So, I’ve recorded a few rough draft keyboard and vocal tracks for a couple of songs in the last few days. Building songs from the ground up is challenging, but so satisfying when they finally come out right!
I find it interesting how long it has taken me to find my musical style and voice - what is really me instead of what I’m trying to sound like. Just because I knew how to carry a tune when I was younger certainly didn’t mean I could sing. Music, just like anything else that comes from the core of us, takes a certain amount of depth, conviction, Soul, and believability to be any good. I think back through the last 15 or 20 years and am amazed at the little twists and turns my musical road has taken, right along with my personal road. I sometimes watch singing competition shows like The Voice, and so often I’ve seen amazing singers not get chosen just because they weren’t grounded in their style yet. There is a certain maturing process, a discovering of who the musician actually IS, and I have found in my case that settling on my style has taken longer than I expected. I’ve tried a lot of different styles, and I still have a range that I like to write and sing, but it’s finally been in the last couple of years that I’ve seen my ‘voice’ really coming into focus. And, oh, I’m glad!
There was a little song that I learned growing up that said, “Be yourself and do the things that you know best; be yourself - it’s my advice to you or else you’ll always be a nobody, so be yourself or else.” So simple, and yet how funny that it takes each of us whatever amount of time to not only really learn who we are, but to be comfortable and accepting of it sometimes. This is when I’m so thankful that God is patient, that though He knows the end result and that we must be SO frustrating sometimes in our bumbling way of learning, He is so wonderfully willing to watch us take our little steps and to love and encourage us all the way through.
I find it interesting how long it has taken me to find my musical style and voice - what is really me instead of what I’m trying to sound like. Just because I knew how to carry a tune when I was younger certainly didn’t mean I could sing. Music, just like anything else that comes from the core of us, takes a certain amount of depth, conviction, Soul, and believability to be any good. I think back through the last 15 or 20 years and am amazed at the little twists and turns my musical road has taken, right along with my personal road. I sometimes watch singing competition shows like The Voice, and so often I’ve seen amazing singers not get chosen just because they weren’t grounded in their style yet. There is a certain maturing process, a discovering of who the musician actually IS, and I have found in my case that settling on my style has taken longer than I expected. I’ve tried a lot of different styles, and I still have a range that I like to write and sing, but it’s finally been in the last couple of years that I’ve seen my ‘voice’ really coming into focus. And, oh, I’m glad!
There was a little song that I learned growing up that said, “Be yourself and do the things that you know best; be yourself - it’s my advice to you or else you’ll always be a nobody, so be yourself or else.” So simple, and yet how funny that it takes each of us whatever amount of time to not only really learn who we are, but to be comfortable and accepting of it sometimes. This is when I’m so thankful that God is patient, that though He knows the end result and that we must be SO frustrating sometimes in our bumbling way of learning, He is so wonderfully willing to watch us take our little steps and to love and encourage us all the way through.
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