Creative Voice in Mixing

I've always felt that I've had difficultly expressing my musical voice through any one musical medium. Some people are naturally gifted in one area, whether it be songwriting, some instrument that they are really proficient on or something like that, and they are able to express there creative voice effortlessly. It's a little different for me.

By "creative voice" I mean that inner creative identity that you try to expose through your art. Your view of the world, your statement.

But this voice takes time to develop. A painter must learn the appropriate techniques and skills before she can freely create without any technical barrier stopping her from realizing her creative vision. Until she arrives at that certain level of proficiency (it's different for everyone) she will struggle to give voice to her creativity and will likely feel that her work is always half finished or under realized.

I have found that I can't give voice to my creativity in any one medium. Practically, while I play a number of instruments, I'm not amazing on any one of them. Artistically, I've often found that one instrument, one sound, one color isn't enough to say all that must be said. Kind of like painting with only one brush and one color. This is way I have always loved producing, but especially, mixing.

Mixing may seem an odd medium for giving free reign to an artistic voice, but I find it to be a very creatively freeing experience. You could say that a song could be mixed a hundred different ways, but upon hearing a piece that I'm going to work on, I usually hear the end product in the first few listens. I then work backwards to realize that sound in my head.

Instead of a restrictive thing, this is a very clarifying process in giving voice to my creativity. After all, your creative voice isn't about infinite possibility so much as it is about that one thing that you are trying to say in that moment.

An artist is tortured in not feeling that he can give voice to his creativity, that he will never be able to express in a pure way just how he see the world around him. And this is the simple beauty in mixing for me. In the four minutes of that one song, I get to paint a view of the world as I see it. If you listen behind the music, you will hear my creative voice.