an interesting perspective on music. Thank you so much for taking the time to type this out man. I will honestly be taking your words to heart.

Re-creating ideas you liked from other peoples work is practice for anybody. Your own style will develop as you develop technique. Sometimes you take ideas & they articulate well, other times you take them & it painfully resonates as a mimic.

deadly habit wrote:

Sharmaji wrote:or, fuck it, just steal ideas outright. Real artistry lies in knowing what to steal, and how to mask it so that it appears original.

“Good artists copy, great artists steal." - Picasso

Funny enough, no one really knows for sure who said that first.

hudson wrote:

deadly habit wrote:

Sharmaji wrote:or, fuck it, just steal ideas outright. Real artistry lies in knowing what to steal, and how to mask it so that it appears original.

“Good artists copy, great artists steal." - Deadly Habit

Funny enough, no one really knows for sure who said that first.

i put it this way to my self,Its normal to be infulenced,because everyone steals ideas and gets infulenced by someone ,but try listening to some other genres,like if you make deep tunes,try listening to soem chill out,ambient,or some funky jazzy stuff ,if you like the heavy ones,try some metal,rock or rap.and that way you will be infulenced but your infulence will be transfered in a diffrent style of music,everyone has infulences.hope i helped (and i hope you understood what im trying to say cuz my english suck lol)

Tha Iz wrote: “Good artists copy, great artists steal." - Tha Iz

Tha Iz wrote:"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." - Tha Iz

Tha Iz wrote:"If your beat is fat, I'll use it" - Tha Iz

Fuck it.

I'll be the bad guy. (again).



There is a chance - you might not have your own "voice". You might not be original enough at this stage in your life to do anything beyond something painfully mediocre.

BUT

(and before everyone rips my head off) - that isn't necessarily bad. I don't know your music from a hole in the wall... but you yourself admitted that your best work was stuff you copied from others. OK - the first step is admitting what the problem is. The next step is - What the FUCK you gonna do about it??


My favorite story along these lines is the comedian Louis CK. Now, he had some success doing writing for some good comedians... but his own stand up was awful. For like 10-15 years his stand up was awful - and by his own admission, it took those 10-15 to make that awful set even that good. So yeah, it was shit.

BUT

the he was inspired by George Carlin who talked throwing away his best material every year to make himself dig deeper & write better stuff each year.. and the result was Louis CK totally blew up and is now my (and many other people's) fave comedian ... and straight out of nowhere as a dude in his 40's.



I'm not saying it will take you till you are in your 40's... but I am saying - if you feel like you don't have your own unique voice... it won't come by asking other people how to find it. It will only come by stripping away everything that you know until you are left with nothing. And then, only then - you might hear yourself speak.

Watch & learn....

Mad EP wrote: I'm not saying it will take you till you are in your 40's... but I am saying - if you feel like you don't have your own unique voice... it won't come by asking other people how to find it. It will only come by stripping away everything that you know until you are left with nothing. And then, only then - you might hear yourself speak.