How to develop your musical personality and style

Think about playing using your right (creative) brain. It’s the part of your brain that, if connected well to your instrument, allows for the most personally authentic improvisation. Once you hear a note, you’re better finding it on your instrument or playing around it harmonically. Your instrument becomes the amplifier of your musical “voice”.

But there’s another aspect to improvisation that benefits from that right brain connection to your instrument. More than just finding notes.

That other aspect is your ability to play your unique style fluently with all the nuance and expression that is your unique musical personality.

I was talking recently to a friend who plays piano. He’s a very good jazz player and when pressed for his biggest struggle he feels as a jazz pianist, he said, to play with more musical nuance. He feels that the musical expressiveness he hears in his head isn’t translating fluidly to the tips of his fingers. He hears himself as too mechanical. Less fluid, perhaps.

The fact that he hears that gap is proof of a certain amount of friction between his brain and hands. We all have a certain amount of friction unless we’re Miles or Kieth Jarrett or Bird or some other jazz master.

But here’s what I think is the interesting question that he and I discussed. Is what he perceives as a lack of expressiveness due strictly to a lack of piano technique?

If he practiced the classical exercise and performance literature for piano and built his chops to master, for instance, Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto, his technical abilities would probably make expressiveness easier. He would command more depth as he hit the keys. To put it in digital terms, he would have finer resolution to his key striking. Think of Keith Jarrett massaging the piano as his “sings” his way through a ballad.

But is greater technique the only answer?

This piano player will need great skill if the music he wants to express is that Jarrett-like wide range of liquid dynamics and rhythm.

But is technical transformation even necessary to play more musically? At a certain level of technical ability, we possess the means to express ourselves closer to what we hear in our musical mind. Getting in the way of that deeper expressiveness is that gap between musical mind and body.

As a trombone player, I don’t have the technical abilities of Marshall Gilkes or Bob McChesney or certainly Joe Alessi, and I never will. My style comes from hearing my musical personality clearly enough to project it from my alto trombone. When I am at my best, my musical personality is more and more accurately reflected by the horn. And that’s a good thing.

It’s that right brain/instrument connection, but this time not simply for finding the right notes. Instead, that connection allows for deeply expressing the subtleties of your musical personality, and then amplifying it through your particular instrument.

I hear this when I work with a player who at first improvises over a tune in a stiff and mechanical way. But as the student hears deeper and deeper into his own playing, he becomes much more musical. Part of that work involves singing since singing is a direct reflection of your music.

Singing helps you hear deeper because it’s a reflection of the music you hear in your head.  It similar to writing or speaking about something. It forces you to think deeper and more clearly about the topic. You also begin to realize what you don’t know. The more you talk about it and write about it, (teach it) the concepts become clearer in your mind. There was a gap originally in your understanding of the topic on which you weren’t clear enough to see the holes.

The same can be said about a musician’s lack of clarity in their playing. Singing those notes or musical nuances brings about clarity that becomes more instinctively played on your instrument.

Try this: play a relatively short simple phrase on your instrument. Record it. Listen back and identify both what is good and bad about it.

Then hear an idealized version of that in your head. Sing it. You’re probably not a great singer so your vocal rendition may not be perfect, but it doesn’t matter. Sing it a few times, then record playing the phrase on your instrument. Hear how your last version is different from the first. Clearly describe the difference.

Try this exercise with the melody of a favorite tune. Sing so it contains some of the nuance or expressiveness that’s not yet come through your instrument. Record the melody and listen back. Do you hear a difference?

We all have a greater range of expressiveness and style unique to us than we realize. Let your singing create greater clarity for you of your musical personality.