Slide 3: Musical Influences

Who an artist is influenced by musically is a critical part of understanding how music works and how musicians borrow and adapt musical influences from other artists. Sometimes these influences are very obvious. In other cases, they are not. This will be a challenging slide to do correctly. So do the research and put time into understanding how these influences work and manifest in the artist's music.

For instance, consider Michael Jackson. Did he invent the idea of incorporating dance into his pop song performances? No. This was already being done by other artists, most notably James Brown, a rhythm and blues performer. To get to this point, you would have needed to research Michael Jackson's style of musical performance looking for clues about where these influences came from.

Now you need to take this idea a step further. It is not enough simply to state who an artist was influenced by. For instance, you have to demonstrate how James Brown's influence actually shows up in Jackson's music. Point to a specific video and even a specific dance move. Describe it. Then describe how you think it was inspired by James Brown. To do so, describe the James Brown move. Then note the obvious. James Brown was around before James Brown; hence, Brown is a likely influence. If you find a quote by Jackson saying he was influenced by Brown you have further proof. 

If you get stuck here, shoot me an email.