Choosing What Influences To Utilize

[RavenMan]

I have a lot of different musical influences and a very broad range of music that I like. However, this gives me a bit of a problem: I can't really figure out what kind of music I want to make, as I flit between genres very quickly.

My musical interests encompass much of rock and metal, as well as some funk and hip-hop, but it's hard to narrow down what I want to do.

 

Anyone have advice on how to choose what influences to utilize and how to deal with genre in songwriting?

[Just1L]

Yo! So have you written and recorded songs thus far or are you just getting started? I'm just curious about that. My suggestion would be to grab your favorite instrument and start messing around till you find something you like and start with that. Nothing says you can't incorporate all the styles you mentioned in creating a song. And potentially you could come up with something new. I don't think the genre is as important as letting whatever it is inside you that wants out, out. I listen to everything form Classical and show tunes to rock, some country, hard rock, alternative, disco … just about everything. When I do songs I can only hope something will pop out from say "disco" when working on a rock song to give it something unique.

[RavenMan]

16 minutes ago, Just1L said:

Yo! So have you written and recorded songs thus far or are you just getting started? I'm just curious about that. My suggestion would be to grab your favorite instrument and start messing around till you find something you like and start with that. Nothing says you can't incorporate all the styles you mentioned in creating a song. And potentially you could come up with something new. I don't think the genre is as important as letting whatever it is inside you that wants out, out. I listen to everything form Classical and show tunes to rock, some country, hard rock, alternative, disco … just about everything. When I do songs I can only hope something will pop out from say "disco" when working on a rock song to give it something unique.

 

I've recorded an instrumental rock song with my guitar hooked into GarageBand (listen to it here), I have a couple electronically composed tracks on SoundCloud as Mr. Corvus, and I have some riffs I've hammered out that are floating around my head.

 

And thanks for the advice. I sometimes think I'm a little hung up on genre, but I can try to take a more intuitive approach.

 

[RavenMan]

3 hours ago, HoboSage said:

 

In my opinion, the only "problem" with you thinking you have to narrow down and chose to make music that you think fits in some genre box, is you and your thinking, and that the way to fix that "problem" is for you to choose to stop thinking that you have a genre problem - because, in my opinion, you don't.  Your attitude seems to me to be more consistent with someone who'd rather convince themselves they have some objective excuse for not making music they're happy with, instead getting back to work making music until they make music that they are happy with.  If that's you, then I think that's your real problem.

 

 

 

That could be.

[starise]

There must be one or two you like over the others? I would focus mostly on what I liked. I wouldn't hang on a genre. Let the genre come from inside you.

 

From a web marketing standpoint I think it is important to focus on one area you like and maybe post the other things you like somewhere else. If you don't do that people won't know what to look for or associate you with. There are genre that fall outside of the main ones and are hard to classifly, for instance there isn't a "celtic" area on soundcloud, so I'm forced to put it up in the "world" genre. That genre can include anything from African tribal dance to Middle eastern music. OTOH if you like rock or blues, that's much easier to post in.

[TCgypsy]

Honestly, I just write. I am certain my influences are as varied as yours but I never even think about it.

 

Just write and let the chips fall where they will.

 

Peace,

TC