 I previously talked about writing down what your favorite artists do that you love, but I also find there to be other worthwhile practices. For some, finding their voice isn't a hard process, but for others, it takes them digging inside for what's compelling to them. New-age gurus call this finding yourself, or talk about self-expiration. Instead, I think of finding your voice as a process where you try to find what's emotionally resonant to you and how it gets expressed so others understand it. In this video, I'm going to discuss how you find your voice and how you develop yourself as an artist. Hi, I'm Jesse Cannon, and this is MuseFormation. So let's talk about finding your voice, and I like that term since voice is a larger metaphor. When you speak, you use a certain vocabulary along with speed, accent, and dynamics that make up the sound of your voice. Your voice contains parts that are naturally a part of who you are, as well as part of others you've picked up details from. When you express yourself musically, you do the same exact thing, for a collage of who you naturally are that also picks up small qualities from others that you use to convey what you think about each day. An often overlooked aspect of singing is that we're commonly doing an imitation of someone else's singing style. The sounds we make when we sing usually come in the form of an affected accent or a pronunciation of words that's far from the way we actually talk. A singer's voice isn't one absolute sound. In fact, many singers are capable of doing various inflections with their voice. These inflections can make them sound English when they're actually from the Bay Area. Green Day. Loud, confident, and audacious when they sing, yet their speaking voice sounds nothing like that. Michael Jackson. Or an alien with an odd accent. Kendra Kumar. And the list goes on. It's a rare occurrence when a singer sings or raps the same way they talk. Each singer is picking up accents, turns of phrases, inflections, melodies, and vocabulary from those they admire, and blending it into a performance that hopefully sounds unique to themselves as well as furthering an emotion they're exuding. By forming a collage of what they've enjoyed that furthers their expression, they build a signature all of their own. While there are some parts of your voice that are naturally embedded in who you are physically and genetically, we have countless ways to change that timbre. As well, this isn't to say that your most authentic voice is singing exactly the way your talking voice sounds. In fact, it can be highly creative to affect your voice in a way that gives your performance even more emotional resonance. All these affectations when employed to give more resonance can be the best way to enhance an emotion in a vocal performance. Let's think about Tom Wade's application of treating his voice with so many different treatments and affectations, the same way he treats the manipulation of the instrumentation in his music as part of what makes it so unique and resonant. The clash's masterful use of different voices traded off between the three singers of the group furthers the storytelling quality of their songs. Most vocalists are singing with an inflection that they found naturally from singing along to their favorite music. When we talk about finding your creative voice, this concept isn't ironically named. Finding your voice is how you incorporate your influences into your vocals and bring them into the sound of your voice. But this voice is both figuratively and metaphorically one of the biggest factors that defines your sound. Since I'm not always talking about singing, the same discussion of voice goes for nearly every choice you make in the instrumentation or the production choices you make. Choosing to figure out how to find a palette that accentuates your emotional resonance instead of imitating gives you a unique voice instead of an imitation. If you're still curious how to develop your voice after you've gained a working knowledge of what you want to do, a healthy exercise can be to figure out how you draw inspiration from what makes you unique. Ask yourself, what's something you love no one else loves? How can you incorporate that into your music? What's something everyone loves that you hate? How do you develop a character from it? What's missing in music and can you take it to a new level? Try not to barf as I'd quote Ayn Rand's shortsighted worldview in the fountain head, but she says we create because we're dissatisfied with what already exists. One of the great indicators that you should pursue in an artistic impulse is when you want to hear a sound you've yet to hear someone else make. This means you're craving an emotion that's not being expressed. Finding concepts that you haven't seen before that you blend with emotional intent has made some of the best art throughout time. Pick a fight with an ethic. Voice your disdain for a trend you have an authentic bad reaction to by letting your own work show why this trend is wrong. Taking the time to explore your likes and dislikes to find what you think should exist is one of the most helpful and effective ways of finding who you are as an artist and creatively to develop a unique voice. That's it. Am I missing anything? Is there any way you would have done this? I need to know your questions and what no one else is telling you since I want to answer them so leave them in the comments. I hope you liked this video and if you did please like and subscribe and get notified for my future videos since I'm going to be breaking down the concepts in this video along with tons of others on promoting your music and how to make music you're more happy with. As well, I have a Facebook group that's linked below that has only helpful information. No one tried to sell you anything, playlist or con artist, only helpful information for musicians looking to be better themselves. If you want to learn more about me, make a record with me or check out any of my books, podcasts or anything else I do. Head to jessicanon.com or at jessicanon on any of the socials. Thanks for watching. One last thing, if you liked this video, there's two playlists here with tons more videos that you'll probably enjoy. One's about how you promote your music and the other's about how you make songs you're happy with. Otherwise, you can hit the subscribe button here to see the rest of my videos. Thanks so much for watching.