How to find out my style?

[deastman]

I think a lot of the problems people getting into music today have stem from a top-down approach. A bottom-up approach, for creative arts like music, seems much more healthy, and was much more prevalent in times gone by. We live in a digital world where everything is organized into a heirarchy of sub-types and sub-classes, which kinda brainwashes people into a top-down way of thinking where ideas suffer at the hands of "getting results" and a matrix of pre-existing styles with varying weights of "coolness", when really, the ideas should be cherished and used to build the results, and the matrix of styles used only to help you promote your music after it's finished and matured.

It's the same with politics, people die for ideas instead of ideas dying for people. Soldiers told to guard a monument because it's concrete is more valuable than their flesh and blood. We live in a topsy turvy world. Regocnize that, and do everything backwards from the bottom up. It's an act of defiance that feels good.

Spot on, as always. It isn't about figuring out which house sub-genre will earn you the most fans. It's about figuring out what it sounds like when you record yourself strumming a banjo in a stairwell, reversing it, and working out a three part harmony in Melodyne.

The sad part is that no matter how many times we all offer this same advice, I'm pretty sure they never listen.

[chaosWyrM]

The sad part is that no matter how many times we all offer this same advice, I'm pretty sure they never listen.

well, just look...we all said pretty much the same thing, just in different ways. we all figured it out. i dont think its a matter of not "listening"...i think, much like what were trying to say in the first place, its just something people need to discover on their own.

theres no context really for someone who hasnt experienced it for themselves, like explaining the color blue to a blind person. in time...the op will will come to the same realization that we all did, and will have some similar advice we all gave him for someone else who similarly wont really get it.

[KrisM]

Short and sweet: just make music and you'll figure it out eventually. We've all been there, and we've all figured it out to one extent or another.

[DJ Warmonger]

Style is something that you have or not, or a result of your goals and attempts. If you do what you want you will find it. If you have no idea what you're doing, though, no one can help you.

The existence of styles in music arises from the fact that some combination of instruments and patterns work well and some do not. But it doesn't mean there is no way for innovation. There always is and the people with creative ideas get there, just in the right spot.

[foosnark]

we all said pretty much the same thing, just in different ways. we all figured it out. i dont think its a matter of not "listening"...i think, much like what were trying to say in the first place, its just something people need to discover on their own.

theres no context really for someone who hasnt experienced it for themselves, like explaining the color blue to a blind person. in time...the op will will come to the same realization that we all did, and will have some similar advice we all gave him for someone else who similarly wont really get it.

When I started it's because I loved the sound and the physical feeling of vibrations caused by something I did.

I loved the sound of a marble rolling around a big metal bowl when shaken back and forth.
I loved finding harmonies on my grandma's beat-up piano.
I loved the breathy noises my cheesy Magnus organ made when a key was just barely pressed.
I love hitting a big drum with a big stick with a big arm movement and a big body movement and getting a big boom in response... and making a tiny wrist motion and getting a little tap in response... and finding ways in which dynamics impacts the sense of rhythm.
I love what happens when I start playing something and it comes out without my conscious thought.
I love the synchronization and nonverbal, nonvisual communication when people play together, especially when improvising.
I love turning knobs and getting a responsive change in sound, and making intuitive connections.
I love putting a track together and feeling like I'm collaborating with mathematics, with the technology and in some sense with the universe, in making something new.

What I've never really understood, is listening to an album and thinking "I want to make music just like this." (*) I've for sure been influenced by music I've heard, but more because my sense of possibilities was expanded in unexpected directions than because of a desire to imitate.

So maybe there's a big perspective difference there? Does anyone else feel that way, or can you actually arrive at creativity through a desire to imitate?


(*) Aside from deciding I had to join a taiko group after watching them perform, because they looked like were having so damned much fun. And it was fun, but also took too much of my time and energy performing other peoples' work instead of creating my own.

[debra1rlo]

DON'T LISTEN TO THESE LOSERS!!! THEY WOULDN'T EVEN HELP THAT NICE YOUNG MAN START AN EDM LABEL!!!

Check it out, I'm a "professional musician" and I can help you find your style!!!

Just paypal me $99.95 (per month) and, in no time*, I will have you styling the f**k out of your music!

*"No time" usually means about 2 or 3 years from the time I get around to helping you find/create your style until I pay off my new car or thereaouts.

[robogone]

Check it out, I'm a "professional musician" and I can help you find your style!!!

Maybe it's metal?

[chaosWyrM]

we all said pretty much the same thing, just in different ways. we all figured it out. i dont think its a matter of not "listening"...i think, much like what were trying to say in the first place, its just something people need to discover on their own.

theres no context really for someone who hasnt experienced it for themselves, like explaining the color blue to a blind person. in time...the op will will come to the same realization that we all did, and will have some similar advice we all gave him for someone else who similarly wont really get it.

When I started it's because I loved the sound and the physical feeling of vibrations caused by something I did.

