I was about 16 or 17 when I stepped into a recording booth for the first time. I don't remember exactly who the project was for but the content was devotional music with a folk/rock twist.
I recall the tightness of the booth. I recall thinking that the panels on the walls around me with the tiny foam pyramids all came together to look like a squishy medieval iron maiden. I can still see the gigantic microphone apparatus hanging down in front of me. It reminded me of the light fixture my dentist used. Of all the details of that day that I can bring to mind, the most vivid and horrifying detail is the producer's voice in my head phones saying "How about you try that again and this time use your own voice".
"Use your own voice". My own voice? Who else's had I been using? The sound was coming out of my mouth, was it not? What on earth was this guy talking about?
I asked to hear the playback and there it was in full crystal audio glory. I was doing a spot on impression of James Taylor. Now, to be sure, I was not doing that on purpose. Why would I? I was just trying to sing the song as best I could but take after take provided the same results.
Now, I've always been a fan of James Taylor but I don't necessarily want to sound like him. Little did I know that I had been falling into one of the most insidious traps an untrained singer can fall into - The Unconscious Imitation.
Scientific studies have shown that when we're young we gravitate toward certain sounds and timbres that we find enjoyable. We then settle on these sounds and stay with them for a lifetime. For a singer this "aural imprinting" can be rather dangerous if left unchecked.
I had been gravitating toward a certain style of voice. Nasal, forward placed, lightly colored with a mild tinge of the blues was the name of my game. I had no idea that every time I sang a song I was doing an impression. First it was my James Taylor impression. Then I moved on to my Billy Joel impression. Then I expanded my cast of characters to include Stevie Wonder and Sammie Davis Jr and Tony Bennet.
My voice was changing based on my current taste in music. It took a few years, voice training and an awful lot of studio recording to discover that imitation is a fine thing when used conservatively and with very direct purpose. It is however, integration that should be a singer's focus.
Whether we like it or not we imitate all the time by virtue of the fact that we are humans. We see or hear something we like and we try to recreate it for whatever the purpose may be. Far too many performers get away with simply standing on the shoulders of someone they admire and building a career on that.
What makes more sense is to integrate in small but meaningful quantities those qualities that we admire in other voices. By integrating we are forced to take a singular quality and fuse it with our own instrument rather than take the entirety of someone else's. This act allows you to manipulate a certain mechanic of your own in order to create a new sound. This in turn shows you how to use your instrument in ways you hadn't yet realized and thus make it so much more your very own instrument.
The struggle is singling out that one element of a voice that you want to recreate. Make a list of your favorite voices and try to describe what it is that draws you to them. Is it their tone color? It could be their placement of sound. It could be their accent or their dynamic nuances. Write as specifically as you can and then go over your list and goals with your vocal coach and see if you can work on creating these vocal elements with your voice!
-Michael
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