Developing a Voice

This is a large boot.

The fun thing about writing songs for other people is that you can skip genres from day to day. But the dangerous thing is that we can sometimes leave what we do best at the door. Write what you know, not what you think you know.

There was a point in my pursuit of a songwriting deal where, on my own, I began writing mostly country songs. I figured a Nashville publisher would expect nothing else. The problem was not so much the quality of the songs (they were awful) as the fact that I wasn’t being true to my own voice. As a piano player who grew up soaking in The Beatles' White Album, I was trying to operate in a genre where I had no real authority. I didn’t grow up wearing a cowboy hat on a ranch in Texas, but some other writer did. And they will naturally write a song about farm life way better than I ever will.

I would define a voice as "the style of one's message."

There is something that each of us brings to a song that we do better than anyone else in the world. It would boring if we all tried to have the same voice and write the same song (and thankfully, some publishers understand this reality). The last thing creativity should be described as is safe. If we are true to our own voice, we will create something fresh rather than safe.

Keep writing,

Ben

Fingerprints

Photo by Kevin Dooley. Used with permission.

We all have unique fingerprints. If we are true to our individual creativity, then those fingers will play melodies and write lyrics that reflect that uniqueness.

Sure, we are influenced by others, but we all have the ability to see the world as no one else has ever seen it before.

When creating art, we learn by doing. Setting out to write a song that’s original and “you” means that part of the process is figuring out what does and doesn't work (more on this later). Conventional rules should not apply.

On our way, we will come to forks in the road. We can either:

a) write what we believe in, or
b) write what we think someone else expects us to write.

Don't be afraid of trial and error. A lot of time we learn more from our "errors" than we ever do from our successes.  

Keep writing,

Ben