Re: Musical Influences

It's an interesting question, with many angles. My first reaction would be to name my favourite artists/composers, but they don't always necessarily match up with the list of influences.

How does one accurately track influence? I think it can be a very tricky business, and often influence presents itself in subtle ways, or is essentially invisible. I don't usually think about influences when I'm composing unless I'm consciously looking to model a particular section or sound based off something else. I might start a piece trying to affect something I've heard before just to see if I can do it, and it might morph itself, and/or the music that develops around it. Strangely enough, I find the less I think about it, and the more I write freely, somehow, the more the influence creeps in. Particularly when I look back at some of first compositional scraps (before I really had any musical training), I'm amazed at what my ear had detected in the music I was listening to at the time, and how it had decided to emulate it.

I would say I consider my music more "inspired by," rather than "influenced by." These people make me want to create, not in emulation but in my spirit, just as they did for themselves. It is the spirit of their music that moves me.

I know it seems cliche to list JS Bach as a great influence, but I think it's a testament to the power of his music, 300 years later. And not just Bach, but all the other masters of Renaissance and Baroque polyphony. The music of these eras really transcend the mathematical nature of the composition. I don't want to sound like a snob, but there's a certain "purity" to the music that is somewhat hard to describe.

In Chopin I find a kindred spirit. I admire the Romantics for their expanding harmonic vocabulary and new ideas, but too much of it sounds sugar-coated to me. Chopin keeps things very real, which is something I try to stick to. Don't waste 16 bars when you really only need 12, or 8 or 4. Write what needs to be written; nothing more or less. Virtuosity has a time and place, and Chopin thankfully steers clear of the bombastic approach taken by some of his contemporaries.

Sibelius has been a recent discovery of mine, and it is thanks to him that I have reconsidered the symphony. I truly admire Sibelius for the sounds he created and his uncompromising attitude towards his music, when you consider the time he was writing. His 3rd Symphony in C major premiered in 1912 (or thereabouts), and while he does use many rich sonorities, including 9th chords in inversion and added fourths in the bass, he was most definitely using tonality and modality. A far cry from what was developing in the world, but that's the music he wanted to write. He may have had very low self esteem, but he stuck to his guns. Thank goodness for that!

Arguably my greatest musical influence is Tuomas Holopainen. The mastermind of Finnish metal act Nightwish is one of the top reasons I got myself back into music. His commitment to writing truthful music is what really motivates me to become a better composer. He's one of those rare people wherein you're just as interested in him as you are in his music. And I think that's because there's no dividing line. It's unmistakably his music, and you can always find him in it. The passion with which he writes, and the power of his music is truly amazing.

I think it's also worth mentioning the influence of Glenn Gould, moreso in his role as performer-composer. His ideas of turning performance into composition are, I think, just as important for performers as they are for composers.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I don't think it's always obvious how influences/inspirations make their way through to the end product. Or, to look at it another way, influences that do come through don't necessarily embody the original. Chopin, for instance, had a great love for Italian opera and its florid style. While it's quite obvious how the lyrical voices had an effect on his works, it doesn't sound like Italian opera anymore (thank goodness). Chopin took what he needed and used it as he saw fit. On the other hand, Holopainen has a lot of respect for Metallica and Pantera (neither of which I care for), and they undoubtedly had some influence on his path to metal, but I don't think that we can hear it in his music. His film score influences, on the other hand, are quite obvious.

When I wrote my first atonal piece last semester, my brother (who is not a musician, though he did take piano lessons when he was younger) commented that he could hear some influence of video game music on me--particularly Nobuo Uematsu and Yasunori Mitsuda. I hadn't thought of it, but when he pointed it out, I had to agree. Just so long as I don't unintentionally replicate someone else' music.

And while he may not have much an influence on the music I do right now, I certainly admire the spirit of Tiësto, and he's the one who taught me how to dance. That's got to be worth something!