Finding Your Artistic Voice: Aesthetic & Philosophy

“Know Thyself”

When I was first starting out, I used to say I can do anything in order to land work. And I see this time and time again as young composers just starting out. In an age of AI slop enshitifying the internet, I think it’s perhaps more important than ever to take a stand and identify what makes each of us unique.

So who are you as an artist? This can seem like a daunting and hard to define topic, especially in the realm of film scoring. It can feel like discovering yourself and defining yourself as an artist can limit your options for work, and when you’re starting out, that can feel incredibly scary.

However, being able to speak about who you are and what you do is generally a far greater skill than stating “I can do everything”. People want to hire someone because they are the best at what they do, not because they can get just get something done. So when trying to figure out who we are as artists, we should actually see this as a form of freedom rather than a prison. The aesthetic and philosophy behind our work can be as important as the work itself and it can evolve over time with us as artists. In this context, aesthetic is the sound of our music: the textures, colors, tools, and techniques we like to play with. Philosophy on the other hand is our worldview: why we make what we make, and how we choose to approach the art form. All that to say, the ideas contained in our art and what we ADD to a project comes down to how we approach it, and it’s what makes us special.

Knowing your aesthetic and philosophy doesn’t just help with branding or interviews. It subtly shapes every choice you make. Which projects you say yes to, how you interpret a director’s notes, which harmonies you reach for when expressing longing or loss, etc. all come from who you are. So the clearer your internal compass, the more consistent and resonant your external work becomes and the easier it is for collaborator’s to “pick” you when they need your particular area of expertise.

Anyway, how do we even begin to understand ourselves as artists?

The first thing I would recommend is opening up a notebook, a google doc, or your favorite writing software (I religiously use Notion) and create a special section for your thoughts. As mentioned earlier, writing a lot of music is important, yes, but so is writing a lot about yourself. Artistic discovery is self discovery and writing about your music will help you identify who you are as an artist over time.

As you begin documenting your thoughts, patterns will start to appear but reflection alone isn’t enough. It’s important to ask why those patterns exist and what they reveal about your worldview.

“The unexamined life is not worth living”

Socrates famously said, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” A life without self reflection, introspection, questioning your reality, and aspiring towards wisdom is essentially meaningless. I’d like to expand that idea and state “the unexamined art is not worth creating”. If you as an artist aren’t sure what you’re making art about, then what even is the point of it? Thinking about and understanding who you are, both as an individual and an artist, I think is a MAJOR step in developing your artistic voice and creating an artistic identity for yourself.

So I’d like to challenge you: every day for the next month spend 10-15 minutes responding to the prompts below. You don’t need to answer every one of them - just the ones that make you feel strongly.

Artistic Journal Prompts:

What is something you know to be true, what do you value that sets you apart?

What role does beauty play in my work? How do I define beauty?

What non-artistic experiences or hobbies feed our creativity? How can we incorporate them more?

What areas of music fascinate us most?

What unique characteristics best describe my work?

What sort of themes interest us as an artist?

Why do I feel compelled to create?

How and why does my work appeal to others?

What is our ultimate goal as an artist?

List 10 things that currently inspire us. How can we explore these inspirations further in my art?

What do I want my art to say about me or the world?

What do I love about the process of creating, regardless of the outcome?

Is my art for me, for others, or both? How does this intention shape my creative process?

In what ways does my art contribute to or challenge the art world or creative community?

How do I know when a piece is finished? Am I ever truly satisfied with the result?

What does the act of creating teach me about patience, persistence, or surrender?

Do I approach art as play, work, or something else? How does that perspective affect my outcomes?

What have I learned about myself through the art I’ve created?

What role does vulnerability play in my work? Am I ever afraid to go “too deep”?

What do I see in my older work that surprises me today?

How do I decide which ideas are worth pursuing and which to let go?

What legacy do I hope to leave behind, not just in the art I make, but in how I live as an artist?

Who do we want to be as an artist?

Create a playlist of 10 songs, pieces, or cues that you wish you wrote and/or feel capture the world you want to live in. They do not need to be in the same style, or even from the same century. Try to identify the aesthetic or thematic throughlines.

What are your favorite movies, books, or other pieces of media. Do they explore similar themes or concepts? What emotions do they portray?

What rituals or habits help me get into a creative flow?

What tends to block my creativity most often — fear, distraction, perfectionism, or something else?

What do I need in my environment to feel safe enough to take creative risks?

How do I balance intuition and intellect when I create?

What’s my relationship with deadlines — do they pressure or focus me?

