Is it important to develop your own "voice" as a composer ?

[Adrian Allan]

I'm sure that we can all agree that some of the pieces on these forums, although highly proficient, are very much in the mould of other prominent composers. For example it's quite common to hear a film score that could have been penned by Hans Zimmer; or a sonata that could have been written by Mozart.

Of course every piece of music ever written owes some debt to what has come before it, and this is how music develops over the ages.

However, some music stands out as being either highly original or having the stamp of the individual - what we call "the composer's own voice". And through the course of a career, a composer may gradually step outside the mindset of his peers and develop an individual touch or "voice".

How important is this to you ? Is it less important in certain genres, eg, film composing where the music should never take over the interest from the screen ? Or is it an issue for film composers that they should find their own voice too ?

Are you quite happy to spend a decade or so writing pastiche of other "great" composers, or do you really aim to find your own voice as a composer ?

[Michal Cielecki]

Interesting topic.
Personally, I am yet to develop my very own "voice". I am still learning, trying different orchestral styles (Zimmer, Williams), but often I try to bring something of my own there. Be it unusual signature, harmony or motifs. IMHO there is always a place to leave your own "trail" in the music you are requested to make (even when directors/game leaders tell you that music should be in the "spirit" of works by a famous composer).

Is it important to develop one's own "voice"? For the composer - probably yes. For project leaders, I don't think so. For them the music just needs to work with video/gameplay.

Cheers,
Michal

[Ray Kemp]

It's simply to do with money isn't it?
When one has to break loose from being schooled in music and become responsible for earning a living wage.

1. You write what the customer wants (very few will have their own voice doing this).
2. When and if you get the time you write what pleases you (this may or may not be your own voice only time will tell).

simples!

[Tyler]

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN COMPOSITIONAL VOICE!
I hear to often these days composer using that "I need to make money" or "make music that people will want to listen to" excuse to often as a cop out to writing out side of their comfort zone. Composer who write for the masses will 95% of the time will be forgotten before they even start their next piece.
Often people think that having a compositional voice means being weird or complicated, but that is not the case at all. It just means that you are writing music that is uniquely yours, that says "this piece was written by ME", that people can hear and say "this is a (insert your name here) piece".

The question people should be asking is "do I sound unique enough, even if it is just a little bit, to separate me from others".
I hear soooooo much music that sounds soooooo much like Mozart and Beethoven it begs the question; Why should I listen to you if you sound like a knock off of Mozart?
If your music sounds so much like Beethoven, why should any one buy your music when they can get Beethoven for a lot cheaper and get a performance faster. Why should a conductor or an ensemble pick your music over Mozart if you sound like Mozart? The answer is, they wont. It cost them more money to perform original music then it would if they just played Mozart, and if your music sounds like Mozart you give them no reason to to go through that effort to perform your music.

If you write music in your own voice (with some influences from past composers) you can easily answer those questions because you know you bring something new and/or unique that separates you from other composers.
If you are concerned themselves with writing music for the masses or pleasing the ears of your audience buy writing in a voice that is not your own but instead a voice that is familiar to everyone, then you might need to have a long conversation with yourself and determine whether or not the path of composing is right for you and whether or not being an arranger is a better path.

Any one that has told you that composers that write for the masses are more likely to succeed has lied to you. The composers that write in a voice that is not their own or write will disappear into obscurity faster then their music does. They are not marketable or sell able and will always be over looked. They do not go anywhere with their music because they fail to understand that if they do not make their music stand out that people who would normaly employ their services will most likely go for something in the public domain libraries or the classical libraries because it is cheaper then buying original music that sounds like free music that can be found anywhere.

[Adrian Allan]

A couple of other thoughts I've had on this:

It's probably hard for any composer in their early twenties to develop a distictive voice because their exposure to music may well be limited by their age. By far the greatest influence on what you write is, I believe what you have played (or dabbled with in my case).

Some people I know who studied music at Uni had basically just learned their exam pieces really well and all the books leading up the exam on their chosen instrument. So it is inevitable that in the early stages of a composer's career pieces will be "in the style of" rather than really original - it can take a lot longer to develop a musical personality. And there is no harm in that.

Have any composers really found a strong voice before the age of 30 ? (apart from the maestros who started to write in childhood like Mozart and Schubert and were dead by 40).

The other point is that of sincerity. It is an impossible theory to test or quantify, but it is said that if you write truly as "yourself" rather than somebody else, your music is more likely to sound more sincere. People like music that wears its heart on its sleeve and I can't see this happening if the aim in to impersonate another composer's style.

[Michal Cielecki]

I agree with Adrian here.

Moreover I think that a composer, despite how much an influence he has to bring to a composition (what the boss of a project wants it to sound like), the influence always gets past the filter of experience of a composer, which in result makes compositions slightly (or even more) different than the influence source. By experience I mean the knowledge of harmony, rhytm, music styles, etc. that got into practical use in a composer's palette.

Cheers,
Michal

[Jan Civil]

It was not so much an aim but by default that I sound_like_me.

