Find Your Style

Another essential requirement for good singing brings together everything
that we have been discussing thus far—the elusive idea of style. By style I am not referring to a particular category of singing such as country singing or pop singing. Rather, style deals with the philosophy of the singer as musical artist and the ways he expresses this philosophy to interpret the songs he sings.

From this point of view, phrasing, like all the components of singing that we have discussed so far, must be subsumed under style. For example, where phrasing can be specific to each phrase in a song, style deals with the overall fashion of singing. Phrasing could change from song to song, indeed, from line to line—but a singer's style remains the same, even during changes in phrasing. Style is also qualitatively different than phrasing. Where phrasing is the manner in which a singer strings together words musically and artfully, style concerns the spirit of the song. A singer’s style is most conspicuously noticed by the mood that it creates.

While I was on tour with pop artist Sade, I frequently took note of her style. A sophisticated eroticism defined not only her music, physical dress, and manner on stage, but most provocatively, could also be felt in her elegant but viscerally charged voice—throaty, intimate, earthy, steamy, and dreamy. Her style is natural, uncomplicated and very personal, and her velvety tones create a mood of sensuality. The gorgeous textures of her voice also give her singing deep emotional pathos, even though she refrains from overly expressive vocal gestures. In Sweetest Taboo, for instance, her style is instantly felt as her voice generously massages one word after another, leaving the listener lost in the sultry mood of her performance.

Stevie Wonder is another artist with an unmistakable vocal style. Spontaneous, earthy, dynamic, rhythmic, colorful, and swelling with R&B sensibilities, his singing could be both lovely and aggressively exciting, as he possesses one of the exceptional vocal instruments in pop music history—in addition to being one of its most influential and beloved artists. Wonder does over-sing at times, and overuse his highest notes, which often sound pinched and nasalized. However, unlike most other athletic singers, he uses a variety of distinctive vocal colors and dynamic contrasts to make his stylistic point. In Over Joyed, for example, we see this balanced style in action. Here he uses the beauty and simplicity of his straight ahead singing, while he occasionally eases into his R&B vocal passages, always at the right moment.

A singing style is the ultimate unifying factor of a singer’s art and it is for this reason that it implies an artistic vision. A singer brings to her style not only the physical mechanism that is the voice itself, but also a full lifetime of experience and understanding—the joys and sorrows that define a meaningful existence. These qualities are reflected in the movement, colors, textures, and emotional intensity of the voice—all of which make up the singer’s style. A singer’s personal style, in other words, is what authenticates her as an artist with a particular point of view. No one is born with a polished style. It requires work, experience, study, objectivity, experimentation and, above all, living. From all this, a mood is born, a projected intensity of familiar feelings that is immediately recognized and felt by the listener himself. Once a singer defines what mood her singing should provoke, she has made a great step toward establishing herself as a genuine artist.

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