What are my creative red flags — the signs that I’m making something for the wrong reasons?

How do I know when to follow inspiration and when to rely on discipline?

What lessons from my favorite artists could improve my workflow or mindset?

What’s a project I abandoned but still think about — and what does that tell me?

What’s one small creative risk I could take this week to push my artistic boundaries?

What colors, textures, or visual imagery do I associate with my sound?

If my music were a landscape, what would it look and feel like?

What instruments or sounds do I gravitate toward, even when I don’t mean to?

What’s one sonic or visual element I always return to, and why?

Which genres or styles feel most like “home,” and which feel foreign but fascinating?

If someone described my work in three adjectives, what do I hope they’d be?

What’s a recurring emotional tone in my work — and what might it reveal about me?

How does silence function in my music? Is it absence, space, or tension?

When I listen back to my older work, what moments still feel true?

If my art had a scent or flavor, what would it be? Why?

What questions do I keep asking through my work — even subconsciously?

What am I trying to understand through creating?

What emotional truths do I hope my audience feels when experiencing my art?

How does my art reflect the way I see the world — hopeful, cynical, curious, melancholic?

What do I believe about art’s purpose in the world?

How do I define “success” for myself as an artist?

What ethical or spiritual values guide how I create and collaborate?

What’s something I believe about art that not everyone agrees with?

When is art most powerful — when it comforts or when it confronts?

Do I believe the artist’s intention matters more than the audience’s interpretation?

How has my life story shaped the kind of art I make?

Which parts of myself show up most clearly in my work?

What am I afraid to reveal in my art — and why?

How do I react to criticism or misunderstanding of my work?

How have my tastes evolved in the past five years?

If I couldn’t make art anymore, what would I miss most about it?

When do I feel most like an artist — while creating, performing, finishing, or sharing?

Who am I when I’m not making art, and how does that person influence my work?

What aspects of my identity (culture, upbringing, values) show up in my art even when I don’t intend them to?

How has collaboration changed my sense of self?

What rituals or habits help me get into a creative flow?

What tends to block my creativity most often — fear, distraction, perfectionism, or something else?

What do I need in my environment to feel safe enough to take creative risks?

How do I balance intuition and intellect when I create?

What’s my relationship with deadlines — do they pressure or focus me?

What are my creative red flags — the signs that I’m making something for the wrong reasons?

How do I know when to follow inspiration and when to rely on discipline?

What lessons from my favorite artists could improve my workflow or mindset?

What’s a project I abandoned but still think about — and what does that tell me?

What’s one small creative risk I could take this week to push my artistic boundaries?

Find the through lines:

When you’ve written enough responses, look for patterns: recurring words, emotional tones, ideas or metaphors. These are clues to your aesthetic and belief systems. If you find that half your answers involve words like “memories”, “Nostalgia”, or “light” you may start to see it as a through line in your work.

Once you start noticing recurring ideas or emotional tones, ask yourself: How can these values shape my next piece? Let your discoveries influence not just what you write about, but how you collaborate, who you collaborate with, and what projects you seek out. If you’re really confident in what you’ve discovered, try incorporating it into your artist statement or bio, or even including it as part of your pitch to new potential collaborators.

You can even use this as a guiding light for what you want to study as a composer. Say you love the theme of “self-discovery”. Well, how have composers traditionally approached that in the past? Look for pieces, cues, or even songs around that theme and see what composers have attempted in order to accomplish that goal. There may even be harmonic or other musical through lines through these ideas. Go deep, and let yourself become a master of this identity.

I’ve personally been journaling artistic prompts for myself over the past few months and I must say there definitely is a through line that emerged that I didn’t realize until re-reading everything months later. This sort of exercise really helped clarify to me what I care about both in music and in the world, and has given me direction on what areas of music I should be focusing on, as well as how to view things differently through the lens of my new found perspective. I hope for you, that by completing this exercise, you may start to more deeply understand who you are, what you enjoy, and even begin to understand your artistic identity a bit better as well.

Discovering who you are is not a cage to feel limited in, it is a path to creative freedom that allows you to take any creative challenge and view it authentically through the lens of your own truths. No matter the project, challenge, or collaborator, you will be approaching the art from your unique point of view, and that in itself is quite special. So the more you understand who you are, the more you can ultimately learn to sound like you! ScoringTech.Net is operated by Joe Chris as a means of trying to give back to the composer community. Consider joining the monthly mailing list to have these articles sent to your inbox on the first of every month! Follow me on instagram @Joe_Chris_ , youtube, or Join our free discord community where we host bi-weekly composition challenges!