Finding Your Own Style

Have you ever listened to a song and been able to say who composed it without even being told? Recently I made a blog post about developing new styles and learning new genres, and that’s a great thing to do! But if you don’t even know what style your own music compositions are, maybe that’s a bit rough. Music has come a long, long way since Bach was sitting on his bench, creating his very Baroque organ fugues. Now there’s so many genres of music that trying to figure out where your own style fits into those genres is a little overwhelming. It’s quite possible that you play a mixture of different genres. This post isn’t supposed to be super technical or necessarily, exact musical theory doctrine. So just for fun, how do you figure out what your style is?

Look at what you’ve grown up playing.

If you’ve grown up playing mainly classical music, the chances are that your style is going to be classical. But obviously there are different types of classical music. There’s romantic, baroque, modern, impressionist, and more that I can’t think of right now. And they all have very different sounds. Think baroque and you have some screechy harpsichord belting out keys in a rapid succession with consonant chord progressions. The rhythm is steady and it’s fairly emotionless. Then there’s impressionistic, where the song is all about mood and emotion. Chords can be dissonant and unpredictable, and the rhythm is quite changeable. So where do you go from there?

Look at how the pianists in your life compose.

Maybe you grew up playing classical music, but your style isn’t very similar to what you grew up playing. I’ve noticed that I often tend to play like my mom, who is also a pianist, because I’ve heard her play so many times that that style is integrated in my brain. Obviously, we’re not exactly alike, but there are similarities. I have a friend who plays almost exactly like his older brother. If you have a close relative who you’ve spent a lot of time listening to when they play, chances are some of that has rubbed off on you. Listen to them play and compare it to your own compositions and arrangements

Record yourself playing and then listen to the recording.

When you’re focused on composing and creating, you’re listening with a critical ear. But if you record your composition and stop and listen to it without criticism and get the mood for the piece, what do you hear? Do you hear stately piece with unrelentingly exact rhythm? A soft, flowing song? A really ornamented melody? Very basic chord progressions? It’s amazing how listening to your song from a recording rather than while you’re playing it can make such a difference in your perception of the song.

Remember that your style will probably not fit into one exact genre, and it can always change.

No two styles are alike and that’s what makes every person’s compositions so unique! Because there are so many different types of music, and we’re constantly being inundated with different genres, the chances that your style of composing is exactly like every baroque song by Bach is unlikely. Just like everyone has a different style with photography, writing, and drawing, so too is every person’s style in composing unique and special. Music genres are more of a spectrum than set genres, nowadays anyways, since genres are constantly being intertwined and pulled apart. The point of figuring out where on the spectrum your style lies is merely to help you better appreciate your own abilities no matter how bad or good they may be. Because someone will always be able to play better than you, but they’ll never be able to play quite like you. 😀