Under the Influence.

[ShanPeyton]

This isn't so much a thread about who your influences are, but rather a thread to see how to avoid wearing your influences on your sleeve. Songwriting has been a struggle for me in that I find if I listen to too much of one artist or genre it sort of finds it way into my creative process? I don't see it as a bad thing until I find my self sitting in my room saying, "I can't use that riff it sounds just like song x" Does anyone else find this happening from time to time?

I understand that to many degrees we write what we write because we are or were influenced by someone or something at some point, I am just curious if perhaps I am generally an unoriginal individual or if this happens to other people.

 

[miroslav]

Oh....I thought it was about playing/recording under the influence of drugs and alcohol.


Don't listen so much to any one artist.
I tend not to listen to a lot of music when I'm working on stuff....mainly for that reason.
That said, there's nothing wrong with being influenced by certain artists/styles....just be aware of it and any obvious plagerism.
There's not much in Rock/Pop music that hasn't already been done, so you really want to try and put YOUR influence on it, rather than always being influenced by someone else.
You won't be the first person to write a song or play like _____________. Just don't try to mimic, 'cuz then it sounds cheesy and cheap.

 

[Greg_L]

Everyone is unoriginal. Just do whatever you want and don't worry about it.

 

[ShanPeyton]

All truth in here. Makes sense. All the really good riffs have been taken already haHa!

 

[Greg_L]

All truth in here. Makes sense. All the really good riffs have been taken already haHa!

Lol, right? If you're playing electric guitar based rock and roll, there's really nowhere else to go unless you go full weird noise rock, then the sky's the limit. So just do whatever you want. If it sounds like something else, so what? I think too many people try to reinvent the wheel and try too hard to be unique or different. For what? It usually just sounds forced to me. Many many many bands have made legendary careers out of writing the same song over and over. I look at it like this: you can write songs for yourself, for your fans, or for other musicians. The first two are fine, the last is is a futile waste of time. If you like what you're doing, that's all that matters. If you don't feel good about it, then yeah, try to change something.

 

[fritsthegirl]

I've only been doing this for about a year and unintentionally copied part of someone else's tune not that long ago. I felt bad for about a day. Then I figured the band I copied probably got their sound and ideas from someone too. That made me feel a bit better.

We're just monkeys who like bananas. Even if you give a monkey 100 bananas, he'd still want another one because he likes them so much.

I feel not too much shame in using the ideas/sounds and melodies that I've liked and have influenced me subconsciously. I can't undo what I've heard and what my brain has chosen to absorb, so I roll with it.

 

[ShanPeyton]

Indeed. I am definitely not even remotely trying to reinvent the wheel. I just don't want someone to say my god that sounds exactly like song x. That sort of thing. I also have a severe case of overthinkeritis. That's part of a bigger problem that can't be fixed herein haha. Thanks guy and gal.

 

[Greg_L]

I just don't want someone to say my god that sounds exactly like song x.

That might happen from time to time. I catch myself sometimes. I'll come up with a vocal cadence or melody and be like "wait, this sounds too familiar". And most often, I can't recall what it sounds like or why. I just know it sounds familiar. I either run with it anyway or change one little thing to make it just different enough. I don't really care. That's just me though.

 

[Beck]

Sure... it happens to most people, because we tend to reflect our musical surroundings just as we do anything else... like the clothes we wear.

Originality often comes when people combine two unoriginal things, like say... opera and metal. Then you have something new for a while that everyone tries to do.

We're all influenced by something. Enya was influenced by the acoustics in the church she grew up in. She was heavily influenced by high church music. Even though it was new and different enough to make a huge splash in the music scene it was still an influence nonetheless.

 

[Xdrummer]

I don't listen to one artist (or even one genre) repeatedly - so I don't notice that I'm overly influenced by any specific artist. Now, I do admit that on occasion, I may make a dedicated decision to try to write a song in a given style.

A couple of recent examples, I watched an episode of Daryl's House - and I decided I wanted to write a pop song in the style of Hall & Oats (cathing melody, lots of lush harmony vocals, etc. The end result did sound like something Daryl Hall would write - and the style was different than I normally write in. It was a good learning experiance. In another recent example, I had to write for a female vocalist who have a "tough chick" Gretchen Wilson vibe - so a focused on writing a song that musically and lyrically told the kind of story Gretchen Wilson is known for.

In both cases I was "influenced" but less because I listen to those artists "too much" and more because I wanted to see if I could write in those styles.

Candldly, my biggest concern as a writer is that my writing doesn't repaetedly sound too much like me.