[Artsy... may become NWS] How has your style developed?

[Uncle_Z]

Not really sure I know what I'm looking for from this, but it was just something that popped into my head.  

Loads of creative types here.  If you have participated in artistic endeavour seriously or as a dabbler over the course of a few years can you see development or growth?  Have you tried but abandoned any particular style, experimented here and there?  Can you look back with a tear and a smile at your teenage fumbles?  What direction would you like to take it?

If you would prefer to just era-stamp the entries rather than explain them then that's fine. I'm hoping for wordy, laughy, noisy and piccie responses, which means this will become a lovely, huggley family Xmassy gathering where you are all forced to perform a party piece, and thereafter play charades.  Look out for that randy aunty who always threatens to strip.

[Nearly Annually]

Then: tried to drum like Neil Peart.


Now: joining another funtime pub rock band, thanks.

[Gazeuse]

Still trying to find a way forward with tonalism, repetition and English lyricism.

This is my best shot so far...

Across The Meadow Clicky

This is an excerpt.

[Darrell]

Still can't draw. Still can't write lyrics. Still can't write comedy. Still can't write anything more complicated than bland formulaic music.

And that's an improvement!

[Sam]

Despite being on a music degree I have hardly played any instruments. I stopped practicing guitar before I went to Uni. In my first year I had to do a recital so I had some piano lessons and played some nice simple pieces which got me fairly good marks. I also did some introductory courses in conducting and composition in the first year. Now, in my second year, I haven't played piano for a year, guitar for even longer. I did a unit in conducting which went OK.

The main way I've been devleoping musically is by listening to an insane amount of music of all kinds, 24/7. I listen carefully, read lots of books and study scores so it's all going in to one melting pot of "musical ability". I'm always improving my ear and relaive pitch which does wonders. For example, before I left for Univeristy there was a guitar piece that i simply couldn't play. It wasn't the technique, I just couldn't play it time or with the right feel. I lacked the raw musical ability to communicate it. After my first year, despite not playing guitar at all, and not even thinking about the piece I found I could play it effortlessly in time. It was such a cool indicator of how I was devleloping and proof that a lot of what musical ability is, is in your head and can be developed away from your instrument.

I still consider myself a pretty crappy musicain, especially compared to some of the "naturals" on my course who've been playing since they were little. But because I got into music completely on my own and I've gradually got to the level of immersion I'm at now just out of the joy of listening to music, I know I'll go far. A surprising amount of good musicians I've encountered take their ability for granted and don't even seem to have a passion for music. While I may be behind them in overall ability I'd like to think my passion and dedication will eventually see me over-take them (I didn't mean that to sound like it's a competition!)

My goals for the next few years:

Continue developing my ear and overall musicality
Learn to improvise and play jazz on guitar
Start piano lessons again and learn to play some of my favourite pieces
Dabble in composing, study orchestration and scores

My overall goal with music is to open up doors, bring down barriers and be able to communicate with anyone. I want to be able to play/sing/write down/explain anything I hear; I want to be able to jam with anyone; I want to be creative and express myself through music.

Anyway, I'm a lazy bugger so all those lofty goals may never be acheived but it's a good foundation.

[Des Nilsen]

Good thread idea, Z.

My drawing and painting (more painting than drawing, in recent years) is something that has moved on from being simple 'learning what I can do'-type work, to being something in my own style, which is warped, expressive and hopefully sensual figurative painting. It's not nearly fully developed or realised, and so I'm not going anywhere else at the minute, because writing music is so much more important to me now.
It took over properly about two years ago and up until then I was content to play the guitar well enough to impress and improvise half-heartedly.

My songwriting didn't start off with proper songs. It was me writing music which hopefully was angular and unusual and listenable. I failed miserably because it was tired metal riffing and it didn't really inspire me to finish a lot of it.
I started simplifying my playing, because most people do not latch onto ultra-fast and furious guitar solos. I started playing folky chord progressions and started writing middle-era Pink Floyd-style short songs, all of them based around the 'Pigs On The Wing' mold - short ditties that don't repeat unnecessarily, because repetition without progression is a waste of the listeners time, unless it's pop music (IMHO, of course).
So I wrote a bunch of one and a half minute strummy songs with proper melodies and proper progresions, some of them still angular and a bit Jazzy.

I started writing longer bits and pieces and decided to write lyrics, which were quite cryptic and pretentious and very repetetive. It was a step in the right direction though, because I found a way of writing that suited me - more poetic than most rock lyrics, but not nearly good enough to be proper poetry. Suited to the music too, I'd like to think.
I wrote a bunch of songs around a concept and that was my first album worth of material, each song averaging five minutes in length with various changes of feel, key and all the rest of it. It was supposed to keep the listener's attention and also be simplistic enough to catch the ears of indie listeners, though it was more for my own satisfaction than commercial ambition.
I listened to these demos recently and they're alright, but go on and on and on and on too much. They needed editing, so I did that and now have that second draft as my first proper album written, hanging on my wall from a bulldog clip, because it won't get any attention for a while.

I started writing faster, heavier, more conventionally themed songs, because I got right back into Hendrix again and my old chops came back. I still play folky stuff, but it's got the bluesy guitar thrown in, so I'm getting somewhere that I really like to be, rather than getting into the rough ball park with half-baked ideas.
I'm writing blues rock with Jazzy twists and turns, so it's hopefully something of my own making, rather than me aping someone completely.
The songs have gotten shorter again, averaging 2-3 minutes and having, again, no unnecessary repetition.
I can't think of anyone I've heard who sounds like me which, I hope, is a noteworthy thing.  :grits teeth:

I've written two more albums of faster blues rock and have demos on my PC and on tapes recorded on my 4-track, which kick-started a new songwriting process - Ideas which present themselves while I listen back to something (if they're good ideas), will advance the song because they're bits floating up from my subconscious rather than something decided.
Because of this songs seem to write themselves, and I would gladly buy the sort of stuff I'm writing if it were in the shops. I'm happy with what I'm creating and as I'm playing music live locally I'm thinking with some half-hearted seriousness about getting some numbers and names down for a potential band of my own, though nobody enjoys being told what to play, unfortunately! ;)
I think what I write now is listenable and something you could market, though it goes without saying (almost!) that that doesn't matter as much as it being something good. I'm quite proud so far.

^ A very longwinded, self-indulgent post, but a fair assessment of my musical growth. I only hope somebody doesn't resent me stealing precious moments of their life reading it(!)

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