I loved the sound of a marble rolling around a big metal bowl when shaken back and forth.
I loved finding harmonies on my grandma's beat-up piano.
I loved the breathy noises my cheesy Magnus organ made when a key was just barely pressed.
I love hitting a big drum with a big stick with a big arm movement and a big body movement and getting a big boom in response... and making a tiny wrist motion and getting a little tap in response... and finding ways in which dynamics impacts the sense of rhythm.
I love what happens when I start playing something and it comes out without my conscious thought.
I love the synchronization and nonverbal, nonvisual communication when people play together, especially when improvising.
I love turning knobs and getting a responsive change in sound, and making intuitive connections.
I love putting a track together and feeling like I'm collaborating with mathematics, with the technology and in some sense with the universe, in making something new.

What I've never really understood, is listening to an album and thinking "I want to make music just like this." (*) I've for sure been influenced by music I've heard, but more because my sense of possibilities was expanded in unexpected directions than because of a desire to imitate.

So maybe there's a big perspective difference there? Does anyone else feel that way, or can you actually arrive at creativity through a desire to imitate?


(*) Aside from deciding I had to join a taiko group after watching them perform, because they looked like were having so damned much fun. And it was fun, but also took too much of my time and energy performing other peoples' work instead of creating my own.

my belief is that you can arrive at creativity from just about anywhere. for me personally, trying to imitate was an essential learning phase. i learned how to do things by deconstructing other peoples work i admired and seeing what it was about it that resonated with me. in attempting (and generally failing) to imitate...i discovered what it was i wanted to relay.

a large part of most formal art training is studying what others did...and trying to do it yourself, to see just why it is that a particular piece is good, or how a particular style is what it is.

i see no shame in imitating something that inspires you initially (but i wouldnt since i did it myself), its a starting point for finding ones own vision, sound, voice...whatever you want to call it.

edit - maybe i should add that i would NOT call myself a musician. i have zero training in music and i can not play any instruments. all i have is a strong desire to make music, and through the miracle of modern technology, i have tools that allow me to do that despite the fact that i cant actually "play" anything. ive learned (and am still learning) how to make the sounds i hear in my head come out of the speakers connected to my computer...and thats good enough for me.

so its a good possibility that im a bit lax in my opinions on this subject. as far as im concerned...whatever works, works, and the finished product is what it is and how it got there is of little concern.

[jancivil]

I'm producing Electro house, deep house music. If you hear my music you would say this is like any other EDM style out there or on beatport top 100. So I want to find out my own style.

Any tips how I can begin or do?

The notion 'I'm _producing_ in _this genre_', putting the cart before the horse? Lose that. You have absolutely set yourself up to conform.

See about becoming a musician qua music in the larger sense? and get more interested in the process from that disposition. Chances are someone sets up to 'produce' today from the position of 'House music, that's the ticket' they aren't really that interested in the process.

As to imitation starting out, I heard Hendrix live when I was 12, it was a couple of years before I got started, a couple of years before my mother could afford a cheap japanese copy of a Fender for me, but I copped what I could by ear believing that to ape that was a step. I had some experience musically before that.
Now, people do not feel instrumental prowess is the step towards 'producing' so it's hard for me to speak to.
I will say with no fear that if you think having your very own musical personality is desirable, this is make or break, there is nowhere to hide and no way to kid yourself with an instrument, live.

[mellotronaut]

i can't help doing my own thing. i'm a f**king amateur. i just can sound like nobody else. i have no choice. thus i have my own style. ayyyyyyyy ayyyyyyyyyyyyy ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

[debra1rlo]

Check it out, I'm a "professional musician" and I can help you find your style!!!

Maybe it's metal?

[fluffy_little_something]

If the man is making deep house music, that's probably on purpose. I am not so sure it helps recommending him to listen to other genres. Sounds more like he is looking for ways to distinguish himself within the deep house realm.

[whyterabbyt]

If the man is making deep house music, that's probably on purpose. I am not so sure it helps recommending him to listen to other genres. Sounds more like he is looking for ways to distinguish himself within the deep house realm.

so you're saying he can only distinguish himself if he doesn't learn or pick up anything from other genres?

[fluffy_little_something]

If the man is making deep house music, that's probably on purpose. I am not so sure it helps recommending him to listen to other genres. Sounds more like he is looking for ways to distinguish himself within the deep house realm.

so you're saying he can only distinguish himself if he doesn't pick up anything from other genres that he can apply to his style ?

No, but maybe he can come up with his own style that is not borrowed from other genres.

I am very focused myself, also trying to find my own style. But I would never listen to other genres that I don't like just in order to get inspired.

[whyterabbyt]

No, but maybe he can come up with his own style that is not borrowed from other genres.

Who said anything about borrowing stuff?

I am very focused myself, also trying to find my own style. But I would never listen to other genres that I don't like just in order to get inspired.

How do you know you don't like them if you've never listened to them, then?