“Imitate, assimilate, and innovate.”
—Clark Terry
Many developing songwriters either simply try to mimic what’s already out there, or they try too hard to be different and end up writing in a form that many listeners just can’t understand. You have to strike a balance between these two extremes.
To find receptive ears in the music industry (and amongst record buyers), your songs need to sound familiar—but not similar.
If you’re trying to get a record deal for your band, or for yourself as a singer- songwriter, major labels will tell you they want something distinctive and different that makes you stand out from the pack.
At the same time, though, your music has to be familiar enough to be commercial and marketable so that it will sell (which, at the end of the day, is all that record companies and publishers are really interested in). A hint of familiarity helps people relate to your songs.
The same criteria apply if you plan to sell your music direct to fans through your own website or via online music retailers such as iTunes, Amazon and CDBaby. To achieve maximum success, you need to appeal to the many not just the few. So don’t try to sound like someone else … but don’t try too hard not to!
Music industry executives talk about the need for new artists to create their own style. But what they really mean is they want you to sound original, but your songs should not be completely different from anything they’ve ever heard before. They want something that develops what is already out there—not a sudden leap that leaves a huge gap between you and the audience. ‘Style’ evolves constantly over time; it is rarely revolutionary.
When asked what steps should be taken to achieve musical success, the great trumpet player Clark Terry famously replied: “Imitate, assimilate, and innovate”. In other words, listen to what’s being played on the radio today, analyze current trends, absorb the key elements of current hit songs, emulate them—then carve your own niche by innovating and adding something new of your own. Hit songwriters are rarely born as great writers. They become great by learning from the great writers who preceded them.
Imitating successful songwriters that you admire is one of the surest ways of developing your own writing skills. Analyze and dissect your heroes’ songs by picking out the chord progressions by ear. This will give you a much better understanding of the building blocks used to create the songs and how the different sections are joined together. Similarly, analyze the lyrics for these songs and absorb the rhyming patterns and keywords used. Then try writing your own songs based on these proven templates and chord progressions.
Through your subconscious assimilation of the shape, form and content of the songs that you’re trying to copy, you’ll find that you start adding something original of your own—such as new chord sequences. Your own songwriting style will soon begin to develop by building on what has gone before.
“When I was first learning songs,” says Alicia Keys, “I’d have a favorite song, and I’d take the chords and twist them around. I’d learn the chords and then play them backward. That was my first experimenting with writing a song.”
Jimmy Webb admits he also started out by “instinctively” imitating songs he heard on the radio. “How can you write an original song,” he says, “if you haven’t heard and ‘read’ at least a few of the most famous and best examples that have ever been written?”
That’s how innovators like The Beatles and Hank Williams did it. John Lennon and Paul McCartney imitated and assimilated the songs of Little Richard, Chuck Berry, early Motown, Brill Building writers such as Gerry Goffin and Carole King, and R&B pioneers like Arthur Alexander. They found a way to do it differently and went on to change pop music forever.
As US Grammy award winner Boz Scaggs once remarked: “My songwriting and my style became more complex as I listened, learned, borrowed and stole and put my music together.”
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