Music you listen to vs. music you make

S

Serendipity Records

Well-known member
So, taking a cue from RFR's thread (Music I like, what do you like??), I'd be interested to hear how the music you listen to affects the music you write.

For example, I really enjoy Neil Peart and Duke Ellington, Toto and Enya, The BeeGees and The Highwaymen, Maurice Ravel and ABBA.

Is this diversity reflected in my music? Well, I've never finished a project that actually showcases any of these styles (though I've been close, and am getting closer).

What do you think?
 
My songs are all over the map as are my song and music preferences. For sure my influences influence me...but sometimes a song or lyric line just happens out of the ether...and where or why it comes is beyond my pay grade.
 
Same, all over the map. I sometimes wonder if that is a good thing. A lack of cohesiveness, a bit helter skelter, jack of all trades master of none.

I sometimes just for the heck of it kind of say to/ask myself, I wonder if I can write a song that sounds like _____. Somewhat recently, Don Henley, high whiney vocal, maybe a little thought provoking with the feeeelings. Lyrics ended up somewhat referring to my brothers bout with cancer...which I kind of tucked away, was just too much and hit too close to home. Just too dark. Anyway, ironically, though I set out as an exercise to emulate someone else, those are often the songs where I actually end up recognising my style. An odd thing.

On the other hand, if you do fancy yourself a songwriter, and want to shop your work around, it's not a bad exercise.
 
Good question. I listen to all kinds of stuff and I believe my playing and song writing is a mash up of much of that but how it happens I really can't explain. That bad thing is it makes it difficult to have an identifiable sound or cohesive body of work when a person likes a lot of variation. I have only released one EP and it was described by an online music reviewer as sounding like a sampler and I agree because each song is very different from the others (4 songs and 4 different genres). Like the saying goes, it is what it is, and I really don't want to change that very much.
 
A lot of the music I listen to I don’t feel I could make.

But the music I make contains some of the DNA of everything I’ve enjoyed listening to.

We all draw from our influences and come up with our own thing.

I guess that’s a good thing, yes?
 
Along all my adult life I have listened to everything: from progressive to contemporary and classic jazz, from fusion to pop, from rock to new age, electronic, indie, alternative, dance, I really don't get tied to labels and listen whatever pleases me. Now the stuff I make tends to always lean to the eighties pop-rock style no matter my efforts to do something different. Probably because it was exactly what I listened to more when I was a teen ager plus the fact that the pop-rock had a BIG explosion in my country at this time. Influence is a bitch.
 
markmann said:
Good question. I listen to all kinds of stuff and I believe my playing and song writing is a mash up of much of that but how it happens I really can't explain. That bad thing is it makes it difficult to have an identifiable sound or cohesive body of work when a person likes a lot of variation. I have only released one EP and it was described by an online music reviewer as sounding like a sampler and I agree because each song is very different from the others (4 songs and 4 different genres). Like the saying goes, it is what it is, and I really don't want to change that very much.
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Well, I'm still at the point of making demos and letting my budding audience decide on a niche for me haha. So I'm not even aiming to have a "cohesive body of work" just yet. Note that the BeeGees for example tried a few genres before Disco found them; same with Fleetwood Mac, which essentially started out as a blues-rock outfit.
60's guy said:
Over the course of the past fifty years I've written and recorded songs.
At times, the lyrics came first, other times, the music came first.
My understanding is that music supports the emotion of lyrics or vice versa.
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100% agree here.
RFR said:
But the music I make contains some of the DNA of everything I’ve enjoyed listening to.

We all draw from our influences and come up with our own thing.

I guess that’s a good thing, yes?
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True, it's a wonderful thing, but to me it becomes a problem when you're unconsciously plagiarizing material from half a dozen songs and condensing that into one song (musically). Having been fed exclusively classical music until I hit my teens, I still have trouble recognizing the legitimacy of I-V-vi-IV and sample-based music.
YanKleber said:
Probably because it was exactly what I listened to more when I was a teen ager
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Considering what I listen to now, I wonder what music I'll be making in my fifties :unsure:

:cool:
 
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The Greeks believed there were 9 muses for the arts...

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To say "I" wrote / came up with an original tune, melody, poem or lyric or artistic idea that came from no prior influence is impossible. Be it somebody elses tune or lyric line or just a life experience. From the Baby boomer age on we are bombarded with amazing music that we don't even consider like TV commercials and soundtracks in TV shows and movies.....continually being exposed to musical ideas.
Everything spawns from something other than the current end result...the butterfly effect of sorts.

Lennon said there was this Cosmic river we all can tap into...

For sure melodies and lyric lines have dropped into my lap and then I have worked on them and developed them into a completed song...I was the receiver just passing on the message...was it all just me and my subconcious providing these from prior experiences?....was it someting beyond what we can see and touch like the muses the Greeks spoke of or this cosmic river Lennon spoke of?

Sometimes when I write lyrics it is based solely upon a topic or situation and then the words flow....but sometimes words or lyric lines just pop into my head from left field that had nothing to with any particular topic or issue I was wanting to write about...

All I know is some of us are given this ability and some for sure aren't. The reason and the why's are beyond my pay grade.
 
TAE said:
The Greeks believed there were 9 muses for the arts...

View attachment 127571


To say "I" wrote / came up with an original tune, melody, poem or lyric or artistic idea that came from no prior influence is impossible. Be it somebody elses tune or lyric line or just a life experience. From the Baby boomer age on we are bombarded with amazing music that we don't even consider like TV commercials and soundtracks in TV shows and movies.....continually being exposed to musical ideas.
Everything spawns from something other than the current end result...the butterfly effect of sorts.

Lennon said there was this Cosmic river we all can tap into...

For sure melodies and lyric lines have dropped into my lap and then I have worked on them and developed them into a completed song...I was the receiver just passing on the message...was it all just me and my subconcious providing these from prior experiences?....was it someting beyond what we can see and touch like the muses the Greeks spoke of or this cosmic river Lennon spoke of?

Sometimes when I write lyrics it is based solely upon a topic or situation and then the words flow....but sometimes words or lyric lines just pop into my head from left field that had nothing to with any particular topic or issue I was wanting to write about...

All I know is some of us are given this ability and some for sure aren't. The reason and the why's are beyond my pay grade.
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Yes! For sure all art is descended from what came before it, which is why returning to the 80s, 70s, 60s, Jazz Age, traditional folk (not talking about Dylan here :ROFLMAO: ), classical, etc., is so important; those who do so write the best music/lyrics.
 
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What would happen in the case of being raised on classical music, polka, & Lawrence Welk with a bit of Bing Crosby thrown in the mix. :)
 
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grimtraveller said:
That's one of the most fascinating things I've heard in a long while. Do you mind going into a bit more detail ?
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What about it? I went to one jazz jam when I was 7-8 but only started playing it when I was 12; I discovered the remainder of pop music when I was 16 (first workplace :LOL:). Around this time the need to impress kicked in and I began playing Cape Breton fiddle :geek: and experimenting in my own music :ROFLMAO: (Celtic/disco fusion, for example). So endless non-variations on standard chord changes (actually, most Blues is a great example) and sampling ('cause you can't play a note and have such a bad voice you can only rap) is somewhat laughable to me. Don't get me wrong, I've written a rap or two before.
RFR said:
What would happen in the case of being raised on classical music, polka, & Lawrence Welk with a bit of Bing Crosby thrown in the mix. :)
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Basically, that's me. But I never really got into Bing Crosby; more like Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Art Tatum, etc haha.

Outcome is, I do play in a professional symphony :geek::geek::geek: in addition to the rest.
 
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