How to Find Your Sound as a Developing Artist?
Your sound identity or signature sound is one of the most important steps in developing as an artist. Your sound is how people recognize your music, how music producers choose to build your tracks, and eventually how your marketing team will brand you as an artist. A well-defined sound identity is often the difference between a music artist that soars to greater heights and one that struggles to reach their dreams.
At Skybox Sounds, we understand how difficult it can be to find your signature sound, so here are 5 things we consider when helping music artists craft and develop their sound.
What Are Your Influences?
Your musical influences are one of the best resources for helping you discover and better define your signature sound. But you need to avoid sounding too much like your influences, so it’s essential for you to dive deeper.
If you’ve been inspired by modern artists like The Weeknd, for example, you need to find out who inspired him and then who inspired that artist and so on. Go as far back as you can to get to the root artist and their signature sound because most artists these days combine genres into a unique hybrid sound that they’re known for.
The Weeknd’s main musical inspirations are Michael Jackson, Prince and R. Kelly. More specifically, The Weeknd’s falsetto vocal style is influenced by Ethiopian singers such as Aster Aweke. With this information alone, there’s many songs to study with The Weeknd’s current music in mind.
When you know who and what inspired the greats, it’s easier to understand each component that makes up their sound identity as a musical artist, and how crucial a solid sound identity is to their success!
What Are Your Musical Likes and Dislikes?
Once you know the root of your influences, the next step is to clearly define your likes and dislikes.
For example, you could really enjoy the 80s style synths in a song, but dislike how that specific sound was paired with the vocals and melody. Investigating each layer of your favorite songs (and even songs you can’t stand) and deciding what you like and don’t like will take you a long way in understanding how to build your own sound identity.
This discovery process is also great when working with a music producer, since you will be able to provide reference tracks and clearly point out what you like about the song and what you would prefer to avoid. Artists that know their preferences collaborate and create more effectively in the studio, which helps ensure you get your desired outcome for each recording session!
So, you’ve made it this far. You’re serious about developing as a music artist and want to get hands-on with this discovery process. It’s time to combine this knowledge and apply it without losing what makes you unique as an artist.
Master Your Voice and Be Consistent
Being a carbon copy of your favorite musical influences is all fun and games until you become an accidental cover band. So how do you avoid utilizing the same repetitive elements like 80s style synths or blues melodies to emulate a signature sound?
Practice. Practice. Practice.
The best sound identities are ones that use subtly woven elements throughout a song, album or even a music artist's entire career and take years to create. Lucky for you, simply listening to your favorite songs throughout childhood and beyond has already set the stage, but now you’ve gotta get on stage.
All the research in the world won’t help you when it comes to the application of the knowledge you’ve acquired. It’s the repetitive and focused effort of utilizing that knowledge in the pursuit of your dreams that helps you succeed. This is the essence of what it means to be a music artist.
A Practical Exercises in Sound Identity
A great way to approach practicing your sound is to impose limitations and restrictions when creating a song. This allows you to utilize your knowledge, skills and experience in a fun and engaging way.
Let’s say you’re an RnB artist. Challenge yourself to do the same style of vocals over a rock or pop instrumental. Or try doing covers of your favorite songs, but make sure to change a core aspect. For example, you could increase the tempo, alter the melody, or if you have access to a band, change the instrumentals. Experimenting with covers to find your signature sound is the most fun way to push yourself creatively (think Kali Uchis’ cover of Venus as a Boy by Bjork or Post Malone’s cover of Heart-Shaped Box by Nirvana).
These exercises not only get you to use the in-depth knowledge of your influences but also get you out of your comfort zone. Keep it fun, and inspired, and you’ll find that over time there’s a similarity throughout each song and session that is unique to you. When you start noticing this unifying sound, you’ll be able to approach developing it even further with competence and confidence.
Collaborate With Musicians and Music Producers
The creative power of multiple music-minded individuals is also a great way to develop sound identity.
When you’re caught up in your own sound and vision, it can be difficult to get a clear understanding of your music. Collaborating with others is great exercise in explaining your vision and creating a cohesive sound between two or multiple artists. Working with music producers that understand and produce music similar to your own is also great because they can give you more nuanced direction when composing a song. The best music producers and sound engineers have their own unique sound identity that can be identified throughout their client network.
If any of this sounds daunting to you, don’t worry. It’s a life long journey for every artist. Established and well-known artists like Nelly and Kanye West continue to refine and even change their sound identity throughout their careers. The most important thing is to stay focused, and remain open to criticism and suggestions from those you work with as well as your fans.
For those of you that want support in developing your signature sound, work with music studios like Skybox Sounds that provide Artist Development services.