I started out (well, as a child drummer but things changed pretty quick) as a lead guitarist in a rock context.
I was known to have a personal style early on. If you don't, No_One_Will_Care. I think that hold true in any art form actually. People who played a lot better than I could escape notice, blend into the wallpaper, but I stuck out.

I ended up as the arranger for the first sort of non punkoid outfit I was in, and I was pretty naive and inexperienced and cobbled together things according to what I liked to hear but no real clue as to how things were done by formula. So, it was kind of odd and personal-sounding (and we did not win the school talent show). This was in a band that listened to Yes, ELP, Genesis, Gentle Giant, but the lead singer was a Beatles fan. It didn't quite sound like any of that. Those people most of 'em maybe knew what they were doing?, us not so much.

I was never that interested in copying anything that closely, it's like being someone else... be yourself.
I guess it's wiser as far as getting some money to do what John Wiliams does, acting like he's this and that great composer but formulating and recombining according to the commercial demands. I could never do that, even if I had his command. I'd feel like I was perpetuating a hoax.

[Kristofer Emerig]

Adrian,

Listen to Mendelssohn's Octuor in E flat, written at the venerable age of 18, I believe (don't hold me to it, music history not my forte). He was less than half my age when he wrote that - very humbling. It's also clearly signature Mendelssohn, and still one of my very favorite pieces ever written (or heard by me, more accurately).

[AndrewG]

I think that rather than developing one's own "voice", one should refrain from repeating the others' "voices". That is, even if we study and apply somebody's technique or style, we should express our own thoughts, feelings, themes, phrases and emotions. If we feel that we express "their" emotions, we need to stop and study or invent another technique or style.

[Adrian Allan]

I agree that in the age of the child prodigy there were cases where people like Mozart and Beethoven, being pushed from such a young age, developed a true voice by adolescence after their first "child-like" efforts (which were even in the case of these two, very much in the style of others).

I might add Mendelssohn to that list. Although my knowledge of him is not extensive, I believe that he came from a rich family that promoted the arts, he flourished at a young age and then died young.

Why don't we breed greats like these people today ? Maybe the simple answer is that flashing box of distractions that drains mental energy and saps the talent from the young. They did so much more in their short lives, in such middle class families where classical music was the staple diet.

[Kristofer Emerig]

Mendelssohn was smart enough to be an advocate of Bach, at a time when Bach was quite out of style, so he's cool in my book.

As far as the present dumbing down of our society, well you can't have a Walmart peddling easy disposability (is that even a word? OK, I made it up) on every corner and a relentless stream of gibberish aimed at the basest of human instincts broadcast almost continually to your children without some cost. Impetuosity and self indulgence breeds stupidity. I think you hit the nail on its head. We haven't plugged in a television since my youngest daughter was born, and did so about once a month prior to that.

[Alex Dunn]

I liked AndrewG's comment. I think it's fine to nick a chord from a favorite band occasionally but when you start thinking 'I'm going to write a song driven by emotions felt by the members of that band', then you have crossed the line into unoriginality. I've found the pieces I've written that sound most 'like me' are ones where I was writing from the deepest personal experience.

[Jan Civil]

I fail to grok what's that exceptional about Felix Mendelsohn as so exemplary a model, certainly as applies to modern life.

That's an historical judgment down to, he has some tunes which lasted. Why they lasted, I couldn't tell you. Why they got a chance to be heard surely has to do with having class advantage. BTW there was no such thing as a middle class at that time; there was a nascent bourgeoisie, but that was higher class in modern terms.

History obviously hasn't spoken as far as someone working today. The idea of a classical composer in the same terms as one of these people, Mozart or Mendelsohn is I think a thing of the past; and applying the whole thing of that time to now... isn't right. "Classical music as a staple diet"? Did they even think in terms of 'classical music' or was it that this was the music available to the bourgeoisie, period? (Beyond the music of the lower classes, of course.)

Compare that to now, and the information (emphasis on the positive rather than the negative, 'kids today with all their distractions and tiny attention spans') available, why would someone with a healthy curiosity have 'classical music as a staple diet'? Why is this reified as some obviously desirable situation? It's impoverished in terms of available information to a person living in 2009.

In terms of energy, why would having more information necessarily sap it? Because that information exceeds your comfort level? What? What does it mean to say this, 'flashing box of distractions'? As if no one can discern anything any more, we've gone beyond the pale culturally, 'there are no more Mozarts, alas'.

> Less is not always more, I think.

This kind of thinking retards music as an art form compared to other art forms. You don't see it in the visual arts like this, but it is still so prevalent in music.

To asssume there are no greats, what have you done here but quit looking, satisfied with some exemplar from an idealized past.
Adrian Allan said:

I might add Mendelssohn to that list. Although my knowledge of him is not extensive, I believe that he came from a rich family that promoted the arts, he flourished at a young age and then died young. Why don't we breed greats like these people today ? Maybe the simple answer is that flashing box of distractions that drains mental energy and saps the talent from the young. They did so much more in their short lives, in such middle class families where classical music was the staple diet.