I’m pleased to say that I think I know the answer to this question—or something close.
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Notes
Sounding like everyone else:
- a way to avoid criticism
- a way to distrust your own voice
- hiding
- accepting the system’s support, despite its desire to commoditize us and makes us a cog
Your voice
- different
- based in unique experiences, dreams, fears
- potential to “shape the discourse” (though not guaranteed
“Of course you’re allowed to sound like you. Everyone else is taken.”
Thoughts
This is one thing that I’ve gotten better at as I’ve gotten older.
Back when I was first learning to play or write songs, there was of course the usual, and perhaps necessary, mimicry that is a part of learning. Before I could sound like me, I had to try to sound like the people I loved. Randy Stonehill was an amazing acoustic guitarist, songwriter, and performer (until we went kind of wacko…)—a Christian artist, to be sure, but not one of the many bands that were the Christian version of [fill in the blank with a popular band]. I spent a lot of hours learning his songs; I even performed a couple of them, moderately well.
Later, I myself struggled with that Christian-version-of-X; I did songs that were heavily influenced by Bruce Cockburn, or The Police, or Peter Gabriel. I think I disguised them reasonably well, especially by the time my band, The Reign, had brought their character to the arrangements. (It was probably also disguised by the fact that I wasn’t as good as Cockburn or Sting or Gabriel….) But I knew that I was relying on their voices, not just trying to learn from them to develop my own.
I took a lot of years off music, though, and now that I’ve started up again, I have a different attitude. I’m still influenced by music I listen to, but it’s less intentional. Rather than asking, “What can I do that sounds like Peter Gabriel,” I’m finding myself saying, “Damn, that sounds too much like a Peter Gabriel melody. How do I get away from that?”
I’m also kind of pleased: I’ve been listening to old demos that I put together, and many of them are much less Christian-version-of-X than I feared. I had a sound—a voice, as Seth is arguing—and I’m feeling comfortable working with those old tunes. Some are certainly dated; I’m avoiding those. But some feel like me. (Some of those are probably dated, too, but I don’t recognize it—hell, I’m dated.)
So this chapter feels less applicable than it might have thirty years ago. A break from music and something like maturity have made me feel like I’m using my own voice. And it’s okay if that “voice” echoes my past—it’s still my voice.
So: know what I sound like when I sound like me. I’m not sure I’m there yet—I have a lot to learn to get the sounds that come out of the speakers to sound like me. But I am on my way.
This series is meant to capture my thoughts as I work through Seth Godin’s The Practice. It’s a book with over 200 (very short) chapters, which I hope to work through and, I further hope, to implement over time.
If you’re interested in more of Godin’s ideas, or my thoughts about them, you can check out this collection of posts. Note that if you’re more interested in the former, you should probably get Godin’s book and read it yourself; my notes will be both incomplete and idiosyncratic, and my thoughts will relate to my own experience.
But if my thoughts resonate with you, or if you think I’m just silly, I welcome your comments.