Self Sufficient Musician

There are many resources out there for how to write hit songs.  But few discuss how to become unique.

But think about it.  All the artists that are worth remembering in the history of music industry — everyone from the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Abba, U2, the Police, Tori Amos, Queen, Bjork, Nirvana — are all so unique.  Oft imitated, sure, but never duplicated.

Now, admittedly, some artists become more known for their distinctive persona than originality in their music.  And that is no less valid way to get established.

That said, here I’m going to guide you through how to go about developing your own unique songwriting style, one so distinctive that you can’t help but stand out from the crowd.

Definition of Uniqueness

Uniqueness is often equated as “originality” though they are not necessarily the same.  Originality is more of a technique, a device that differentiates your song from others — more like creativity.  Uniqueness, on the other hand, refers more to individuality.  The less your songs resemble the Tried And True songwriting conventions, the more unique your song becomes.

Now, let’s stop there and state the obvious.  Are you unique as a person?

The answer, obviously, is a resounding YES.  There’s nobody like you in this world.  You may think that you are “typical” in many ways, in terms of your background or upbringing or education.  However, there’s no such thing as an “ordinary” life. Everyone has a unique, unduplicated combination of experience, life events and influences. For example, if you compare the music collections of two serious music lovers, it’s virtually impossible to find them to contain the exact same set of albums and artists.

In short, you are unique.  That’s built into your nature.  You can’t help but be a unique person.

So, how do you become a unique songwriter?  It’s actually simple.  You just need to write songs that reflect the inherent uniqueness you possess.

OK, but what does that mean, specifically?  Let me break down the steps you need to take to to develop a unique songwriting style.

6 Steps to Become a Unique Songwriter

1. Identify your songwriting heros, and particularly, the kinds of songs you’d love to be able to write.
2. Analyze your ideal songs and identify elements that make them ideal for you.
3. Develop a Song Vision Statement, a description of qualities that make up a good song in your mind.
4. Practice writing songs that meet the standards you set up in your Song Vision Statement.
5. Analyze your own songs, and identify qualities that are unique, rare or unusual about them.
6. Direct your songwriting to feature prominently those harder-to-find qualities in your arsenal.

As I stated above, no two musicians have the exact same sets of influences.  Even if you and someone else grew up listening to the same kinds of music, inevitably you are picking up different bits and pieces from them — the particular sets of music in your influence is always unique.  That’s where we start.

Music is a subjective art, so everyone has a different definition of what makes a good song.  To make you a unique artist, you need to basically identify what makes a song “good” for yourself.  Because you are a unique person, what sounds good to you will be different from anyone else, even if the difference is subtle.  Don’t worry at this point if your music taste still seems generic enough to be ordinary.

Song Vision Statement simply defines and clarifies what makes music good to you.  I’m not talking about a specific chord or sound, instrumentation or tempo, though your preference may include some of that.  Rather it defines the characteristics that music exhibits that make them apealing to you.  For example, my own Song Vision Statement for my modern rock project Aries9 include:

• guitar-driven, where the chords and riffs used are more sophisticated than typical rock ‘n’ roll records
• the song structure deviates away from typical verse-chorus pattern
• lyrically, it gives me a clear sense of what feeling the song is trying to convey, though the specifics of the story remain vague and ambiguous.
• Subject-wise, they are introspective without being self-conscious, dark without being morose, hopeful without being corny.

Song Vision Statement is not a set of rigid requirements that must be fulfilled by every song.  They are more a loose list of characteristics that if your song hits enough of them, that song is a Good Song in your opinion.  Once this set of ideals are identified and defined, you direct your songwriting efforts to hit the standard in every song your write.

Once you start being able to write Good Songs, then you further tweak your songwriting style by identifying rarer and harder-to-find characteristics among your songs.  For example, you may find that you like writing about small town life.  Or you figured out how to incorporate jazz chords and still make it sound country.  Or you managed to write a polka song that incorporates salsa influences.  Whatever is weird, unusual, unheard of — pick them out and see if you can write another song with that characteristic intentionally.  I realize that this may sound like I’m telling you to pigeonhole yourself into one narrow style — I’m not sure if you can do a whole album of nothing but polka/salsa combination — but do experiment and identify these rarer characteristics in your songwriting vocabulary and see if you can expand upon it.  It’s a process that can take a while, but this pursuit is certain to result in you developing a unique songwriting style.

Play to Your Strengths and Limitations

When you set out to develop a unique style, you begin to see that both your strengths and limitations will help you guide your songwriting efforts.

For example, I’ll be the first one to admit that I am not the kind of singer who can open my mouth and wow everybody who hears my voice.  So I thought, how can I still make my songs listenable when the key ingredient — my voice and singing chops — falls quite a bit short of extraordinary?  Well, I happen to love rock acts with stacked, complex vocal  harmonies like Queen and Alice in Chains.  I am an expert arranger, so I can play with my vocal harmonies to develop an impressive sound, if I can’t do it with my lead vocal chops. I imagine it’s in the same league as how Dylan or Tom Petty learned to cope with their limited singing chops.  Both of them bring out other strengths — lyrical prowess or focused, concise songwriting — to write songs that they can sing and still sound convincing.

And this line of thinking extends beyond just songwriting to affect your whole artistry.  Another limitations-turned-strengths of mine is the fact that I own really only one electric guitar — a Fender Stratocaster.  The most generic electric guitar there is, but I just can’t seem to get comfortable playing any other guitars.  But on the other hand, I noticed that it’s hard to find Strat players — particularly those who are using single coil pickups — among heavy rock/metal acts.  So I’ve been intentionally avoiding using other guitars to see if I can develop a signature sound that is distinctive among humbucker-laden world of heavy rock.  I’m not 100% satisfied with the guitar sound I’ve gotten so far, but many guitarists have commented on how I sound different.  In the world of over-crowded music industry, different is always good.

Conclusion: Songwriting that Expresses Your Uniqueness

In short, uniqueness is not really a pursuit for being different for difference’s sake.  Rather, uniqueness naturally happens when you learn to write songs that honestly reflect that unique person that you are, with an eye toward emphasizing the rarer elements. It’s not an overnight process to develop a distinctive songwriting style, but with correct focus and diligence, anyone can develop his/her own individualized writing style. And having a distinctive style is a tremendous asset, one that can play a great role in developing a lasting career.

I obviously can’t know for sure, but I don’t believe that Kurt Cobain was after writing hit songs when he wrote songs like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Come as You Are.”  When he wrote them, they were so NOT the style of music that was dominating the airwaves.  He was simply writing songs that honestly reflected who he was.  And they became powerful statements that millions of people related to.

In reality, most artists really fail at being unique.  Because they are after the quick and easy acceptance that comes from doing what’s expected, they never dig deep enough to bring out what’s unique about them.  If you get to a point where you honestly believe that you have developed a distinctive songwriting style, you’ve already made leaps and bounds into the pursuit of building a thriving career.  The only remaining tasks are to record/perform those songs, and to find people who dig them — and those are the easy parts.

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