How can I say this?... I wonder did they hear this influence in their own voice as they sang? Did they hear it in the recordings? And how exactly did they go about sliding into their own style? I want to believe it was a gradual evolution. Did they hear themselves coming through the influence? Could they hear their voice the way a an artist sees his brush stroke? How does one differentiate one's style from the ground up? Do we clear away the learned information, slice away bits here and there as it were like a sculptor? Or do we build upon it as if suddenly it were incomplete, or a mere armature?
I am currently developing some critical work and wonder sometimes how much of it is me. I can hear at times the authoritativeness in my voice, but then often enough I feel dizzied by my own thoughts and expressions. My insights are clearly coming from me. I am not reading them, not "remembering" any specific text when I write. But certainly I am constructing upon the minds that have come before me. I can not hear any one author... yet, I ask myself: have I already broken free, or will I one day shake my head hearing distinct influence?....
This is a dark thought - the possibility that everything anyone of us says is a mere reiteration. After all I continue to see the same shapes everywhere around me and I am uncertain whether it is worth the effort to attempt to seize meaning from their occurrences.
