Your music and your character

Do you think the character you have influences your music? And if it does: how does it end up in your music?

I think the word "character" has different meanings when it comes to music vs. people.  A persons character is usually used to refer to their moral constitution or "who they are".  In music, character is used to refer to the specific characteristics that a piece has which changes from one moment to another or is specific to certain thematic material within a piece but then changes when a new theme is introduced.  Just saying, usually the character of a piece does not stay the same throughout the whole piece (unless it's monothematic).  A persons character however is usually considered static and changes only in the case of a dramatic character arc in literature or when some kind of life-changing event happens to the character.  So because of that, I think a persons character rarely makes it into a piece of music.  But I do believe it can influence a piece of music or a piece of literature.  With music though it's not exactly clear how it influences the music.

Just something I thought would be related to the topic:  have you ever seen the famous ornithologist David Attenborough speak?  He bobs his head up and down like a bird (clearly he's spent too much time around birds and so taken on their character LoL).

Semantics aside, I know what you're asking.

"There's a bit of every artist in their work", so they say.

A person's own life experience and obviously taste influences what they create. The people with the most interesting lives outside of music are often the ones who create the most interesting music, I find and you just can't get that from being cooped up in a home studio all the time. It's the same with everything, really.

To use a geek example: Japanese game designer Shigeru Miyamoto was inspired, at least in part, to create The Legend of Zelda because he used to go exploring in the mountains near his home when he was a kid, and one day, he found a cave. The experience stuck with him throughout his life and he wanted to try to give people that same sense of wonder he felt via games — and Zelda went on to become one of the most popular franchises of all time.

For myself, I think it simply shows up in the evolution of what I do. When I started, I did so with rock and heavy metal music. Now, I very rarely ever do a full-on metal song. In my early 20s, I went through an electronic music phase, and in my mid-20s it was all about orchestral stuff. 

Now, most of my stuff is folk and new age influenced combined with all the many genres I did in the past. I don't think I can call it any one thing.

I would also say that although my output has dropped considerably, and is why I don't do too much composing on commission anymore (though I am doing my first new game project in years starting in the next few weeks), the quality is much higher. I can spend a month now on a single, two-minute track. 

In the last year, I've only put out 9 new pieces totally only like 20 minutes total. The results though, are a lot better than my old stuff.

The reason for my decreased output is that especially through the summer months, I'm not really doing much of anything with music. I'd rather be outside doing stuff, going hiking in the mountains, etc.

I don't know. I tend to write three kinds of music: personal stuff that probably relates to character traits - reactions to events, moods, using me as a kind of filter. This is music unlikely to get performed these days though if it looks good I might tout it around with hope, even for a virtual rendering;

light music which is more the stuff of a jobbing composer (if done properly!) to keep my hand in with keys and traditional harmonies;

also more traditional stuff to relieve the intensity of the 'personal stuff' (simply because it's easier to write).

Maybe there's a fourth sort - when my unfortunate sense of humour grips me. Oh, and a bit of commercial stuff when offered me - technically composition but usually less than two minute's worth and has to be very simple.

So I suppose it's a mix of experience (playing as much as writing) with a broad musical listening taste that let's people work in a variety of genres. Could be argued that it shows someone is either superficial or all-embracing (my favourite colour is white). But I think character comes into it in limited ways. In my personal stuff it turns up as fluidity of rhythm and harmony, a reliance on instrumental colour, absence of formal structure and the use of motifs rather than extended melodies.