Nobody wants to sound like someone else. How do we get our own singing style? How? If it was easy, everyone would have it and that’s why it’s worth working hard for.
You can find your singing style by experimenting and composing songs. Experimentation with timbre and production is going to give you a different sonic fingerprint while composing your own songs naturally tends to give birth to a certain way you write.
It is in the act itself that we find our own singing style and I suggest that you hear me out to see how exactly experimentation and even copying leads you to find your own style!
Experimentation
A lot has to do with experimentation, both with composing and with listening to new genres.
With composing you have a new world of timbre. How things sound in terms of rhythmic and melodic structures, matters a lot. It also allows you to find the right kind of timbre for what you’re going for.
Couple that with what you listen to and what harmonic ideas your ear is accustomed to listening to, and you will start composing and find your singing style.
But perhaps one area of experimentation you may not have thought of is production. You need to make your songs sound sonically different from other people. The way to do that is to start listening to timbre with a keen ear. Sit with producers and learn about sampling and mixing and mastering. Even if you do not plan to become one, the final result is going to depend on your production quality. The studio guy is going to hit render and the computer is going to start bouncing your file.
It’s not a heartless process. It’s where a thousand creative decisions are made as well.
Composing
You find your style in composing because it’s like having your own signature. It’s unique to you. You may use the same pen as everybody else but the way the final results and your signature comes out is very unique to you.
You can copy someone else’s signature perfectly but it won’t be authentic.
The same is with composing. You can start off by copying but the only way to find your own voice in music or your style is through composing. Using the same tools as everybody else but trying to do something of your own. You build on the same rhythmic and harmonics knowledge but the differentiating parts are of timbre, as stated above, and of your melody.
Melody
Melody is the single most important determiner of what your song is about. Now, there might be some modern music that goes against that norm and there really isn’t a melody in modern-day music but what I am trying to get at it, even if it doesn’t have one ‘oh, that’s the melody’ you will still have something you can hear and be like oh, ‘it’s that song’, these days it’s happening a lot through timbre as well.
But, if you were writing a song with lyrics and a structure you’d need a melody. Even if it’s a progressive song like what the new bands are writing then it’d still have a melody and that’s great. It’s your writing of your own song that will distinguish you and within your own songs, the melody you use will determine the distinction between your songs.
This cohesiveness is actually done a lot in albums. An album could be a bigger idea with songs within it. In music production, the drums and the bass might not even change in the way they’re treated at all throughout the album.
Guitar FX for solo might remain the same, it automatically provides cohesion within an album, albeit a sonic one but that’s what it’s about.
Your Playlist Matters
It really does. What you listen to makes you who you are. If you’re into rock music you’ll probably end up creating rock music far much better than you do pop or metal. It’s like learning to speak. You must’ve noticed that with speech we tend to copy dialogue patterns of people whom we look up to or spend time with.
We adopt their habits and just like that you and I also write like the culmination of the bands we listen to. We are who we listen to as musicians.
Go With Your Gut
There is a lot to be said about going with your gut in music. Sometimes, especially when you’re beginning to compose, you need to get some stuff out of your system. The wacky stuff you compose is quality music.
You need that because your gut tells you that it’s an amazing idea. Sometimes it is. But, you have to as fairytale-like it may sound, listen to yourself. Let it flow. It’s not a paper, it’s not a competition. It’s music you’re creating and it’s neverending. Make it the way you would like to make it.
Copy Songs
Never forget the power of copying. I don’t mean plagiarism but being inspired by someone ‘just enough’ that it isn’t plagiarism. This would mean copying tones, chord progressions, and arrangements and they work off of each other but never the melody though. That’ll just give it away.
Arrange
Hearing songs in the light of different arrangements can allow you to compose in a different light. You’d be surprised how much it affects your writing style and in turn your singing style as well.
So mess around with arrangments a lot!
Timbre Explosion
The moment you start focusing on the production your ear starts to shape itself. Timbre is the single biggest determining factor in what you sound like. You can play the same things and you will have a whole different idea about what you put where.
If you’re the singer and the composer of the song then playing around with this is going to determine how you shape other instruments around your voice. What can work really well and come out as interesting when you are not in the spotlight and what can’t when it does? That’s the question.
Style Without Singing
After everything is said and done, you’ve found your style, what would happen if you’re not able to sing properly? Disasters. Complete disaster. You need to look towards something that is going to give you singing lessons and make you understand how it works so that you can replicate those results.
Where might one find such a source? The answer lies in online courses. You can read about their importance here.
If you’re looking for a curated list of courses that you can benefit from along with how much they cost and what they are all about, head on over here. Let’s see if your style and singing aren’t something to behold after this.