The Key To Finding Your Own Sound As A Music Producer

Ever hear someone say "Yo! I'm like a mixture of Pete Rock and Dilla with a little bit of Neptunes sprinkled in!". Or "I'm like Just Blaze, but on some pop sh*t!". 

Shrug.

Smh.

El-Oh-El.

Listen. That's totally ok and fine. Well, in the beginning at least.

Music is such an awesome thing. Creating music is a very spiritual experience. We tap into energies deep within', and also into the far reaches of the universe. It's weird, but the way it makes us feel as human beings is undeniable.

When we first decide to start "making beats", we can't help but sound like someone else, or something we've heard. That's true for any type of starting point. Creatively, we seek a point of reference. A template. Something to inspire that first creative seed. It's a blank canvas with hundreds of thousands of colors to choose from, with an infinite amount of brushes and stroke techniques. What tempo should I use? Should I chop a sample? Should I start with some random piano chords? Should I load up a bunch of drum sounds (*ehm www.blapkits.com) and tap out a random drum pattern? Do I make a trap beat like Metro? Or do I keep it old-school like Preem? Or do I combine both and do some EDM club ish? AHHHHH! *brain explodes*.

When I first started making beats, they all sounded like bad versions of J Dilla. Dilla's beats are literally what inspired me and intrigued me to figure out and say to myself "how the hell is he doing that?" (amongst other music of course). I took the time to study the guy. I'd listen to his beats on repeat. I'd focus my ears on just the hi-hats and say to myself "why do the hi-hats vary so much in volume and swing?". "Why are his snare drums so loud and crunchy that they sound like my neck is about to snap off!?". "How does he program these crazy abstract bass-lines that seem to be off key, but feel so right?".

I studied. I mimicked.

I studied some more. I mimicked some more.

Then I studied other people. I studied other genres of music. I dissected the music in places I never knew existed. 

It was like staring at a Jackson Pollock painting, not as a whole and from a distance, but close up, analyzing every stroke and color and trying to find the reasoning behind his decisions.

And then I realized that all of it was based on FEELING.

Over time (like 2, 3, 4, 10 years time) your brain starts to change. Things start to become habitual. Creative decisions that you make start to come from your subconscious mind (without thinking) as opposed to your conscious mind. You "over-think" less and execute more. You begin to trust your instinctual decisions. You are in flow. You trust yourself and you get excited by little things. 

At this point, you are crossing over from "searching a sound" to "becoming the sound". You start to find yourself. You're comfortable in your own creative skin. You're expressing your emotions exactly the way they were intended, tapping into the deepest and darkest depths of creativity. Again, you are in flow.

If you do this long enough, you begin to realize that you've acquired all of these tools that you've learned over the years, and incorporated them into your being. They become you. Your true creative colors start to shine in your music. Now, you're starting to go even deeper. Eventually, you've found your own sound without even knowing you did. Other people are noticing it in your music. 

Hey, at this point you might just invent a new genre without even knowing that you did.

At this point, the sky is the limit. In fact, there are no limits (screw the sky!). The scary thing is, you're getting better with every new beat you make (imagine what your beats will sound like 5 years from now! Whoa!). 

Pack your bags because now you are in another world. A world of limitless creative possibility.

Welcome. You've arrived.